A Carolina Panthers legend is asking the team’s peeved fans to put their pitchforks down.
Steve Smith Sr. just chopped it up with NFL Network insider James Palmer about the struggling Panthers, who are fresh off their fourth straight loss to begin the season. And despite a rough start to what was supposed to be a breath of fresh air under head coach Frank Reich and No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young, the franchise’s all-time leading receiver stated that every rebuild is different.
“What you’re seeing is a young team, whose coaching staff is trying to implement their system with some of the players that they want, some of the players that they drafted and with some of the players they inherited,” he said. ” . . . that they inherited that can be a good player, but not after one offseason of learning who that player is and putting our offense together at the same time and discovering what that player is not on the football field. It’s baptism by fire and learning and evaluating all at the same time. Oh yeah, and it happens to be in the game.”
The Carolina faithful were particularly peeved after Sunday’s defeat to the Minnesota Vikings. The 21-13 loss featured a mind-blowing mental lapse, poor clock management, an ineffective (and boring) offensive game plan and a whole lot of purple.
So while it’s really difficult to relax—especially after five previous years of bad, non-playoff football—maybe fans may need to let this recipe continue to marinate before getting any hotter.