MasterAwesome

I mean it just sounds like you're describing optimism...yes, there are optimistic posters here lol especially in the offseason when there's a clean slate and your imagination can run wild for your seasonal aspirations. There's a huge leap IMO to go from "optimistic mindset" to "positivity only". The latter suggests that these people are wholly intolerant of any criticism towards the team. You can vaguely allude to this menacing shadow group of Huddlers but I'm willing to bet that if you actually gave me some names of who you think falls in this category, I could spend less than 30 seconds scrolling through their post history and find quite a lot of criticism towards the team...or "negativity", if you will. I would maybe be willing to concede iamhubby/Gerry Green as the singular poster who you could argue would fall under the "positivity only" mindset. Basically all the others are people who simply hold more nuanced positions than "everyone and everything sucks" and then get thrown into that category because they don't toe the line of the Huddle's Mean Girls.

The notion that there are posters who only want positivity and will not tolerate a single ounce of criticism towards the team is laughable on its face. This characterization is very deliberate, with the intention of painting a certain group of posters as delusional, intolerant, irrational, unreasonable, etc. simply because they are annoyed by every topic being instantly derailed by the same talking points ad nauseum. Even the ones that almost definitely inspired the creation of this thread (unless it was just purely coincidental that Linville started this thread immediately after getting into it with people in the QB School thread) are saying that Bryce Young is struggling because of his bad supporting cast. That is BY DEFINITION a criticism of the team as a whole. "Positivity only posters" would suggest that people think our 0-6 start is amazing and going just as planned and our future is incredibly bright.

I know it makes some people grumble, but I like to use Joe Burrow as a basis of comparison for Bryce because I think Burrow is also a player without any elite physical qualities (other than being tall) who has risen to prominence as an elite QB once his FO started to help him with some talent. So let's take a look at Burrow's passing charts at the start of his rookie season. I've crunched the numbers and Burrow did not complete his first deep pass (25+ yards) until his sixth game of his rookie season. In fact, he was a truly impressive 0 for 17 on deep passes until that point. Just an interesting little fun fact. I know I know, "look at all those 300 yard passing games!!" - but this is a thread specifically about deep passes which is the element I'm comparing here.

This whole idea of a "positivity only" thread is weird and condescending. Like "okay you kids go on and play in the sandbox with your sunshine and rainbows, while us adults go and talk about grown-up things like how Bryce Young literally cannot throw a ball further than 3 yards".

"Bryce Young is dead last in Air Yards per attempt" ..."Okay whatever Bryce Young is second to last in Air Yards behind an injured QB" ..."Okay sorry Bryce Young is third to last in Air Yards" ..."Okay it's not even really about that stat at all" That was quite the journey.

Well, third to last...but also virtually identical to Patrick Mahomes. Which is kinda my point - if we're keying in on a stat that puts Bryce Young on the same level as the best QB in the league, then I don't think that stat is as telling as we want it to be. As I said, I would like him to take more deep shots but I think that largely boils down to our desire for "flashy" plays rather than truly what's holding this offense back. I don't know if the lack of deep shots would even crack my Top 5 of things wrong with our offense at this point.

Can you share your data? I'm seeing Joe Burrow dead last at 6.0. And Bryce is at 6.4, 0.1 behind Mahomes (whose longest completed pass traveled 35 yards). I'd like Young to take more deep shots to keep the defense honest, but my biggest issue with him which I've seen since Week 1, is his indecisiveness and his lack of an effective internal clock. Whether it's launching the deep ball or throwing the check down or anything in between, he needs to get the ball out. Without watching the All-22 each week, I still can't say how much of it is our receivers being absolutely blanketed on every play vs. Bryce just not seeing guys/progressing through his reads. I've seen enough clips of him not targeting open receivers to know that he is part of the problem, but I still think playcalling is the biggest issue.

It's all good, tbh I probably won't read it (or at least respond to it) until Monday anyways. I tend to treat the Huddle like a M-F 9-5 job to pass some downtime at my actual M-F 9-5 job. I don't usually spend a lot of my personal time on here besides maybe a little browsing here and there.

