Monday Morning Optimist: You don’t have to keep watching

Watching for signs of life aren’t the same thing as having a life

The 1-7 Carolina Panthers began their second losing streak of the 2023 NFL season with an incredibly frustrating 27-13 loss to the Indianapolis Colts yesterday afternoon. Yes, there were signs of progress in several of the Panthers problem areas. Chuba Hubbard and Miles Sanders were relatively effective at running the football. Multiple tight ends caught multiple passes. Bryce Young completed a deep pass.

None of those things translated into a win against an at-best okay NFL team. The offense still struggled to stay on the field, turnovers or no, and they scored 25 fewer points than the Colts’ last three opponents averaged. None of the Panthers baby steps yesterday are going to promise, or even suggest a win, against the Chicago Bears on Thursday. None of them are even things that we can expect to see again this week or next.

The Carolina Panthers remain a team that can’t stay healthy on defense and can’t protect Young on offense. There are a lot of problems with this team, but those two sum up most of the issues and they aren’t going to be fixed this week. They likely won’t be fixed this season.

There is promise and—mild as it may be—progress week to week, but this is a failed season in a series of failed seasons. Pick your landmark. The Panthers haven’t stopped losing since David Tepper bought the team, since Cam Newton hurt his shoulder, since they cut Jonathan Stewart, etc. The last winning season was in 2017. I haven’t written an article dashing fan hopes for franchise-first consecutive winning seasons since 2018.

None of that is changing this year.

You don’t have to keep watching them suck.

I am, to be extremely clear, not saying the Frank Reich, Bryce Young, or even Scott Fitterer need to be kicked out of the building to turn things around—though arguments can certainly be made for any and all of them getting the boot. I believe the Panthers can win with these leaders. I believe they could win with other leaders. I’m frankly tired of arguing it either way. The short of their situation is that I do not believe that whatever they are doing this year is going to bear fruit in this season. And while that is certainly true for the here and now, it has also been true for years on end. That stagnation is what hurts the most as a fan and it is worth pointing out that it can change today for those of us watching from home.

This two steps forward, three steps back dance they’ve been doing for the worse part of a decade does not demand your attention. I am still nurturing a vain hope that this team will earn your hope and your faith again, even as it is currently constructed, but it is going to be a long while before that happens.

Change is slow.

Change for the Panthers has always been painful and poorly planned. They haven’t hired a general manager in the same year they hired a head coach since 2002. They haven’t hired a general manager before a head coach (i.e. with a clear leadership structure at the top of the organization) since 1995.

Maybe Reich and Fitterer will beat the odds as an odd couple. Maybe the team will have a structured and principled philosophy for building their next leadership team. Either way, it is going to be at least one and probably two or more years before we see this team look better.

In the mean time, go take a walk. Adopt a dog. Teach your children to love things that love them back.

Most of you aren’t going to listen to this. It’ll take more than another shitty season to shake the commitment of any fan who is still watching at this point. Hell, I’m not going to listen to myself here. I just felt the need to say it. I won’t hold it against any of you if you can get out for awhile. I’ll welcome you back in three to four, again, pick your metric: years, coaches, quarterbacks. Whatever.