MasterAwesome

Right...that's my point. There's no one archetype of a leader. Some people seem to think a leader is someone who is fiery and screams a lot. Like I guess Travis Kelce screaming in the face of Andy Reid in the Super Bowl must have given these people chills as the epitome of leadership. So that's what people want and expect from Bryce, but for better or worse he ain't that...although he does have that side to him as well as was evident during the primetime game against the Bears. I'm not even saying Bryce is for sure some kind of amazing leader. But I think judging his leadership off how much he yells and his team's W/L record is asinine. For example the camera would often pan to him on the sideline standing up and rallying his o-line. That's more of the stuff I associate with leadership.

I agree that we had a distinct lack of leadership, but I don't know how you can begin to assign the blame to any one individual player. A head coach, sure. But I think if your team of grey-haired NFL coaches and multi-year NFL vets has to rely on a 22-year-old rookie to be the sole leader or else everything comes crashing down, then you've got some serious problems in that locker room that go far beyond the QB. Saying "we were a bad team, ergo Bryce Young is a bad leader" just seems like a weird leap to make. Surely your criteria for a QB's leadership isn't as simple as his team's W/L record...right? I'm just curious then, do you think Cam Newton was a good leader every odd season, but a bad leader every even season? Or is it more likely that team performance is an unreliable metric for leadership? Blast Young's arm strength and physical size all you want, that's fair game. But baselessly questioning Young's leadership makes you no better than the people you railed against for questioning Stroud's character in the offseason. Let's not be one of those people who apply principles inconsistently depending on whether it's someone you like or dislike.

So you're telling me you came in here to complain about something someone said about Mingo at some time in the past in some other thread that actually has nothing to do with anything anyone said about him in here. Got it...not sure why you proudly clarified that as if that makes you sound reasonable. At least it makes more sense why you just made a general passive-aggressive comment about these mysterious people who say Mingo is the worst NFL receiver we ever drafted instead of actually directly quoting a post, since there was nothing to quote. Also can you clarify your basis for comparison as to how Stroud brings an undisputed presence of leadership while questioning Young's leadership? What exactly are you basing that off of?

It's so strange...you complain about people treating Bryce with kiddie gloves, yet you find it so offensive that people say Mingo is not a good route runner? That's where criticism goes over the line for you? That's more coddling than I've seen anyone do for Bryce. Don't talk about people white knighting for Bryce and then be this sensitive to the mildest of criticisms for Mingo. Mingo had 3 catches for 21 yards with Dalton throwing the ball 58 times so it doesn't bode particularly well for your thought experiment. If you think our offense looked so much more effective with Dalton and yet Mingo is putting up the same consistently minimal production with both QBs, then that would suggest Mingo is at fault for his own struggles.

I just don't understand why it bothers people so much and why you guys can't just not click the thread (or put the bot on ignore). Even amongst a standard fluff piece, there are pieces of factual information I enjoy extracting from these articles that I hadn't heard otherwise. Something as simple as Bryce and Canales getting together for 3-hour long dinners to build rapport and reflect on last season's struggles. Maybe not groundbreaking news, but it still provides more value and insight to me than a hundredth mock draft or a thread discussing whether we're going to even win a single game next year.

Yes please do...the "fluff" is just a small percentage of what it posts; it also often breaks news and posts articles with good factual info that nobody else here would have linked otherwise. I don't see why we can't just apply the same rule we use broadly of "if you aren't interested, don't click it". People can ignore topics posted by the bot instead of swarming to the thread to post about how much those posts bother them.

I mean, I like a solid well-timed "I mean" as much as the next guy, but...it's getting a bit out of control.

Yeah that's reasonable. I think I take more issue with people in here discounting a signing just because they came from a bad team, because I see that a lot (including with Luvu when we signed him). Your take on Luvu being the type of player we should go for because the Jets' D was loaded is a more nuanced approach than I think most people take in here. I can definitely see both sides, which ultimately leads me to the probably uncontroversial take of evaluating players on their own merits and not harping too much on what team they came from.