Well to your credit you have always qualified it with "on paper" or "going into the season". But there's literally no other point in bringing all of that up other than to be arguing that we have similar supporting casts, unless I'm missing something. Are you denying that that's what you're doing in these quotes? It would appear to me at least, that you're doing the same exact thing I'm arguing against - opting to evaluate their supporting casts "on paper" rather than evaluating them on the field this season. And this is all in the context of arguing against people who are partially excusing Bryce's poor start to the season because of his weak supporting cast. I'll lay out the scene below...and for simplicity's sake, I'll just go ahead and cast you and I as the lead actors: Me: "Of course Bryce has been playing bad...his o-line and receivers are awful" You: "Well Stroud's o-line and receivers suck too...but he's still playing great. Much better than Bryce." Me: "His o-line and receivers haven't been nearly as bad as Bryce's" And that's the point where we'd basically be inserting your quotes above.

So are you guys just literally watching Stroud YouTube highlights or something? How do you say this above, but also very confidently assert that Stroud's o-line and receivers have been just as bad as Bryce's when you admit to not really watching his film? Where exactly does that assertion come from? Oh right, because "injuries"...instead of something silly like how they are actually performing.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees here...the broader point is that there's just flat out more being put on Bryce's plate. Pointing out a singular play where Stroud made an adjustment doesn't mean they're being asked to do the same things. Even his awkward explanation of it (where he didn't even think Dalton understood what he was trying to say) and the fact that there's a whole article surrounding it, highlights how exceptional it is...and I mean that two-fold. Exceptional in that it was an outstanding play, and exceptional in that it's outside the norm. Have you been watching both QBs? Do you think the amount of pre-snap activity and adjustments looks more-or-less the same to you from both QBs? Whether Bryce is doing that of his own accord or he's being asked to do that, he's simply doing too much. It's clear that all the offseason talk about his smarts and processing was way overhyped and mounted way too high of expectations for what we thought he should/would be doing instantly from Week 1. He seems to be in his head too much, which is something I thought you'd understand because it sounds an awful lot like what Fields came out and said earlier this season before he put together back-to-back incredible performances. Yeah I know Bryce's brain is his strength, but expecting him to immediately outsmart NFL vets/DCs with decades of coaching experience, while also getting acclimated to NFL game speed, while also building rapport with an entirely new receiving corps, while also mastering a new playbook, while also running for his life behind literally the 31st ranked o-line according to PFF...it was way too tall of an order in hindsight. Sounds like we're finally going to simplify things for Bryce and allow the rookie to be a rookie, instead of a savant.

This guy has to be a plant...or an Igo alt. This kind of thread only serves as fodder for the usual suspects. It's like dropping fish food in an aquarium and seeing all the little fishies BOLTING over for a little morsel.

Let's hope so...that's the one game I'm attending this season lol.

Well we're just getting bogged down by that outside noise/chatter again. If you're not able to move past the pre-draft stuff, that's fine, but it's just wholly unproductive...which is why I couldn't care less about discussing stuff from 6+ months ago. I'm more interested in the current and future state of the Panthers rather than constantly living in the past, which is why my posts revolve around evaluating Bryce on his own merits (because he's our QB) and his prospects for success as a potential franchise QB. Rather than what so-and-so said before the draft and how other teams' QBs are looking. I can't help but roll my eyes a little because if the team does something that you agree with, then to the crowd who disagreed with that move, your advice to them is "look, what's done is done. Move on...no point in arguing about it". The big examples being the CMC trade and the Burns non-trade last year - you were a big supporter of trading CMC and keeping Burns. So people who wanted to keep CMC and trade Burns and would complain about it over and over, you'd tell them there's no point in complaining about it ad nauseum. That Frank I can at least empathize with. But the other Frank...oh boy...god forbid the Panthers do something he disagrees with, because the rest of us have to hear about it for months and months and months, if not years. That poor horse is getting beaten to a bloody pulp.

You could easily make the case that the Colts look better with Minshew under center vs. Richardson. They're 3-0 with Minshew starting/playing the majority of the game (due to Richardson injuries) and 0-2 with Richardson taking the majority of the snaps. That's not a knock against Richardson...he has obviously looked promising. That's an example of a vet outperforming a rookie but a team knowing that it's in their best interest as a franchise to put their rookie out there to take his lumps rather than "who looks better right now". I doubt anyone in the Colts organization is surprised that Minshew is the more effective passer of the two, 5 games into Richardson's young career. I know I know, "Steph Curry of the NFL" "Drew Brees Jr." "Most pro ready QB" etc. etc. but remove all the off-the-field hype and fluff and noise about Bryce and allow him to simply be a rookie playing the hardest position in the NFL.

