Hubert Youngblood
Banned
Why Your Team Sucks 2017: Carolina Panthers
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Some people are fans of the Carolina Panthers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Carolina Panthers. This 2017 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Carolina Panthers.
Your 2016 record: 6-10. Hey, who would have guessed a team coached by Ron Rivera and dependent on its QB for 99 percent of its yardage would IMMEDIATELY regress back to the mean after a fluke 15-1 season? I could’ve made more money betting on that than betting on Mayweather.
As you may recall, the Panthers’ Week 1 rematch with Denver was somehow a more brutal loss than Super Bowl 50, and marked the beginning of a procession of vicious Cam Newton headshots that plays like a police misconduct showreel. Cam doesn’t even remember that first game. And remember when he got speared in the head against Washington and they ended up penalizing HIM on the play? That was fun. As a matter of fact, the 2016 Panthers are probably our greatest historic case study for football not existing at all. Look at Luke Kuechly, crying and disoriented after sustaining a potentially lethal concussion…
What do you even say, man? Dour prickface Jerry Richardson is raking in paper sending these poor guys out there to get killed. I am not exactly thrilled to watch it happen all over again.
On the lighter side of failure, I don’t have the exact numbers on me but I’m quite sure this is the only team that Roberto Aguayo made a field goal against. They also cut Bene’ Benwikere after Julio Jones racked up 300 yards receiving against them. Good job letting Josh Norman walk. You fukking morons. The season-long fiasco resulted in the firing of GM Dave Gettleman, who then had his ass set on fire by every Panther he ever shoved out the door:
Popular guy!
Your coach: Glorified Best Buy manager Ron Rivera. Remember when he benched Cam for not wearing a tie? WHAT BOLDNESS. It takes real guts to submarine an entire game by trotting Derek Anderson out there because you know the owner will make frowny faces at any player rocking a fukking turtleneck.
At this point, I have no choice but to believe the Panthers are actively trying to kill their own quarterback. How else to explain leaving him in the game after shots like this, and with a shoulder that would later need offseason surgery? Or paying Matt Kalil—MATT fukkING KALIL—$25 million to protect his blindside? Do you know how insane that signing is? I’m not just saying that because I’m a bitter Vikings fan and watched Kalil play toll booth attendant to every defensive end in the league for the past four seasons. No no, the rest of league was also well aware of Kalil’s physical and mental fragility, and the Panthers still opened the vault for him anyway. Cam should retire and spend the rest of his days wearing paisley romp-hims at Coachella.
By the way, Cam still has no idea how to hold a press conference without looking like someone stole his lunch out of the office fridge. And I’d still like an explanation for this shyt…
Why can’t he use normal letters? What poor assistant does he force to pound out Instagram captions in fukking wingdings? Only Prince was allowed to do this kind of shyt. That 15-1 season? That was Cam’s one shot. He’s 8-8 from here on out.
What’s new that sucks: Everything new about this team is old. They brought back Julius Peppers for a farewell tour and, in a completely bonkers move, decided to replace Gettleman with former GM Marty Hurney. The whole reason they hired Gettleman was to get them out of the cap hell that Hurney put them in to begin with! What in the teal fukk is going on here?
Hurney’s re-emergence coincides nicely with the Panthers’ resurrected belief that they can protect Cam and win more games simply by employing 7,000,000 running backs. They drafted Christian McCaffrey and—well now, this will STUN YOU—but his jersey is already listed at the top of the Top Sellers category on the team’s NFL Shop page. WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED? These fukking fans. By Week 10, they’ll want him starting at quarterback.
As someone who bore witness to Toby Gerhart’s pro career, you’ll excuse me if I’m not a big believer in white running backs from Stanford who get a token invite to the Heisman ceremony. There’s also something hilarious about this team drafting a multipurpose back and then entrusting him to Mike Shula. That’s like handing a Porsche to a dog. The next time a Panthers wideout or back goes in motion will the first time. Poor Lil’ Caff is gonna get sent out into the flat 40 times a game. Really gives the safety a nice target to launch at, you know?
Kony Ealy is a Patriot. Kelvin Benjamin is fat now.
What has always sucked: There’s a certain cruelty in the fact that Charlotte is both North Carolina’s largest city and also, by far, the boringest town in that state. Asheville is Austin with a more reasonable climate. Wilmington is gorgeous. The Research Triangle is a fukking blast. Charlotte is a bank branch someone made into a whole city, presided over by Richardson and his anodyne football team.