Keep in mind Frankie Luvu came from an awful Jets team's trash bin. I dunno, I can almost see the opposite approach in favor of scouring through bad teams' rosters. Who do you think is more likely to have a hidden gem with untapped potential? A team like us with a knack for bad coaching, inability to develop players, and playing players out of position? Or a team like the Chiefs or Steelers? If those teams let a player go, I'm going to be skeptical and wonder if they're a product of their system who was overperforming relative to their skill and talent level. That being said, I'm not advocating trading assets for these players (I'm wary of trading assets period) like we did with Henderson, but I'm not opposed to "dumpster diving" Free Agency for players who just came from bad teams.

If you aren't even willing to concede something so innocuous like Bryce Young having a genuine private workout with his receivers (when shown an actual article documenting it) or Bryce Young being genuinely 5'10 (which is already very short for a QB) despite his official measurement being taken at the Combine, then don't clutch your pearls and get offended if someone thinks you're a hater and/or simply questions a claim you've made but not backed up. Take some responsibility for how you're being perceived on these boards. You're painting yourself as a dishonest actor when you show a repeated pattern of unwillingness to accept anything that conflicts with your opinion.

I've never seen a group of people blow a single game so out of proportion than y'all do for Andy Dalton. Were you among the group of posters who thought we found our franchise QB when Kyle Allen and Sam Darnold played pretty well in their first few starts with us? I would assume so, if we were being consistent here. But no, you were dismissing the hype and cautioning to hold off as they were likely to come crashing down. All of a sudden now, Dalton's singular game where he threw the ball 58 times (almost 20 more attempts than Bryce had in his season-high) is enough to draw conclusions and pass judgment. It would be silly of me to argue that Bryce > Dalton because his win% on the season was 12.5% vs. Dalton's 0%, right? But those are the kind of foolish arguments you open yourself up to when you want to compare them based on a sample size of one Dalton start. Dalton is a lot of things, including a 13-year NFL veteran QB with 163 starts under his belt. And you guys are so eager to compare him to a rookie QB whose acclimation to the NFL was accompanied by one of the worst o-line/WR/coaching trio to have cursed our eyes through the television. Dalton is experienced enough to make the most out of an awful situation...Bryce had to try and learn that on the fly, and understandably struggled. Yes Bryce was part of the problem too, but I can understand why. This year IMO is when the smoke starts to clear and we get a better sense of just how much of the problem he was.

Well you're ignoring the parts preceding the rapport; route running and awareness are pretty important prerequisites. No amount of rapport is going to overcome erratic route running. I don't think it's a coincidence that Bryce had the most success connecting with a 33-year-old very slow and unathletic Adam Thielen. Because their strengths complement one another. Thielen is the type of receiver Bryce needs IMO, not necessarily athletic freaks. And that's why I'm eager to see how Diontae Johnson does in our offense because he seems (on paper at least) to be a Thielen-type who can get open but with some actual YAC ability.

Oh okay I didn't know we were talking about college. Cause people still talk about Bryce Young's 5'10 height in here like it's a conspiracy, posting pictures of him standing next to so-and-so person (Mina Kimes, Drew Brees, etc.) and acting like he's secretly 5'3 or something. I don't think anyone ever took his 6'0 194 Alabama listing seriously. Colleges routinely overstate their players' height (see link), but for some reason with Bryce Young, it's a huge deal what his college listed him as. And not only that...but Bryce is the one lying, not Alabama. https://sports.yahoo.com/many-nfl-combine-participants-are-significantly-shorter-than-listed-on-college-roster-013654441.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALoitnBT4i6jUJU3exaPYjrbNA0P0c0PHITAA9tTLd3vWYEDeGXBjomNGx-m5YN-mWLBXwUTqvDJR_y97BNnNHatrUnYuMcYGCX8pe35AxyXW8pRmpzdXTRa5aMHETWYplOjs0U8OpLJnUqt6b41hSeuwyt-6QhiVcWWSCUU0kcE

Well, the NFL analyst who actually tweeted out the clip that was linked in here has an opinion on that: I'm inclined to agree with him since Mingo is just sprinting full speed towards the sideline. Sure, if Bryce had an absolute rocket launcher of an arm then he probably could've snuck that inbounds while also leading Mingo, but realistically speaking...that looked like a lack of awareness to me. It wouldn't be the first or second time Mingo was criticized for lack of awareness during the season. But beyond that, I think the bigger picture is that Bryce and the WRs largely didn't seem to be on the same page other than Thielen. I still think Bryce is the type of QB who needs good route runners with good awareness who he has rapport with. Guys who he trusts to be where he expects them to be when he releases the football.

