The Panthers practiced on Wednesday for the first time since firing head coach Matt Rhule and the team’s players had their first chance to discuss their feelings about the change.
Quarterback PJ Walker said “everybody had a feeling” that a change could be coming in recent weeks and that it was a “burden on a lot of players” to have that hanging over their heads. Now that the move has been made, Walker and others said the team has to move forward even if they had fond feelings for the departed coach.
Running back Christian McCaffrey was another player pushing that approach. He called it “tough” to see Rhule lose his job, but noted that time won’t stand still while the Panthers try to sort things out.
“Sometimes, bad stuff happens, but the earth keeps spinning,” McCaffrey said, via David Newton of ESPN.com. “You’ve got to keep rolling. We’ve got to win a lot of ballgames here.”
One other bit of fallout from the Rhule firing was an uptick in speculation about the Panthers trading away veteran players. McCaffrey is at the top of that list, but Wednesday’s discussion focused solely on getting things moving in the right direction in Carolina.