Carolina Panthers
Fans boo Mayfield, when is enough enough for Tepper?
Chris Lea and Pat Welter join Kacy Hintz on WRAL Sports Xtra to discuss the latest round of Panthers problems following their 26-16 loss to the Cardinals.
Welcome back into sports extras. We continue to break down this 26 16 loss to the cardinals to help me do. That is W. Orioles, Chris lee and Pat Welter who now joined me from Bank of America Stadium guys. This feels like Groundhog Day. We keep talking about the same things over and over again. But when the offense is this inefficient week after week, we've got to keep starting right there and it all starts with baker Mayfield and his performance or the lack thereof here tonight. Pat, I do want to start with you because I heard you ask him the question, does he think he's being put in the best position? I think his words were, I'm not going to bite on that one. Pat, your take on baker Mayfield's performance. He actually said I'm not gonna fall for that trap. Now me and chris were talking about this. Is it a trap? Because it's true, that's kind of the catch there. Obviously I kind of knew what I was doing with that question, but it begs to be asked and kind of the way you answer, it kind of tells you everything you need to know. I don't think he's being put in the best position to succeed and the evidence I have chris's teddy, Bridgewater Sam Donald baker Mayfield obviously some blame needs to fall on baker Mayfield, the batted balls, the turnovers, the inaccuracies, but that rules resonate also working against him as well. I mean you you mentioned all of that and you could also talk about 22 for 36 only 100 and 97 yards, which is so much better than last week, but also going back to what you were saying along with that he felt like he was being trapped. He has this air about him right now. That's not good in that press same press conference. He brought up being booed by the fans before he was even asked about that. Then he also talked about, oh, did the fans boo me? Yes. Did I score touched afterwards? Yes. Which I thought was very interesting. So now we're getting the Cleveland baker mayfield whose ornery who's kind of petty a little bit towards the media saying that we were piling onto him when really we're asking a fair questions. You're not completing passes. The offense isn't scoring what is going wrong, that's not piling on those are true questions that you have to ask. The team is one and three. So not only is his performance poor right here on the field, it's also pour in the media room when he's talking to us facts. Yeah, well you know what? So it's funny here just a week ago we had guys like Robby Anderson saying, you know, I'm trying to win for matt rule. I know there was other guys that said, you know, he's doing the right things. He's trying to get us to do the right things on the field, but it might not appear that way. Now do you think matt rule has officially lost the locker room? It's hard to tell if he really has, but at the same time when you see so many mental lapses on the field, the guy's not handling the ball, not dropping and dropping the ball and and there's turnovers and you're seeing the same thing week after week, year after year 2020 2021 now 2022. There hasn't seemed to be improvement with the Carolina panthers team. Even though on paper that roster has improved over the last three years. So you have to think about, is the coach even getting through to these guys? They may like him on a personal level. But is he motivating them to play their best football. It doesn't feel like they, that he is. I mean there were reports last year that he was losing the locker and players questioning his methods. Players questioning The type of players that he was bringing in there one in 10 in their last 11 games. This was supposed to be a playoff caliber team. That's what he needed to do to potentially save his job. He has changed the quarterback three times. He has changed the coordinator now. It's all on him. He said it himself. I think the offense is good enough. I think we've got a great defense, special teams. It's just not all coming together. That rules gotta look in the mirror Chris, you mentioned booing, you didn't have to be on Twitter or social media, you literally could just be watching the game and you could hear the boos raining down on this field. I saw your video of the crowd shot there I think just before kickoff. I know it said 69,000, but I don't, I don't know. It's not a good look there. I mean, when is enough enough for owner David Tepper? Yeah, Casey, you know, the number that was given to us 69,000, The way they get around that is that's the tickets distributed. So that means that a lot of fans just didn't show up to this game today. And honestly, we were at this Clemson game last night. It felt like there are more fans on the lower bowl area at Clemson, not even including the top half at Clemson than what it was in this entire stadium today. It feels like the fans are either voting with their wallet or their voting with just not showing up. Even if they already have PSLS, there needs to be a change at some point, I'm not sure when David Tepper is gonna do it. He says he wants to be patient with that rule. I get that. I definitely understand that. But when you haven't seen improvement, there's gonna have to be something to change because you're also losing your fans at the same time, the teams that they have played this year, they're playing a backup quarterback on Cleveland Jamis Winston and the Saints, A Cardinals team that maybe other than the panthers might be the worst coached in the NFL. They were an absolute mess in the off season and you still can't get it done. Even if they did win this game, chris would it have been pretty? When was it fun last week? When you score? Would have been on the defense? The defense would have would have done it if you're not selling tickets. And this is the day they were supposed to honor Sam Mills, keep pounding. I don't wanna pound anymore. I want to do something else. Well, here's something else I want to add to that. They won last week and still the fans didn't show up to this game today. So the fans should feel better coming into this game. They absolutely did not. Yeah, guys, that speaks volumes. And I don't think it's gonna get any better next Sunday when the 40 niners come to town and that's what we'll talk to you guys next. Thanks so much