As long as Newton remains the centerpiece of the Panthers, he will be emblematic of the culture war raging inside this state. He is a cool and wondrous player who is, virtually every waking moment, subjected to beatings both physical and verbal, from opponents and from the deranged yokel factions of this fanbase that demand Cam Newton be anyone other than Cam Newton.
It will always be this way. Always. Every goddamn year, I’m gonna have to hear about how Cam has to change his style of play, or why Cam can’t take winning in stride, or why Cam shouldn’t have worn those seersucker shorts to the podium. There will always be a section of this fanbase that roots for Cam reluctantly, like they’re biting their tongues at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And all that all subdued hostility stems directly from Richardson, a sullen pig who made his money fattening up Americans and strong-arming anyone who asked him to pay them fairly. I’ll never get over this old story he told, with gushing pride, to Charlie Rose:
Richardson, who said that Newton “was dressed perfectly” for their meeting, was blunt. “I said, ‘Do you have any tattoos?’” Richardson told Rose. “He said, ‘No, sir. I don’t have any.’ I said, ‘Do you have any piercings?’ He said, ‘No, sir. I don’t have any.’ I said, ‘We want to keep it that way.’ . . . .
“We want to keep no tattoos, no piercings, and I think you’ve got a very nice haircut.”
Interjected the host: “You sound like a Lombardi.”
Said Richardson, “No, I just sound reasonable to me.”
Get fukked, old man. Everything good about this team will be at his mercy until he finally drops dead, just as all the cool things about North Carolina are at the constant mercy of dipshyt rednecks that hate queers in the shytter and blacks at quarterback. This is just all so EXHAUSTING. Maybe the Panthers should take some time off and come back after Richardson is gone and his statue has been melted down to scrap metal and the team has moved.
Also, the wideouts are still puke.
Did you know? Rae Carruth is due to get out of prison next year. Given this team’s penchant for retreads, they’ll probably bring him on as wideout coach.
What might not suck: Cam could be lanced by an oncoming horseman and still be good for at least one rushing TD a game. Really the only way to keep NFL QBs healthy is to clone 32 Cams.
HEAR IT FROM PANTHERS FANS!
Miles:
fukk Jerry Richardson with a thickburger.
Andy:
Our geriatric owner, who engineered the 2011 lockout that was wholly based on the owners wanting to fukk over the players, fired the GM that won 3 division titles in 4 years, engineering a team that came within a whisker of starting 18-0. The reason? Basically because he was too Belichickian with the players. Because who wants to emulate the most successful coach in football history, right?
Mitch:
The Panthers have made it to two Super Bowls and once won three straight division titles. We have yet to have back-to-back winning seasons.
Stanford:
I hated Michael Oher so much for being as useful as a sack of potatoes in the Super Bowl, I had no idea he only played in three games last year. Thank God he’s gone now.
fukking LaVar Ball played for this team.
fukk Sir Purr.
John:
They let Steve Smith walk, sign RB’s like they’re going to resurrect the Oklahoma wishbone, then send out Cam Newton again with zero offensive help and expect him to put the rest of the offensive unit on his shoulders, only to watch him get his skull beat in while Roger Goddell smugly smiles in watching the destruction of another black quarterback.
What do they do to improve the situation? Why, more running backs, of course! They draft Christian McCaffery and some guy from West Georgia (that I know the school and not his name should speak volumes).
To top it all off, our shytbag owner has the nuts to jam the city of Charlotte for $75 million in stadium improvements, with a team option to fleece another $50 million from the city in the future, and we’re still left with a field that looks like grandpa’s farm in Nebraska. Then, Richardson tries to redeem himself by firing his GM (who deserved it), but replace him with a guy who’s only highlight on his GM resume is bathing Bobby Bethard’s nutsack with baby wipes.
fukk me and fukk Mike Shula with Usher’s cock.
Alex:
This offseason the Panthers lost their team President, defensive coordinator, assistant General Manager, and fired their general manager, Dave Gettleman. What did the general manager do to get unceremoniously shyt-canned? Only be the architect of the most successful four years in franchise history. A 40-23-1 overall record, three consecutive division titles, four playoff wins, a NFC championship title and a Super Bowl appearance. Panthers owner Jerry Richardson fired him for being too mean to players when making the correct football decisions he was hired to make. They replaced Gettleman with the previous GM who overpaid everyone. Enjoy those remaining 6-10 and 7-9 seasons while you can Jerry, at least those veterans will be happy to cash your bloated checks.
