Quick Hits: Gilmore Update, Assessment of Sam Darnold, Anderson's Struggles + More

Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule spoke with the media Monday afternoon.

Inserting Michael Jordan for Dennis Daley

"We started Dennis. He was banged up with the rotator cuff. Michael has been coming along. He like other guys we've had have had some issues in pass pro. I thought he was excellent in the run game. I mean, I thought he was a tone-setter in the run game. He had a lot of good reps in the pass game. He got picked on one which looks like it's on him but it was really on the back. I thought Michael did some really good things and he's going to bring a physical presence to the line that we're looking for."

What to expect from Stephon Gilmore this week

"You know, I don't. We're going to practice him. Obviously, he hadn't done much on the PUP list. He's been running and moving with our guys, so we'll try to practice him this week and see what level he's at right now and then how he'll respond after that. I'm hoping he plays on Sunday. That's been kind of the plan all along. That being said, I'm not going to put a guy out there before he is ready."

Assessement of Sam Darnold

"Sam is not playing well enough. Which means that Sean [Ryan], Joe [Brady], and me are not coaching good enough. We're 3-3, right? There's a lot of teams that are 3-3. I think it's just starkly clear in front of us what the issues are. We turned the ball over twice in our three wins. We turned the ball over eight times in our three losses. When I say Sam is not playing well, what does that mean? It means the offensive line isn't getting it done for him, it means the running backs aren't getting it done for him - everyone on offense. Every receiver, every tight end, every back, every o-lineman, their job is to help our quarterback play well. We're not getting that done. The shame of the game yesterday to me when you really go back and watch the game is we ran the football well, we've just not been committed enough to running it. That's going to change, I can just tell you that right now. You'll see a vastly different look from us moving forward. We're not going to lineup and drop back and throw it 40 times a game and think that that's going to win the game for us. It hasn't. We're going to redefine who we are and we're going to run the football and we're going to protect our quarterback, and we're not going to turn the ball over anymore. We need to fix ourselves first. We don't need to panic. We don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We're 3-3. We've got to stop turning the football over and we have to stop the run on defense."

Overcoming adversity

"It is what it is. If that affects us then we really don't deserve to win anyway. I always believe in you can't win every game but you can certainly deserve to win every game, that's what Coach [Joe] Paterno said. If we prepare at a high level and I thought last week was some of our best practices, we've got to go out and play to that same level. We can't let if we're ahead of behind or if we're 3-0 or 0-3, we can't let those situations affect the way that we play. I think there has been some adversity, there have been some injuries, there have been all of those things but that's true for every team. It's about what you do next. I live my whole life based on what you do next. I want to attack the next thing and the next thing is not even this game yet but about getting us right right now. We've got to eliminate the turnovers, we've got to stop the run, we've got to be in our gaps, we've got to eliminate all of those mistakes. We just got to get the football a little bit better right now."

Robby Anderson's continued struggles

"I think Robby has to come out and have a great week of practice. He has to have a great week of meetings. He has to put aside all of the distractions of what happened last week or the week before and just come out and have a great week this week. I'm not saying Robby is distracted, all I'm saying is all he can do right now is put his head down and keep working. And I think sometimes when we have a little bit of adversity or we're not having the production that we want, we start trying to look for other things, Like, well maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. What all of us need to do as a team right now is just go back to the simple things, the fundamentals. If we can get the football right, we're a good football team. We're beating ourselves right now and it's got to get corrected.

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