After two years of serving as the Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator, Rob Chudzinski is now the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. But Panthers leading receiver Steve Smith says his goal of being the head guy was obtained at the expense of the Panthers offense.
“The prior offensive coordinator really was positioning himself to just apply for that head coaching job,” Smith said Wednesday on a teleconference with Seattle reporters. “I think our offense suffered a little bit because of that. At times, we got cute,” Smith said. “We did things that weren’t necessarily us, like the under-utilizing of (fullback) Mike Tolbert. But we’re out of that. The past is the past.”
I think Steve Smith hit the ball on the head here. The Panthers have always been a run first team and the past couple of years they got away from that. But in real life and especially in the cut throat word of the National Football League, people use folks to get ahead ALL THE TIME. Unfortunately, that’s how most people at the top get there, so can we really fault him?