The Carolina Panthers have chosen a new offensive coordinator. On Monday, the team announced it had reached an agreement with former New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo.
As The Athletic’s Joe Person Noted, McAdoo interviewed for the Panthers quarterback coaching job in 2020 and 2021, but didn’t get it either. From now on, he will be the team’s offensive coordinator.
McAdoo was the Giants’ offensive coordinator in 2014 and 2015, then the team’s head coach in 2016 and 2017. He went 11-5 in his first season in New York, but was fired after a departure from 2-10 the following year. He was out of the league for two years before returning as the Jaguars’ quarterbacks coach in 2020 and a consultant for the Cowboys in 2021. Prior to the Giants, he worked as a tight ends coach and later as a quarterbacks under Mike McCarthy with the Green Bay. Packers.
Carolina fired former offensive coordinator Joe Brady during the 2021 season amid a reported dispute with head coach Matt Rhule over offensive philosophy. Rhule would have liked to run the ball more often, while Brady preferred a pass-oriented attack. McAdoo, famously, is a proponent of the “rule of 53”, which proposes that teams win more often when their total number of rushed attempts and completions in a given game is 53 or more. (This rule notably makes a correlation/causality error.)
In four years at the helm of the Giants, McAdoo’s teams were average to below average offensively. They ran plays at a high volume and therefore ranked just inside or outside the top 10 in total yards and points, but were much less effective per play. They ranked 15th, 19th, 21st, 23rd in Football Outsiders DVOA and 15th, 9th, 29th, 27th in EPA per game in those four seasons, for example.
The Panthers struggled offensively in each of Rhule’s first two seasons at the helm, largely due to below-average quarterback play. They weren’t able to put Teddy Bridgewater or Sam Darnold in a proper position to succeed. They apparently think McAdoo can change that.
