Fox likely to stay

According to published reports from South Carolina’s TheState.com, it appears that Carolina Panthers coach John Fox and General Manager Marty Hurney will be back next year.  Team owner Jerry Richardson has yet to make any announcements as to their future, but the going theory is that if he was going to have fired someone, it would have happened by now.  So, it would appear, at least for today, that heads will not be rolling in the immediate future as a result of Carolina’s disappointing season.  Perhaps the owner felt that the loss of the starting QB at the beginning of the season was a decent enough excuse to go 7-9.

I’m not quite sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing for the Panthers.  On one hand, the Panthers were playing well before losing Delhomme to season-ending surgery.  On the other hand, the Panthers underachieved in almost every single aspect of football this season, and they underachieved last year as well.  I know that people harp all the time on how important it is to build stability within a program, but when a team has been performing well below expectations, sometimes a shakeup is needed from the top down.  I say if Fox does stay, he’s got one more year tops to prove that he can still win with the Panthers.

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A Last Look at the Power Rankings

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s Eve celebration, but now that the end of the year/beginning of the year festivities are over, it’s time to get back to work.  ESPN.com has posted their NFL Power Rankings for the final time this regular season, and it’s time to see where all your favorite teams ended up this year.  This season-ending retrospective features some new information, as well as personal notes from the good writers at ESPN.com who have been putting together these Power Rankings all year.  These final Power Rankings are always insightful, so let’s dive in.

The Carolina Panthers drop in at number 23 in the Power Rankings to finish the season.  As the Rankings point out, a 7-9 ranking after losing your franchise QB to injury early in the season isn’t a terrible record.  Still, John Fox has no idea if he’ll be back next season as of this writing.  I thought Fox was safe, but apparently that is not the case.  Whatever direction the Panthers decide to take with their coaching staff, this team is definitely in need of some type of adjustment.  Something wasn’t working this year, and it wasn’t just the QB play.  The Panthers have big work to do in the offseason.
You can get all your Carolina Panthers tickets at www.stubhub.com.