Consider this, life isn’t going so well and the universe decides to chuck a big ol’ F-You at you. Can you relate? Many already feel like that and the already struggling Carolina Panthers can be easily counted in the mix. Especially after their starting quarterback Andy Dalton and his family got hurt in a car crash. Now, all fingers are pointing at Dave Canales.

The Panthers are back to square one after Andy Dalton sprained his thumb in the accident. Now Bryce Young will start the next game against the Denver Broncos. For many, the next game is a lost cause. But for the former GM, Mike Lombardi, the blame for that goes to their head coach Dave Canales.

The former NFL GM was laughing at the fact that the Broncos are double-digit favorites to win the next game. Regardless, the next game against the 1-6 Panthers will be a cakewalk for the Denver team. Besides not having a good roster, the Carolina Panthers are banged up and again, they aren’t in any type of contention this year too.

The host of GM Shuffle emphasized the debilitated roster and said, “[Jadaveon] Clowney is hurt, [Josey] Jewell’s hurt, [A’Shawn] Robinson’s hurt, Andy Dalton’s hurt, [Tommy] Tremble’s hurt, Taylor Moton’s hurt. I mean they’re hurt everywhere and they are not a good team,” Lombardi said on GM Shuffle on DraftSharks.

The next game is a special one not because of what teams are playing. It’s because, at one point, the Panthers owner David Tepper had an opportunity to hire Sean Payton, but didn’t do it for some reason. Instead, Tepper hired Dave Canales, who has never had a head coaching job, to be the skipper of the team. Now the owner might get reminded of the past he could have capitalized on.

They also promoted their Assistant GM for three seasons, Dan Morgan up the ladder. Being a former GM, this situation smells fishy to Mike Lombardi. “I mean you talk about a design problem, this happens right here in Carolina. For me, Dave Canales is not ready to be a head coach. I certainly don’t think Dan Morgan’s ready to be a general manager,” the former NFL GM added.

Things haven’t looked good for the Panthers for the last couple of years. But they could have changed that by instating Sean Payton as the head coach.

Could David Tepper have hired Sean Payton?

100 bucks say yes. In fact, the Panthers owner was willing to give “just about anything” to hire the Super Bowl-winning coach. Payton brings great offense and a 15-year experience of coaching the New Orleans Saints. Not to mention his 6 NFC South championships. But before we tell you why the Panthers didn’t hire him, check out Lombardi’s take on the situation.

“ If I were David Tepper and I knew all these people that I put in place and I’m still 10 points than the Denver Broncos who hired Sean Payton and you don’t want to hire…. You could have hired Sean Payton. But you don’t want to give up control to hire Sean Payton. Here’s Sean Payton rebuilding the Broncos but you didn’t want him to rebuild the Panthers,” Lombardi ranted. He also happens to think that the Broncos head coach will make Tepper “eat it” in the upcoming game.

Now here’s the catch with hiring Sean Payton, or rather, WAS the catch. Payton retired from his head coaching job with the Saints in January 2022; he wasn’t fired. So the Saints owned the rights to their former coach and to hire him, Tepper would have to go through the New Orleans team. Maybe that’s why Panther didn’t implore the Saints.

Payton later started working with FOX as an analyst after his retirement but realized that his true calling was coaching in the NFL, as a coach. So he came back as the Broncos HC and got a handsome 5-year $90 million (roughly) deal. But returning to Tepper, he made a series of bad decisions that led his team to this point.

Since the Panthers owner bought the team for $2.2 billion in 2018, they have never had a winning season. The Panthers went from Matt Rhule as HC to Steve Wilks to Frank Reich before the owner finally gave Dave Canales a shot. Given the Panthers’ current trajectory, they might end this season on a very bad note. Last year’s deja vu might be a very real thing for the Carolina team.

Sorry Carolina fans, but this question needs to be answered. What was the management thinking when they decided to give away DJ Moore along with two 2023 picks, a 2024 no. 1 pick, and a 2025 second-round pick to the Bears to get Bryce Young? They eventually benched him for Andy Dalton anyway. The universe works in mysterious ways but for many, the aftermath of Panthers’ decisions wasn’t much of an enigma. Can Tepper’s team ever recover from this slump? What do you think?