Ranked 28th last week, they are now 29th in the NFL and last in the NFC South with the Saints win over the Bucs. Ryan Van Bibber though surprisingly kept his comments on the Panthers positive:

NFL power rankings, Week 8: Falcons still flying high, Ravens tumbling - SBNation.com
29. Carolina Panthers (LW: 28, 1-5): Out of all these teams swimming around the bottom of this list, the Panthers are the most able to rebound next year if the new GM can unwind the mess his predecessor left.

Yes it is a bit of a mess to unwind. Kind of like trying to find the end of ball of yarn that has unwound the Panthers first need to find their identify is on offense. Are we going to focus on the run or on the pass? Sure its cliche to say 'balanced' but honestly if you don't favor one or the other you end not doing either very good.

Once that is decided they have to figure out if we have the right players on offense for that focus.That was one thing we didn't hear much about when OC Rob Chudzinski was hired was whether we had the right offensive linemen for a passing, gimmicky offense. We were built up front to run the ball and knew certain players were better at run blocking versus pass protection. It would not appear we have a line especially good at pass protection and we certainly aren't running the ball good enough to say we have a run blocking line.

At this point due to injuries we are just trying to patch a cohesive line together for Sunday. Yet this will be a key question the next GM should have for Chudzinski or whoever is the next OC. Only then can a GM start to acquire the personnel needed to built the desired offense.