At least they have managed to keep their offensive coordinator, who thought it would be a good idea to have Cam Newton constantly take 5 to 7 step drops behind an o-line that couldn’t play in the CFL. This organization is less functional than Trump’s White House.
Morgan:
I’ll never get over Super Bowl 50.
Also, fukk Mike Remmers.
Alex:
We fired Dave Gettleman, who dug us out of a cap nightmare caused by Marty Hurney, only to name Hurney the interim GM. Don’t be surprised when we pay Fozzy Whitaker like he’s Emmitt Smith.
Jeffrey:
They re-hired Marty Hurney.
Stehpen:
In 2012 Mr. Richardson (yes, that’s what we call him) fired 10-year general manager Marty Hurney, who’d gotten the Panthers into a salary cap mess by setting veterans’ pay based on what they had already done rather than what they were likely to keep doing. He hired longtime Giants pro personnel director and senior pro personnel analyst Dave Gettleman at the beginning of 2013. Gettleman cut dead weight; drafted big, strong linemen (whom he called “hog mollies”) on both sides of the ball; drove a hard bargain with players on the roster; and built a team that won three straight NFC South titles and made it to a Super Bowl.
In 2016 Gettleman let star cornerback Josh Norman walk rather than pay him big-time money and the Panthers started a pair of rookies at DB, along with Tre Boston at safety, whose college highlight reel consisted of chasing a bevy of ACC receivers into the end zone and whose calling card is never wrapping up on a tackle. He just rolls into ball carriers really hard.
When our starting LT and all-pro MLB are lost for the season to concussions, the snake-bitten Panthers limp to a 6-10 finish. It later comes out that team let Cam Newton play the last several games of the season with a throwing shoulder injury that required offseason surgery.
So yeah, July 17 of this year seems like a good time to fire the GM who got us well under the salary cap and almost got the Panthers their first-ever back-to-back winning seasons: just in time for training camp. Sources say he was fired for being “brusque.” Ooooh! Not a brusque GM! Heavens!
Maybe the team should just leave Charlotte so I can hate them and pull for a frontrunner.
Submissions for the Deadspin NFL previews are now closed. Next up: Cincinnati Bengals.
Recommended Stories
Getty Images
Some people are fans of the Carolina Panthers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Carolina Panthers. This 2017 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Carolina Panthers.
Your 2016 record: 6-10. Hey, who would have guessed a team coached by Ron Rivera and dependent on its QB for 99 percent of its yardage would IMMEDIATELY regress back to the mean after a fluke 15-1 season? I could’ve made more money betting on that than betting on Mayweather.
As you may recall, the Panthers’ Week 1 rematch with Denver was somehow a more brutal loss than Super Bowl 50, and marked the beginning of a procession of vicious Cam Newton headshots that plays like a police misconduct showreel. Cam doesn’t even remember that first game. And remember when he got speared in the head against Washington and they ended up penalizing HIM on the play? That was fun. As a matter of fact, the 2016 Panthers are probably our greatest historic case study for football not existing at all. Look at Luke Kuechly, crying and disoriented after sustaining a potentially lethal concussion…
What do you even say, man? Dour prickface Jerry Richardson is raking in paper sending these poor guys out there to get killed. I am not exactly thrilled to watch it happen all over again.
On the lighter side of failure, I don’t have the exact numbers on me but I’m quite sure this is the only team that Roberto Aguayo made a field goal against. They also cut Bene’ Benwikere after Julio Jones racked up 300 yards receiving against them. Good job letting Josh Norman walk. You fukking morons. The season-long fiasco resulted in the firing of GM Dave Gettleman, who then had his ass set on fire by every Panther he ever shoved out the door:
Popular guy!
Your coach: Glorified Best Buy manager Ron Rivera. Remember when he benched Cam for not wearing a tie? WHAT BOLDNESS. It takes real guts to submarine an entire game by trotting Derek Anderson out there because you know the owner will make frowny faces at any player rocking a fukking turtleneck.
At this point, I have no choice but to believe the Panthers are actively trying to kill their own quarterback. How else to explain leaving him in the game after shots like this, and with a shoulder that would later need offseason surgery? Or paying Matt Kalil—MATT fukkING KALIL—$25 million to protect his blindside? Do you know how insane that signing is? I’m not just saying that because I’m a bitter Vikings fan and watched Kalil play toll booth attendant to every defensive end in the league for the past four seasons. No no, the rest of league was also well aware of Kalil’s physical and mental fragility, and the Panthers still opened the vault for him anyway. Cam should retire and spend the rest of his days wearing paisley romp-hims at Coachella.
