The 2010 Carolina Panthers are a horrendous team. Their 1-10 record is the worst record in football. If the NFL were Adam Sandler movies, the Panthers would be Punch Drunk Love (if you haven't seen it, lucky you. That's an hour and a half of my life that I will never get back). They're so bad even Sloth from The Goonies is embarrassed for them. Insane Clown Posse saw more success than the 2010 Carolina Panthers. Any Panthers fans still watching their team should see psychologists for their masochism. In other words, the Panthers suck.
The Panthers offensive output is simply pathetic. They rank last in the NFL in total offense, last in pass offense, 22nd in rushing, and last in scoring offense. They average 12.7 points per game. They have scored 12 touchdowns in the 11 games they've played thus far. They have turned the ball over 29 times, which amazingly is only second worst in the league ahead of the New York Giants (who have turned it over 30 times). The Panthers have the 5th worst 3rd down rate at 32.3%. They've been forced to punt more than all but Washington and Detroit. I have a sneaking suspicion Cam Newton's Auburn offense could perform better than the Panthers.
Defensively they are much, much better... which isn't to say that they are good on defense, just not entirely inept. The Panthers rank a respectable 14th in total defense, mostly on the strength of their 7th ranked pass defense. Their run defense is 25th, however, and considering how the Panthers are often way behind in their games, it stands to reason that the Panthers have a good pass defense rating simply because other teams don't throw the ball much against them due to having the lead. Perhaps most telling is their 24th ranked scoring defense, allowing 25.1 points per game. Which goes to show that not only are they terrible at scoring points, they aren't very good at preventing points either.
The Panthers currently sit at a point differential (number of points scored minus the number of points allowed) of -136. The only other team in football with a score worse than -100 is the 3-8 Arizona Cardinals, at -125. If the Panthers keep up their average of getting outscored by 12.36 points a game, they will finish with a point differential of -198. Simply horrendous. I doubt they'll win another game this year. How horrendous are they as compared to 5 most horrendous teams of the decade, going back to 2001-02 season? Well, let's compare.
2008 Detroit Lions (0-16)
The team with which every bad team will be compared against. The 2008 Detroit Lions failed to win a single football game out of 16 just 2 years ago. They are the only team since the adoption of the 16 game schedule in the late 70's to lose every game, and the only team other than the expansion Tampa Bay Bucs to lose every game of the season since World War II. They had a point differential of -249, an average of -15.6 per game. The majority of their games weren't even competitive. Only in 4 games did the Lions lose by a touchdown or less. 2 other games they lose by single digits. The other 10 games? Double digit losses. Ouch. The Lions ranked dead last in scoring and total defense, giving up 404.4 yards and 32.3 points per game. The offense didn't fare much better, ranking 30th in total offense and 27th in scoring offense at 16.8 points a game. 5 quarterbacks threw passes for the 08 Lions, including Jon Kitna (ancient), Daunte Culpepper (not healthy or good enough to play for Oakland), Dan Orlovsky (once stepped out of bounds in his own end zone for a safety), and Drew Henson (yes, they actually allowed Drew Henson on the football field). Matthew Stafford was the result of this debacle, and he's been a mixed bag due to injury.
Comparison: The Panthers are bad, but they aren't this bad.
2009 St. Louis Rams (1-15)
While the 2009 Rams don't have the stench of a winless season, they were just a horrendous football team. Despite beating the Lions 17-10 for their only win, a case can be made that they were actually worse than the '08 Lions. They almost managed to pull off a clean sweep of league-worst incompetence, ranking dead last in scoring offense at 10.9 points per game (yes, you read that right... the Rams averaged less than 11 points per game), second to last in scoring defense at 27.3 points per game, and 29th in both total offense and total defense. The offense scored 16 touchdowns on the year. The Rams also had a worse point differential than the Lions did, with a -261, an average of -16.3 per game. Only 4 of their games, other than the game they won, were within a touchdown. The Rams scored in single digits 7 times, including being shut out twice, and had only 2 games of scoring 20 or more. Despite having bell cow running back Steven Jackson, who had a very good year with 1700 total yards and a 4.4 yards per carry average, the Rams couldn't get even a mediocre effort from the 3 quarterbacks who took snaps for the Rams. Marc Bulger, Kyle Boller, and Keith Null combined for 11 touchdown throws and 21 interceptions. Josh Brown, the kicker, had nearly as many touchdown passes (1) in one pass as Keith Null had in 119 attempts (3) and Kyle Boller had in 176 attempts (also 3). Pitiful. The long term result, however, was Sam Bradford, so that's good.