Bryce has always been listed as 5'10 and his official Combine measurement was 5'10 and 1/8", so how did he lie about his height?

I think it's also because virtually every topic gets derailed into a Bryce Young snark thread within like 5 posts every time. If we sign some o-linemen, it's specifically because Bryce Young = short and bad. If we don't sign a receiver, it's because he didn't want to play with a crappy QB like Bryce. Hell, even if we don't sign a no-name 4th string linebacker with 4 tackles last year, it's specifically because he didn't want to be on the same team as 5'10 Bryce Young (yes, an actual post in the Justin Strnad thread).

I mean that's exactly what we did with Everette Brown lol I know it's easy to psychologically repress that traumatic memory as Panthers fans. That wasn't even a particularly high 2nd round pick either (43rd pick), which makes it even sadder.

They spent way more on Kenny Pickett than we did on Darnold…you seem to be conveniently leaving him out in your praise. This “smart thing” they did is the equivalent of what we did last season with Baker. Every team does smart and stupid things. Also I’m curious what you thought about Tomlin at the podium at the end of last season feeding their fan base BS on Pickett being their guy, and then turning around and trading him in the offseason for peanuts. Cause I know how much you despise when coaches are dishonest and deceptive about their intentions. I hope you’re keeping that same energy for Tomlin.

It's not that people were specifically anti-Evero, but wanted to completely clean house after last season (i.e. getting rid of Evero too). I know CRA was one of them.

For those who were disappointed we retained Evero instead of fully cleaning house: this is part of what Evero brings...his connections. I'm sure a big selling point was reuniting with his old DB coach.

He played in all 17 games last season but on a pretty low snap count (25% of total defensive snaps). So probably another situational guy, but maybe Evero sees more of a role for him.

The implication is that the offense as a whole was so awful that it was hard to properly evaluate him. It's not like this is some homer Huddle take...we've seen this same sentiment echoed by actual analysts, commentators, and multiple NFL executives/coaches/scouts. Although the latter was apparently some coordinated psy-op by the rest of the league to try and trick us into keeping Bryce so that we don't rise to power. And yes Bryce was undoubtedly part of the problem last year and his performance also negatively impacted those around him. But if you have a poor performing QB, o-line, receiving corps, and coaching staff, then how the hell do you properly evaluate each of them individually when they all so directly impact one another? Well, just keep one of them the same (Bryce in our case) and bolster the rest and if we still suck and have the same issues as last year, then chances are Bryce is the problem. Or a major contributor to the problem. We should have a better idea this year and I guarantee most of Bryce's supporters will slink away if he has the type of season he had last year.

You're being sensitive if you interpreted my tone as angry. If you can't handle being challenged without getting defensive then tbh this is a strange place for you to spend so much of your time. In general I think of a plan in pretty broad terms, as in I want a general sense of what the team is trying to accomplish during their offseason rather than just a bunch of seemingly random moves with no rhyme or reason. If your personal bar for accepting that there's a plan is that you need to know how many plays in our playbook involve a playaction pass specifically to Diontae Johnson, then IMO that's a really weird impractical standard but at least your disagreement makes more sense to me. But I don't think listening to Luke Combs speaking on the Panthers, (which many have pointed out, sounds like the take of a very casual fan) that when he says he "doesn't know what the plan is", that he means he's not sure whether we're going to run 35% 5-step drops or 38% 5-step drops and exactly what percentage of hitch routes vs. slants vs. drag routes Smith-Marsette is going to run, etc.

You do understand that a *PLAN* is detached from a particular outcome, right? If I *plan* to become a multi-billionaire by age 30 but I fall short, that doesn't mean I didn't have a plan. It means that my plan failed. So I don't know why you keep pointing to our failures as proof that we have never had a plan. I have no idea if we have the coaches or talent to make things work either, that's why I said the success of our plan is TBD. But the plan is clear to me: focus on fixing the offense and evaluating/developing Bryce Young in the process. All the major offseason acquisitions point towards that being our plan. Do you disagree?