hepcat

Bears defense has allowed the most passing TDs, 2nd most passing yards, 2nd most passing 1st downs, the 3rd highest completion percentage, and the fewest sacks in the NFL. If Bryce stinks it up tonight....yikes.

That video just underscores the lack of direction and identity for the offense. It's like they haven't scouted the opponent at all and are calling the same dozen bad plays at random. It's not a good sign when Ben McAdoo was out scheming this "All Star" coaching staff. Some of the guys on the staff have f*cking Superbowl rings! I agree the scheme has been horrible but I can't pinpoint if the reason is because of Bryce's physical limitations, lack of talent at receiver, or the coaches are just braindead. I'm thinking it's a combo of all of the above. The main problem to me though is that they refuse to commit to the running game and that also relates to the scheme. I heard a stat from the announcer in the Colts game that the Panthers have passed the 4th most times in the NFL. Why are they passing so much? The WRs aren't getting separation, the routes are "static" as O'Sullivan says, but those things open up with the running game. All of these problems compound on each other. I'd like to see a statistic that shows how many play-action passes the Panthers have run in a game and how successful it has been. Have they run the read-option once with Young holding onto the ball? Try some sh*t out until something sticks because when you're the worst team in the NFL, what you're doing isn't working. Too many cooks in the kitchen could be the problem. Tepper obviously heavily involves himself in the day to day operations of the team and we don't really know how involved he is with the actual on-field decisions, but I have a feeling he is. Then you have Reich who is a former OC, Thomas Brown is the OC calling the plays now, they've got Jim Caldwell who was a longtime offensive head coach (god knows what he's doing, haven't heard a peep about him since he was hired). Passing Game Coordinator Parks Frazier called the plays for the Colts after Frank was fired last year. I thought he could be a possible scapegoat for this trainwreck but Reich officiated his wedding so he'd have to be forced to fire him. So there's obviously a lot of opinions in the offensive staff meetings. Bottom line is, it isn't working. They're not changing enough to make it work so it's not going to get better. And the Panthers are going to continue to be very very bad unless big (and successful) changes are made.

Bryce isn't a bust, yet, but he also isn't a good QB. Anyone with eyes could see he was going to struggle to adapt to the NFL given his small stature.

The experiment to see if you can successfully run sports teams like a hedge fund is complete. The conclusion is, no you can't.

The thing about working in football operations is that there is no degree or formal education required to do it. The criteria to work in the industry is largely where you worked previously and who you know. It’s a certified good ol boy network. That is how you end up with wildly unqualified people making ridiculously too much money to be so bad at something. Since Tepper bought the team, the thing that I think the Panthers are sorely missing is the soft skills aspects of building a team. Player evaluation in a vacuum is one thing. Data analysis of a players’s stats, physical metrics, it’s all well and good. But the Panthers seem to have fallen off a cliff at finding the right players to pair with the right coaching staff, and having an identity. It’s well documented among former players that player input got shut down as soon as Tepper bought the team. The closest they came to getting back to that was Wilks. The players genuinely seemed to like playing for him and gave their best. The team had an identity and did it well. It didn’t work every game and Wilks made some mistakes. But what he did with this roster was no short of a miracle. Tepper truly ruined this franchise, and it’s going to take a long time to fix it.

Bears 21 Panthers 10 Bears defense gets 9 sacks, 2 INTs, holds Panthers under 250 total yards and 10 points.

Colts defense was bad until they played Bryce too

That would be a very panthers thing to do. Honestly they should start Dalton just to win the game

You aren’t wrong, they’d probably have won another 2 games

Been asking these same questions since he was a college prospect. As soon as I saw his game against Texas in 2022 I knew he’d struggle in the NFL. He’s bad under pressure and a short QB is not going to be able to see the field well enough to make plays under pressure. It’s playing out exactly like that Texas game every game in the NFL. The only difference is he doesn’t play against team’s that have their starting QB hurt in the 1st quarter every game.

ok here’s about 9 minutes of Tepper rambling on about how involved he is with the team’s decisions

Maybe that dream of burning the stadium down will come true one day

Tepper is a finance guy who relies on data and metrics to make decisions. It’s well documented he wanted to take a more “analytical” approach when he bought the team. My guess is Tepper wanted to see a presentation with data and examples of how he’d build the team and offense, and Steichen probably didn’t come as prepared as other candidates because his team was busy going to the Super Bowl. Frank got the job because he was good at interviewing for what Tepper wanted to see. It’s also well documented that Frank impressed in the interview process with his preparation and presentations. Problem is he was a failure at his previous job and a glossy PowerPoint presentation doesn’t translate to winning football games. This is reason #1A why Tepper has ruined this team. He has tried to run the team like it’s a hedge fund, has been a solution in search of a problem, and hasn’t done literally anything good for the franchise aside from putting the logo at midfield.

It didn't end up happening that's why I said the "threat" of it happening. Don't forget the Cowboys come to town in a couple weeks. Needless to say the stadium is going to be about 80% Cowboys fans and it won't be a fun game for anyone rooting for the Panthers.

Being a Panthers fan is like having a child you've raised who you no longer speak to. They were a pretty good baby, had some rough down years as a toddler and through elementary school, got better and was decently behaved in middle and through high school with some rough years sprinkled in. Then once they went to college they completely changed who they were, got into a super toxic abusive relationship and are now a massive failure and complete loser. Now your kid hates you and you hate them and you don't speak anymore. Despite all the years of work and effort you put into raising this kid, none of it ended up mattering, they hate you now and they're just a massive disappointment to you in the end.

The threat of the plane banner to fire Mike Shula in 2017 was enough to get him let go, maybe try the plane banner. It can be something simple like "Sell the team" haha

I thought he might keel over and die to be honest

We all know it’s a disaster season and Bryce Young is awful. No way to slice it folks, his stats and play on the field has been grade F bad. Meanwhile the QB picked one pick after Bryce Young is playing very well and setting rookie QB records. I think many of us saw a lot more potential in him than in diminutive Bryce Young. Including some on the staff, I’m sure. Given David Tepper’s video about Bryce being a “point guard” and distributing the ball, some nonsense like that, there had to be some detractors on the staff who wanted Stroud instead. Maybe it goes all the way up to Reich. I could see him preferring Stroud who had more of a prototype QB size and skill set. Either way I have a feeling as the Panthers inevitably fail their way into a 6th straight losing season that we will see at least some lower level scout or coach randomly fired because they speak up about how dumb it was to draft Bryce Young. And good for them to get out of a hell hole job on a franchise that you won’t have a prosperous career anyway. Working for the Panthers has been a horrible career move as of late.

He needs to prove it on the field. Panthers fans are tired of losers and everyone associated with this franchise right now is a giant L word

His arm is twice as strong as Bryce’s arm

Not a bad one the team traded up a ton of resources to get

Defense was decent and did enough to keep the team in the game. Despite the injuries the defense hasn’t completely fallen apart.

Don’t worry I bullied many of them

It’s true. Teddy was good enough to keep the team in the game. But he wasn’t clutch. We’ve just stepped down every QB since Cam. Even PJ f*cking Walker is better than Bryce