The Carolina Panthers are entering year two of the Matt Rhule era. They have a long way to go before they can compete with the more experienced and tougher teams in the NFL.
According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Carolina is only the 25th-best team in the league right now. The rankings are based on PFF’s Elo ratings. The rating only gives the Panthers a 1% chance of winning the Super Bowl this coming season. While Carolina is better than a few teams, they are not where they want to be.
The Panthers are in the rebuilding stage, but building a championship team is never easy. Rebuilding is even harder when you have to deal with a salary cap, which limits the amount of money you can spend in a given season.
To get the Panthers back into playoff contention will take big contributions from their star players. Without some major developments in certain positions, like quarterback, left tackle and free safety, it’s going to take the Panthers quite some time to move up significantly in the rankings. Heading into this season, here are the Panthers biggest strength, weakness and their X-factor.
Biggest Strength: Although Brian Burns does not get recognized as one of the dominate edge rushers, that was his role last season for the Panthers. Burns ranked in the 92nd percentile among edge defenders that went after the quarterback. He ranked even better when it came to what PFF call “true pass-rushing snaps”. On a defensive line that has a majority of young players, Burns looks like a player they can count on to rush and sack the quarterback.
Biggest Weakness: The left side of Carolina’s offensive line has a possibility of being a total disaster. They signed free agents Cameron Erving (left tackle) and Pat Elflein (left guard) to battle it out. One of the biggest concerns with those signings are both players have been in the lower tier for the last three years. Carolina desperately needs rookie Brady Christensen to sure-up one of those positions. It is yet to be determined if he can work out at tackle.
X Factor for 2021: The Panthers took a huge risk in declining to take a quarterback in this years draft and instead trading for Sam Darnold. Darnold has been classified as one of the NFL’s worst quarterbacks over the first three year’s of his career. There must be a reason Darnold was drafted No. 3 overall out of USC in 2018. Offensive coordinator Joe Brady looks to unlock his potential and talent once again.