By the way, Cam still has no idea how to hold a press conference without looking like someone stole his lunch out of the office fridge. And I’d still like an explanation for this shyt…
Why can’t he use normal letters? What poor assistant does he force to pound out Instagram captions in fukking wingdings? Only Prince was allowed to do this kind of shyt. That 15-1 season? That was Cam’s one shot. He’s 8-8 from here on out.
What’s new that sucks: Everything new about this team is old. They brought back Julius Peppers for a farewell tour and, in a completely bonkers move, decided to replace Gettleman with former GM Marty Hurney. The whole reason they hired Gettleman was to get them out of the cap hell that Hurney put them in to begin with! What in the teal fukk is going on here?
Hurney’s re-emergence coincides nicely with the Panthers’ resurrected belief that they can protect Cam and win more games simply by employing 7,000,000 running backs. They drafted Christian McCaffrey and—well now, this will STUN YOU—but his jersey is already listed at the top of the Top Sellers category on the team’s NFL Shop page. WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED? These fukking fans. By Week 10, they’ll want him starting at quarterback.
As someone who bore witness to Toby Gerhart’s pro career, you’ll excuse me if I’m not a big believer in white running backs from Stanford who get a token invite to the Heisman ceremony. There’s also something hilarious about this team drafting a multipurpose back and then entrusting him to Mike Shula. That’s like handing a Porsche to a dog. The next time a Panthers wideout or back goes in motion will the first time. Poor Lil’ Caff is gonna get sent out into the flat 40 times a game. Really gives the safety a nice target to launch at, you know?
Kony Ealy is a Patriot. Kelvin Benjamin is fat now.
What has always sucked: There’s a certain cruelty in the fact that Charlotte is both North Carolina’s largest city and also, by far, the boringest town in that state. Asheville is Austin with a more reasonable climate. Wilmington is gorgeous. The Research Triangle is a fukking blast. Charlotte is a bank branch someone made into a whole city, presided over by Richardson and his anodyne football team.
As long as Newton remains the centerpiece of the Panthers, he will be emblematic of the culture war raging inside this state. He is a cool and wondrous player who is, virtually every waking moment, subjected to beatings both physical and verbal, from opponents and from the deranged yokel factions of this fanbase that demand Cam Newton be anyone other than Cam Newton.
It will always be this way. Always. Every goddamn year, I’m gonna have to hear about how Cam has to change his style of play, or why Cam can’t take winning in stride, or why Cam shouldn’t have worn those seersucker shorts to the podium. There will always be a section of this fanbase that roots for Cam reluctantly, like they’re biting their tongues at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And all that all subdued hostility stems directly from Richardson, a sullen pig who made his money fattening up Americans and strong-arming anyone who asked him to pay them fairly. I’ll never get over this old story he told, with gushing pride, to Charlie Rose:
Richardson, who said that Newton “was dressed perfectly” for their meeting, was blunt. “I said, ‘Do you have any tattoos?’” Richardson told Rose. “He said, ‘No, sir. I don’t have any.’ I said, ‘Do you have any piercings?’ He said, ‘No, sir. I don’t have any.’ I said, ‘We want to keep it that way.’ . . . .
“We want to keep no tattoos, no piercings, and I think you’ve got a very nice haircut.”
Interjected the host: “You sound like a Lombardi.”
Said Richardson, “No, I just sound reasonable to me.”
Get fukked, old man. Everything good about this team will be at his mercy until he finally drops dead, just as all the cool things about North Carolina are at the constant mercy of dipshyt rednecks that hate queers in the shytter and blacks at quarterback. This is just all so EXHAUSTING. Maybe the Panthers should take some time off and come back after Richardson is gone and his statue has been melted down to scrap metal and the team has moved.
Also, the wideouts are still puke.
Did you know? Rae Carruth is due to get out of prison next year. Given this team’s penchant for retreads, they’ll probably bring him on as wideout coach.
What might not suck: Cam could be lanced by an oncoming horseman and still be good for at least one rushing TD a game. Really the only way to keep NFL QBs healthy is to clone 32 Cams.
HEAR IT FROM PANTHERS FANS!
Miles:
fukk Jerry Richardson with a thickburger.
