Wait, wasn’t it supposed to get better? Panthers lose again, Anderson gets traded

Meet the new Carolina Panthers; same as the old Carolina Panthers, even though they keep casting off parts as they rattle down the road.

After firing Matt Rhule on Monday, the Panthers put on a performance that looked almost identical to those of the Rhule era Sunday in a deflating, 24-10 road loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

Compounding issues and generating another small firestorm: Wide receiver Robbie Anderson threw a sideline tantrum Sunday, upset over being pulled out of the game, and the Panthers (1-5) promptly traded him Monday.

The Panthers said Monday they had traded Anderson to Arizona for undisclosed draft compensation. A league source confirmed to The Observer that Carolina received a sixth-round pick in 2024 and a seventh-round pick in 2025 for Anderson.

In other words, the Panthers didn’t get much — but it was better than having to release Anderson outright for nothing, which was likely the other option for an interim head coach trying to take control of his new team.

On Sunday, while wearing his helmet, Anderson got face-to-face on the Carolina sideline with wide receivers coach Joe Dailey after being taken out of the game, and yelling ensued.

Anderson was on the field sometimes the rest of the game although you wouldn’t know it. He had zero targets and zero catches in 23 snaps. He also sat on a cooler, away from the offense, during some timeouts as the coaches talked to the other offensive players. Then Fox cameras showed him getting kicked off the field and sent into the locker room early after another conversation with interim head coach Steve Wilks, following a second brief spat with Dailey.

When you’re trying to establish you have control of the locker room, as Wilks is, that’s the sort of thing that’s hard to stomach, and so he’s not going to stomach it.

“No one is bigger than the team,” Wilks said about the Anderson incident afterward.

In his own postgame press conference, Anderson said he was “confused and upset” about being sent off the field early by Wilks, but didn’t apologize for his actions. When the trade was first reported Monday by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Anderson responded on Twitter with a series of emojis that included praying hands and a rocket ship.

The Anderson fallout was sadly the most interesting thing that happened to the Panthers on Sunday. Their offense, as usual, was ridiculously poor — Carolina’s only touchdown came from a Donte Jackson pick-6 interception. Their game plan was far more conservative than usual — run, run, screen pass was the general theme — but it didn’t work after the first series, either.

Carolina had five first downs in the first quarter and led 10-7 at halftime, and then didn’t make another first down until the fourth. Again, the Panthers defense wore down and the offense had nothing when it counted. The Rams outscored Carolina 17-0 in the second half, as Carolina’s offense gained only 203 total yards, ran just 44 offensive plays and went 2-for-10 on third downs.

Of those 203 total yards, Christian McCaffrey accounted for 158 of them via rushing and pass-catching. Everyone else had a lousy 45.

By the end, quarterback PJ Walker had been knocked out of the game (neck injury, although he cleared concussion protocol) and the Panthers were reduced to playing former practice-squad quarterback Jacob Eason, who threw an end-zone interception to snuff out Carolina’s final chance for an offensive touchdown.

In other words, other than Anderson’s petulance, it was the same as it ever was.

And that’s not surprising.

Rhule was the highly-paid scapegoat who got canned Monday just before a team meeting. But the Panthers’ problems go a lot deeper than one head coach and the two assistants who were fired along with him — or Anderson for that matter, who played for Rhule at Temple and was widely considered one of “Rhule’s guys.”

The team is now 23-48 in the time that Dave Tepper has owned the team, and all of this may well get worse before it gets better. The Panthers sustained several more significant injuries Sunday, none more so than the one to Walker.

Walker was the fourth Carolina quarterback to get hurt so far this season, joining Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and rookie Matt Corral. Either Walker or Eason will have to start against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next Sunday in Charlotte, and that, my friends, is another mismatch.

Then again, the Panthers seem mismatched against everyone these days. After losing early by just a few points per game, they’ve lost by 22 and 14 points in the past two weeks. They can’t score, which is the surest way to make fans turn the TV off or sell their tickets to somebody who cheers for the opposing team.

To get back to the Anderson sideline altercation for a second: It paled in comparison to the one that Panthers star linebacker Kevin Greene and linebackers coach Kevin Steele had in 1998.

In that one, as Steele addressed the linebackers, Greene suddenly lost his composure, grabbed Steele’s jacket with two hands and pushed him backward about 10 feet. It was one of the low moments of Hall of Famer Greene’s career, and he would apologize for it repeatedly (Greene wasn’t kicked off the team and coach Dom Capers allowed him to continue to play in that game — certainly a mistake — although Capers then suspended Greene without pay for the next game).

Anderson never touched Dailey based on the Fox replays, but the two weren’t mincing words. It had already been reported in the pregame, including by The Charlotte Observer, that the Panthers would like to trade Anderson if they could get a decent price. Anderson, who played for Rhule at Temple, has been an inconsistent player for the past two seasons ever since he got a massive contract extension following a fine year in 2020. He has caught less than half of the passes thrown toward him in 2021 and so far in 2022.

It was just another issue for a team full of issues, and Anderson’s departure, like Rhule’s, won’t solve much of anything immediately.

But at least there’s one thing every loss does make clearer, if you’re losing hope entirely, Panthers fans: This forlorn team may well have the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2023 and be able to pick any quarterback it wants. So at least there’s that.