Exactly...I didn't make that claim lightly.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxvhKxFDJ9T_Z0sJewLbwtvP47LJkdVD_Q?si=bmeLEyfiV-f3S_lM Here's an out with ~30 air yards. Another one that Bryce threw before the receiver even made his cut and turned around, despite how impressive it would have been if he had put more velocity into it and hit the back of Mingo's helmet to appease some people here.

He threw it before Thielen even turned around...did you want him to bullet that and hit Thielen in the back of the helmet? This might be your worst take yet.

I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. Bills traded for Diggs for Josh Allen, Eagles traded for AJ Brown for Hurts, Jags traded for Calvin Ridley for Lawrence, Dolphins traded for Tyreek Hill for Tua, Bears traded for DJ Moore for Fields, Cardinals traded for DeAndre Hopkins for Kyler Murray. And those are just the trades...not even considering the draft. So I don't get the snark for the Panthers doing something that basically every other team in the NFL does for their young QB. You draft a QB high, you go and get him a receiver...that seems to be the norm these days. If this tweet is true (which there seems to be dispute about), then it's an exploratory phone call. Something I would suspect happens far more often around the league than we hear about, with the vast majority not amounting to anything.

I would have thought that's just an average Friday night for you.

Yeah it was a running joke on these boards and was Juan's thing (along with homoerotic commentary). I get it if it's against the rules, but it feels like clickbait threads are moderated much more heavily than personal attacks, bumping old threads, and off-topic threads on the main forum during the season which are all supposedly also against the rules.

Poor Juan has been neutered...a shadow of his former self. This title doesn't quite have the same juice as "Panthers on the verge of trading for superstar WR".

Sorry I wasn’t trying to direct anything at you specifically. I kinda used your post as a launching pad to just speak broadly because I see Cam brought up a lot in regard to expectations of Bryce. You seem like a reasonable dude.

I hear Cam brought up a lot for comparison which obviously makes sense as a Panthers’ #1 pick who immediately looked the part. But what doesn’t make sense to me is that the whole time Cam was doing Cam things and putting the team on his back (even during his MVP season), all of us were BEGGING the FO to get him a supporting cast. That’s the key detail that seems to be missing in all these comparisons. It was never “oh he’s a #1 overall QB, he’s supposed to elevate the team around him, we don’t need to give him a good supporting. He’s just doing what he’s supposed to he doing”. He’d put the team on his back and we’d all be in awe like “Holy poo look at how incredible this guy is with this awful team around him”. To this day, we still talk about how the Panthers failed Cam. But for some reason with Bryce, our *expectation* now is exactly what we criticized the Panthers for doing with Cam. “Oh he’s a #1 overall pick, he doesn’t need good pieces around him, he should elevate everyone else”.

Did they not expect Shaq Mason to start when they signed him to a 3-year $36 million contract? And this just tells me that their back-ups and 3rd stringers may very well be better than our starters lol. Icky is at a 59.8 PFF rating for the year for example, while their back-up to the back-up LT (Deculus) is at a 62.6. Their back-up RT (Fant) is at 67.5 for the year, while Moton is at 62.8. Bozeman is at a 59.5, while their rookie 6th round C (Patterson) is at 60.3. In fact, they grade out better at every individual position on the o-line compared to us. Shaq Mason > Throckmorton at RG, and whoever the hell they have been putting at LG for damn sure is better than the worst-rated o-lineman in the league in Zavala (27 PFF rating). Didn't the Texans just get two of these coveted starters back last week against the Falcons (Tunsil and Howard)? And yet CJ probably had his worst performance since his debut in Week 1? Chandler Zavala went down against the Lions and I think most people agree that our o-line immediately looked better. Calvin Throckmorton is like our 3rd string OG and he has looked pretty solid himself. So it's a lot more complicated than "starters vs. back-ups", no?