Imagine Matt Rhule’s Reaction to Carolina Trading for the #1 Overall Pick in the 2023 Draft

Matt Rhule was always sniveling with excuses. The Panthers were close, he reassured, but they just needed to find a way over the hump. He said the Panthers were building steadily, even likening the process to Jay-Z’s climb to the music industry's top. A plan was in place; it was just missing a piece—a quarterback.

On Bussin with the Boys, Rhule noted his approach had grown stale with Panthers fans. Rhule believed that, in time, the process would work. After missing on Darnold and then with Mayfield, the cries for his head got to Tepper. It was always a five-year plan, he defended. He would have taken a different approach had he known the window was less than three seasons. He would have gone after a high-dollar free agent or aggressively pursued the franchise quarterback through the draft.

I wonder how Rhule reacted as he heard that Car traded multiple first and second-round picks and DJ Moore to the Bears for the #1 overall pick. Frank Reich will get his quarterback, something Rhule never got right. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried, Rhule excused. He tried to acquire Matthew Stafford but was left with Sam Darnold. They had chased DeShawn Watson all along, and it was only when they missed out on the scandalous free agent that they settled for Baker Mayfield. “At the end of the day,” landing Stafford or Watson would have saved his job, he believed.

Rhule never got the quarterback right, not because he didn’t have the opportunity, but because he never knew how to fix the problem. The irony is that he initially had a decent plan, but his lack of NFL experience navigating free agency and later hubris would undermine it. After his second failed season, Rhule went on WFNZ and shed some light on the initial approach to the quarterback issue. The plan was to rely on a bridge quarterback as the Panthers retooled the defense and built a roster ready for a high-powered quarterback to lead. It would be then that they would drop either a free-agent quarterback or a rookie franchise quarterback they pursued aggressively in the draft into the lineup. He alluded to how the Rams and Buccaneers had done it recently.

Releasing Cam was unfortunate, he believed, but it was time for a new direction. He decided to lean into Joe Brady’s history with Teddy Bridgewater as they solidified the roster.

Rhule’s marginally successful first season, which seemed largely a combination of beginner’s luck and the outlying nature of a season in the pandemic, caused him to abandon his plan. Impatience and an ever-growing ego caused Rhule to move away from Bridgewater after one season and chase the veteran quarterback, believing that the timeline was faster than he anticipated. Unfortunately, Bridgewater’s contract turned out a bit of an anchor, and without that beginner’s luck, Rhule missed on three consecutive quarterbacks.

With Rhule gone, Scott Fitterer and the Carolina Panthers decided they wouldn’t make that mistake again. So with lightning speed, Carolina moved a 2023 1st and 2nd round picks, a 2024 1st round pick, a 2025 2nd rounder, and DJ Moore to the Bears for the 1st overall pick of this year’s draft. I’m sure once Rhule goes to the tape, he will commend the Panthers for making an aggressive move, followed by a passive-aggressive comment about how that would have been nice when he was in Carolina.

By Tony Dunn (@Cat_Chronicles)

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