Carolina Panthers
Welter and Lea: Steve Wilks has these guys believing
Pat Welter and Chris Lea discuss the Panthers chances in their final five games of the season.
okay so now the dust has settled on an A. C. C championship game here in charlotte and you see where we are Bank of America Stadium, the home of the Carolina panthers who are on the by this week. But they have five more games left in this season, one of the easiest remaining schedules in the NFL, only one team left with the actual winning schedule. Pat, what do you think about their schedule going forward and can this team have their last five games finish their last five games with a winning record? I can't believe I'm gonna say this. I think it's possible they can win all five now. Is that likely to happen? No, but these are all going to be closely projected spreads. And it starts with maybe the most difficult matchup of all of them going to Seattle which is the only one of these teams chris that has a winning record and that's kind of the crazy situation right now. Tampa is beatable. Uh they've beaten them before. The Saints are beatable. Detroit is very beatable. Obviously Pittsburgh is as well with Kenny Pickett and I I think the key for Carolina right now do I think there are like a legitimate playoff caliber team but I think they're gonna make a run. No, but I think what they've done under steve Wilks is they can win games that they're able to dictate their pace and their style and that starts with running the ball with the foreman and playing great defense steve Wilks has these guys believing and right now you're sitting in a position where if you decide if you try to win out, you have a chance to potentially making the playoffs, which means that you'd win the NFC south, which means you'll be hosting a playoff game. Crazy to even think about with an interim head coach and everything that's going on with the Carolina panthers. But you're absolutely right. The last two games here at Bank of America Stadium, the Steelers and the Lions are very much so winnable games. They are undefeated here at home. Under steve Wilks since he's been interim head coach. Now you have to go on the road and win a game, something that the panthers haven't done before. So now let's go on to our next topic and that is matt rule who's going ahead and he's moved on as the Nebraska head coach. But he's had a few parting shots along the way, uh, saying that he really wasn't responsible for all the pics here in Carolina, uh, saying that a lot of things that kind of went on really weren't his fault, there is probably blame to go around that. But what do you what do you make of this whole situation with that rule? Just basically not taking accountability for where the panthers are right now. It sounds like a guy that's running his own Pr campaign spin zone is what I would call it chris he's moved on to Nebraska and he's trying to erase the blemish on his record that Carolina was and it was a big one. I do not hear a lot of accountability there from that rule. Some of the things he said just didn't add up at all. I mean, he said that he would take another job from the get go, which I thought was interesting, which I think maybe a lot of coaches feel when they come to the NFL, if you don't have a quarterback, you don't have a chance. He never had one here. But last I checked chris he did get to bring in several and you're telling me that he didn't have any say in that was he literally making the draft picks? No gm scott fitterer was, but it has been reported before that that rule had final say on a lot of these personnel decisions. So that just doesn't add up to me. And another thing that he said that really stood out was like, he wanted to have, he was promised like a 4 to 5 year plan. Do you really believe that matt rule in the NFL, do you watch how this league works? Nick Saban didn't work out here. Urban Meyer didn't work out here. Great coaches get turned over all the time in this league and you were just the next one. We'll just to say something that matt rule says all the time. If you could just go back and check the tape, there's been plenty of tape that's been released by the Carolina panthers and you see even in the war room on draft day, you see matt rule saying we need to take brady Christensen here. We need to take terrace marshall here. We need to take shai smith. Here he was the one calling those shots. That was a part of the lure to get him from the Giants. He was gonna go to the new york Giants. Do you think he would have had 2.5 years with the Giants? You think would have been a four year run with the Giants? There's absolutely no way. So he didn't take accountability. But the only thing he has a small, small minute point and that is David Tepper did say for everybody to be patient, it's gonna take more than two years. David Tepper did say that. But matt rule out of his own mouth said plenty of times we're trying to win right now. Matt rule, your non coaching ability and also your non account accountability is what got you fired. That's just my opinion, right? 100% with you. I think Dave whatever showed more than enough patience with this team. And I think we've seen from steve Wilks that clearly wasn't getting the most out of these players and that now moves to Sam Donald, who's the quarterback that's going to decide if they can go on that crazy run that we saw. But you know what a guy that's made a resurgence in his career, Geno smith with the panthers play next in Seattle after the by he's Chrisley pal, walter, That's you.