Comparison: I think this team may be worse than the 2008 Lions, and definitely worse than Carolina.
2007 Miami Dolphins (1-15)
Rocked by the sudden departure of coach Nick Saban, the Dolphins nearly beat the Lions to winless glory. However, the Phins managed to eek out a win in overtime against the Ravens after starting off 0-13. The Phins were a little more hard luck than the other awful teams of the decade: 6 of their 15 losses were decided by 3 points. They still had poor all around numbers: 26th in scoring offense, 28th in total offense, 30th in scoring defense, 23rd in total defense. 7 times the Dolphins gave up 35 or more points. They had a -170 point differential, an average of -10.6 per game. Surprisingly, this wasn't the worst point differential in the league (that belonged to the 3-13 Rams). Still, when the majority of the teams snaps were taken by Cleo Lemon (who?), the head coach was fired after the year, and the only win you earned was in overtime... it's hard to label you as anything but one of the worst teams of the decade. Luckily, Jake Long and an 11 win season were to follow.
Comparison: They lost a lot of close games, so I think the Panthers may actually be worse.
2006 Oakland Raiders (2-14)
This Raiders team had a respectable defense. They finished 18th in the league in points allowed, 3rd in total yardage, and beat a solid Steelers team based solely off the strength of the defense after gaining less than 100 yards on offense. But offense is why they wind up on this putrid list. The 2006 Raiders had THE worst offense of the decade. They were BAD. They ranked dead last in both total offense and scoring offense, 29th in rushing offense, and 31st in pass offense. The Raiders scored 16 total touchdowns on the season. Of those 16, 4 were on defense. Basic math tells you that the Raiders scored only 12 touchdowns on offense. TWELVE. 1-2. Peyton Manning playing at his average level can put up 12 touchdowns in 4-5 games. The 2010 Raiders put up 6 offensive touchdowns in one game this year. The 06 Raiders had 12 in 16 games. They averaged 10.5 points per game. Their point differential was -164, not all-time bad but certainly not good, but that could be attributed to a defense that gave a Herculean effort. Randy Moss flat out quit midway through the year. The most unfortunate part? With the #1 pick, the Raiders took JaMarcus Russell. That's rubbing the wound with hydrochloric acid.
Comparison: The Raiders defense gives them the slight edge in my mind. But man, that offense sucked.
2001 Carolina Panthers (1-15)
The 2001 season started off with a bang for George Seifert and the 2001 Panthers. Rookie Steve Smith took the season's opening kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown and the Panthers marched their way to a 24-13 victory over the Vikings. Unfortunately, that was the last time they marched to victory as they went on to lose the other 15 games all in a row. The Panthers came close to that elusive second victory several times, losing 6 games by 3 points or less and another game by 4, with 2 games lost in overtime. The Panthers managed a -157 point differential, an average of -9.8 per game, worst in the league. They ranked second to last in total offense, last in total defense, 29th (in a 31 team league at the time) in scoring offense, and 28th in scoring defense. Chris Weinke, a 300 year old rookie, took the brunt of the work under center, throwing 540 passes and notching a meager 11 touchdowns to 19 interceptions (though, Weinke DID score 6 rushing touchdowns... double the amount of all the runningbacks combined). Matt Lytle, a name absolutely foreign to me, had 1 TD pass to 3 interceptions while starting one game (a 48-14 blowout loss to the Rams). In keeping with their misfortune, the arrival of the expansion Houston Texans the next season meant that rather than get the #1 overall pick the Panthers worked so hard for, they got bumped down to #2. This probably worked out for the better, however, as the Panthers got star defensive end Julius Peppers with the #2 pick while the Texans wound up with mega bust David Carr.
Comparison: The 2010 Panthers are horrific, but they aren't as horrific as their 2001 counterparts.
Honorable mentions go to other terrible teams such as the 2002 Bengals, 2004 Niners, 2005 Texans, 2008 Rams, and the 2008 Chiefs (my goodness, there were some bad teams in 2008).
There is still some time for the Carolina Panthers to turn it around and avoid this list, but if they continue down their current path they'll go down in history as one of the all time bad teams.
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