CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Few NFL teams will be happier to get to 2020 than the Carolina Panthers. Their 2019 season morphed into a two-month dumpster fire, one that New Orleans threw a final gallon of gasoline on Sunday during the Saints' 42-10 rout of the Panthers.
Now comes the interesting part. The Panthers have huge decisions to make at head coach and quarterback as they start trying to rebuild a team that once was an enormous deal in the Carolinas _ and one day will be again _ but which played in front of about 60,000 empty seats in the fourth quarter Sunday.
And that was in a season finale. Against a big divisional rival, with about half of the 10,000 fans remaining wearing the Saints' black and gold.
The Panthers find themselves deep in another valley, watching the playoffs at home yet again and wondering how to fix a team that went 5-11 and lost its final eight games.
When asked what it would take to do that, Panthers safety Eric Reid said Sunday: "We need better coaching. We need better play from players. That's what rebuilding is."
The Panthers could soon hire Mike McCarthy, the former Green Bay Packers coach. ESPN has reported he's already interviewed for the job.
I'd be fine with that _ McCarthy is a proven commodity and seems to have made a real effort to learn from his mistakes in the year he has spent away from the game. Much like former Panthers coach Ron Rivera, who's about to get hired somewhere fast, McCarthy has won a lot, seen a lot and could assemble a top-notch staff in a hurry.
That's not the only option. There are a number of current NFL offensive coordinators (Minnesota's Kevin Stefanski, New England's Josh McDaniels and Baltimore's Greg Roman among them) who could be in play.
