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Be careful what you wish for....

Matt Foley

By Matt Foley,
in Carolina Panthers

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grateflday Collaborator

grateflday

Posted
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The Jacksonville Jaguars got really close with former coach Tom Coughlin. The fan base (and ownership) reached a point of impatience with Coughlin, ran him out of town, and they haven't come close to an AFC Championship game since.

The St. Louis Rams became a juggernaut at the turn of the century with offensive coordinator/then head coach Mike Martz. Martz won and won big in St. Louis. But his faults were glaring, and Rams fans figured an up and coming coach could do better than Martz. The Rams haven't won squat since.

The San Francisco 49ers won two Super Bowls under George Seifert, whose won/loss record in the Bay Area would be the envy of any coach then or now. He wasn't a program starter, as Panthers fans know too well, but he was a master at keeping a veteran team in the championship mix. SF ran him out of town and after several trips to the NFC Championship under Seifert they haven't been back (or even close, really) since.

The only team that you could say ran off a guy who, like Fox, gave an organization its first taste of continued success and benefitted from it was Tampa Bay. And yet, after that Super Bowl, the Bucs never did crap, either.

Without doing the research I am sure there are plenty of times the opposite has happened - a coach gets fired and the team does better. Bottom line is you have to look at each case seperately. For me, the Fox era is sadly over and I feel this way because the season is lost because of their inability to have a QB for of the future on this team and they have failed at this for many years. To compound it, instead of trying to "win" now the team is regulated to "keeping it close" and "hope to win at the end"

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rippadonn Grand Master

rippadonn

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Without doing the research I am sure there are plenty of times the opposite has happened - a coach gets fired and the team does better. Bottom line is you have to look at each case seperately. For me, the Fox era is sadly over and I feel this way because the season is lost because of their inability to have a QB for of the future on this team and they have failed at this for many years. To compound it, instead of trying to "win" now the team is regulated to "keeping it close" and "hope to win at the end"

We can only speculate this. Fox never believed drafting QB's in favor of signing a veteran. If he's kept his job and is looking forward to the next year he has got to bring somebody into training camp to challenge for the job. It's only fair and totally competitive.

There are free agents out there some of them are very unhappy where they are. Fox will have to adapt and stop being so damned conservative you live once. Steve Smiths and Julius Peppers are once in a lifetime players along with DWill and Stew.

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Cyberjag Newbie

Cyberjag

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This thread is funny, it's almost like some people feel like they're a part of the decision making process.

I'm with Meat--if we get a new coach I'm not necessarily gonna be all excited about it. We got rid of Henning, and look how great that turned out. O'Brien left, and we have Crossman. At least Meeks is looking good, but Trgovac had a great defense in the first half last year.

New coaches are a crap-shoot. Guys who field teams that are consistently competitive and sometimes great are hard to find, and when you have one you should be grateful.

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KillerKat Grand Master

KillerKat

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I'm with Meat--if we get a new coach I'm not necessarily gonna be all excited about it. We got rid of Henning, and look how great that turned out.

Yeah we end up with the best rushing attack in the NFL. Something which we never accomplished under Henning. What a huge mistake.

O'Brien left, and we have Crossman.

Just one of the many reasons Fox should be fired

At least Meeks is looking good, but Trgovac had a great defense in the first half last year.

Sorry I can only remember the thread you started wishing you had Trgo back. So if the defense continues to play well are you still going to wish we still had Turgo? Are you going to give Meeks credit? Or how about if it starts to plumet at the second half of last year, are you going to blame Fox this time? Or blame players execution again? If you blame Meeks though, you'll make yourself into a hypocrite because you never blamed Trgo for what happened at the end of last season.

New coaches are a crap-shoot. Guys who field teams that are consistently competitive and sometimes great are hard to find, and when you have one you should be grateful.

I'd much rather go through the process of finding the right coach for us than stick with what we have now. Fox is not "consistently competitive" like you said, so he should be gone by your definition.

Why are fans and this organization so afraid of taking chances and instead want to stick with what we have now even if it cripples this team? Its the same reason why we still have Jake. The FO was too afraid we wouldn't find anyone better.

When you know what you have isn't working, you got to move on! Period. Sticking with something that only produces the same lame outcome over and over again is the exact definition of insanity. You have to get rid of that cancer thats plaguing you and try something different. Don't be afraid of going through the process of change.

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Delhommey Newbie

Delhommey

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Foxball results in mediocre seasons to good ones, rarely bad.

When things break our way, we're great. When they don't, we're blah but not horrible.

Last year I can think of 4 plays in 4 games that would have resulted in losses and a 8-8 season if they went differently: San Diego (Rosario's catch), Chicago (King's catch), Green Bay (Smitty's catch), and New Orleans (Smitty's catch again). When you look at it the only difference between last year and this one is better QB play at the start and 4 low percentage plays going the right way.

Fox will always be mediocre to good. Him being great will depend if a QB falls in his lap (a la Cowher), as his teams will almost never have a top 10 pick.

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Matt Foley Newbie

Matt Foley

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When the Panthers hired Capers, they thought they had the right guy. When they hired Seifert, they thought for sure they had the right guy.

Coaches are hired to get fired. Fans want them gone every time they lose two games in a row. But the smart GM and owner realize that a guy who consistently wins, even if you see things you'd do differently, is simply going to win somewhere else and make you look bad if you fire him.

Now if you want to argue about how much money Fox is getting paid, that's another story.

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Matt Foley Newbie

Matt Foley

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Foxball results in mediocre seasons to good ones, rarely bad.

When things break our way, we're great. When they don't, we're blah but not horrible.

Last year I can think of 4 plays in 4 games that would have resulted in losses and a 8-8 season if they went differently: San Diego (Rosario's catch), Chicago (King's catch), Green Bay (Smitty's catch), and New Orleans (Smitty's catch again). When you look at it the only difference between last year and this one is better QB play at the start and 4 low percentage plays going the right way.

Fox will always be mediocre to good. Him being great will depend if a QB falls in his lap (a la Cowher), as his teams will almost never have a top 10 pick.

Spot on. You know what's funny? Seifert was in this same predicament. He knew that the only way to get the picks was to purge the team of veterans and, as he put it, "stick your balls out there".

The 2001 draft produced Morgan, Jenkins and Smitty. George went with young guys, finished 1-15, and was fired before the next draft produced Peppers, Foster and Witherspoon.

As for QB, the only coach I can think of who could win Super Bowls (plural) without a franchise quarterback was Joe Gibbs.

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outlaw4 Mentor

outlaw4

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Last year I can think of 4 plays in 4 games that would have resulted in losses and a 8-8 season if they went differently: San Diego (Rosario's catch), Chicago (King's catch), Green Bay (Smitty's catch), and New Orleans (Smitty's catch again). When you look at it the only difference between last year and this one is better QB play at the start and 4 low percentage plays going the right way.
You could make the same argument for this year concerning certain plays that would had made us 5-3 instead of 3-5:

Atlanta (D'Will fumble)

Dallas (Jake pick 6)

Saints (D'Will dropped TD pass + fumble return for TD)

In fact, when I think about it, just about every season's been that way, it's one or two plays going in/against our favor that affects the outcome of our games.

If Big Cat really wants to be like the Steelers, then we can't be like other teams out there with a coach carousel every 2-4 years. If we're getting a new head coach, he damn better be one we want to deal with for the next decade.

(...and believe me, we'll be whining and bitching about what the next coach is doing wrong just like we're doing with the current coach. If you're denying this thinking a change will mitigate this, you're lying.)

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