The odd-when-it-was-announced experiment with Matt Rhule is finally over in Carolina, with the news Monday that the Panthers have fired the fourth-year head coach after a 1-4 start in 2022, and an 11-27 mark overall.
Steve Wilks, the defensive pass game coordinator on Rhule’s staff, who was 3-13 in one year as the head coach at Arizona, in 2018, was named the interim coach.
Rhule, 47, was hired after stints at Temple and Baylor at the college level, turning around both programs in his time there – Temple was 2-10 in his first season, in 2013, and put up back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2015 and 2016; Baylor was 1-11 in his first season there, in 2017, and went 11-3 in 2019.
His NFL experience to that point was a one-year run on the New York Giants’ staff of Tom Coughlin, serving as an assistant offensive line coach.
He’d never win more than five games in a season with the Panthers, in a tenure that was beset by QB problems.
Rhule inherited Cam Newton as his QB1, before cutting him loose ahead of the 2020 season in favor of Teddy Bridgewater, who was released after one season.
Next up was Sam Darnold, who had gone 13-25 as the starter with the New York Jets, who went down to injury midway through, leading to the return of Newton, who went 0-5 as the starter down the stretch.
The solution this year, former #1 overall pick Baker Mayfield, formerly of Cleveland, has a league-worst QBR at 16.5, completing an NFL-low 54.9 percent of his passes.
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Chris Graham