Andy:
Our geriatric owner, who engineered the 2011 lockout that was wholly based on the owners wanting to fukk over the players, fired the GM that won 3 division titles in 4 years, engineering a team that came within a whisker of starting 18-0. The reason? Basically because he was too Belichickian with the players. Because who wants to emulate the most successful coach in football history, right?
Mitch:
The Panthers have made it to two Super Bowls and once won three straight division titles. We have yet to have back-to-back winning seasons.
Stanford:
I hated Michael Oher so much for being as useful as a sack of potatoes in the Super Bowl, I had no idea he only played in three games last year. Thank God he’s gone now.
fukking LaVar Ball played for this team.
fukk Sir Purr.
John:
They let Steve Smith walk, sign RB’s like they’re going to resurrect the Oklahoma wishbone, then send out Cam Newton again with zero offensive help and expect him to put the rest of the offensive unit on his shoulders, only to watch him get his skull beat in while Roger Goddell smugly smiles in watching the destruction of another black quarterback.
What do they do to improve the situation? Why, more running backs, of course! They draft Christian McCaffery and some guy from West Georgia (that I know the school and not his name should speak volumes).
To top it all off, our shytbag owner has the nuts to jam the city of Charlotte for $75 million in stadium improvements, with a team option to fleece another $50 million from the city in the future, and we’re still left with a field that looks like grandpa’s farm in Nebraska. Then, Richardson tries to redeem himself by firing his GM (who deserved it), but replace him with a guy who’s only highlight on his GM resume is bathing Bobby Bethard’s nutsack with baby wipes.
fukk me and fukk Mike Shula with Usher’s cock.
Alex:
This offseason the Panthers lost their team President, defensive coordinator, assistant General Manager, and fired their general manager, Dave Gettleman. What did the general manager do to get unceremoniously shyt-canned? Only be the architect of the most successful four years in franchise history. A 40-23-1 overall record, three consecutive division titles, four playoff wins, a NFC championship title and a Super Bowl appearance. Panthers owner Jerry Richardson fired him for being too mean to players when making the correct football decisions he was hired to make. They replaced Gettleman with the previous GM who overpaid everyone. Enjoy those remaining 6-10 and 7-9 seasons while you can Jerry, at least those veterans will be happy to cash your bloated checks.
At least they have managed to keep their offensive coordinator, who thought it would be a good idea to have Cam Newton constantly take 5 to 7 step drops behind an o-line that couldn’t play in the CFL. This organization is less functional than Trump’s White House.
Morgan:
I’ll never get over Super Bowl 50.
Also, fukk Mike Remmers.
Alex:
We fired Dave Gettleman, who dug us out of a cap nightmare caused by Marty Hurney, only to name Hurney the interim GM. Don’t be surprised when we pay Fozzy Whitaker like he’s Emmitt Smith.
Jeffrey:
They re-hired Marty Hurney.
Stehpen:
In 2012 Mr. Richardson (yes, that’s what we call him) fired 10-year general manager Marty Hurney, who’d gotten the Panthers into a salary cap mess by setting veterans’ pay based on what they had already done rather than what they were likely to keep doing. He hired longtime Giants pro personnel director and senior pro personnel analyst Dave Gettleman at the beginning of 2013. Gettleman cut dead weight; drafted big, strong linemen (whom he called “hog mollies”) on both sides of the ball; drove a hard bargain with players on the roster; and built a team that won three straight NFC South titles and made it to a Super Bowl.
In 2016 Gettleman let star cornerback Josh Norman walk rather than pay him big-time money and the Panthers started a pair of rookies at DB, along with Tre Boston at safety, whose college highlight reel consisted of chasing a bevy of ACC receivers into the end zone and whose calling card is never wrapping up on a tackle. He just rolls into ball carriers really hard.
When our starting LT and all-pro MLB are lost for the season to concussions, the snake-bitten Panthers limp to a 6-10 finish. It later comes out that team let Cam Newton play the last several games of the season with a throwing shoulder injury that required offseason surgery.
So yeah, July 17 of this year seems like a good time to fire the GM who got us well under the salary cap and almost got the Panthers their first-ever back-to-back winning seasons: just in time for training camp. Sources say he was fired for being “brusque.” Ooooh! Not a brusque GM! Heavens!
Maybe the team should just leave Charlotte so I can hate them and pull for a frontrunner.
Submissions for the Deadspin NFL previews are now closed. Next up: Cincinnati Bengals.
Recommended Stories
Last edited:
.
. Already have a suspension on their team, and the Bucs are on the rise.
for real.
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