Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.

Rob Chudzinski surprised the football world in 2007 when in his first NFL offensive coordinator job, he took an erratic, hot-and-cold, sixth-round, pocket passer who could not even earn the Browns’ starting job at the beginning of the season and managed to win 10 games with him, helping earn Derek Anderson a Pro Bowl appearance along the way. The next year, after Chudzinski changed the offense following an extension that came on the heels of being courted for the Ravens’ head-coaching job, he was fired along with the rest of Romeo Crennel’s staff.

Fast forward to 2011, when a lockout-shortened offseason hindered the installation of an offense. Chudzinski, back in the coordinator saddle again following a two-year stint as tight ends coach in San Diego, took a raw rookie quarterback and rewrote the NFL’s record books with an offense predicated on a two-TE downhill running attack featuring the top backfield tandem in the league. The majority of the time, Cam Newton operated from under center with only a few designated runs coming primarily near the goal line. Pass reads were kept very simple, set up by play-action, where the quarterback needed to read only half the field, high to low, and Newton was very effective rolling outside the pocket. Chudzinski transformed one of the worst NFL offenses into a top-10 unit, and Newton earned Rookie of the Year honors.

Following another extension to keep Chudzinski in Carolina, the Panthers entered the 2012 season, after a full offseason to prepare, with a radically different offensive philosophy. Instead of sticking with what worked, the Panthers moved to operating heavily out of the shotgun and incorporating a read, dive-option offense that has proven not to work at the NFL level, as Lou Holtz found out the hard way in 1976 with the Jets before he submitted his resignation.