MasterAwesome

Maybe if we won one more game and picked one spot later, we could've had him /s

"Part of the process" is about the most vague and meaningless characterization to freak out about. I was technically "part of the process" during our Super Bowl run in 2015, since I attended some games and yelled any time the opposing offense took the field. For all we know, she's sitting in on interviews in an observer role.

That Hard Knocks clip of Jamaal Williams epitomizes why fans arguing about tanking is a futile endeavor. Imagine expecting a guy like that to roll over and quit lol.

To people saying Fields is being held back by his lack of receivers: is there no consideration that these receivers are being held back by a QB who struggles to throw the football? Darnell Mooney for one, looked like a very promising up-and-coming receiver last season and magically seems to have significantly regressed this year. If you look at last year where he caught passes from both Fields and Dalton, here was the split between the two QBs: Mooney catching passes from Fields in 2021: averaged 3.45 catches and 49.8 yards per game (extrapolates to a 847 yard season) Mooney catching passes from Dalton in 2021: averaged 6.14 catches and 72.4 yards per game (extrapolates to a 1231 yard season) Now Mooney catching passes from Fields in 2022: averaged 3.3 catches and 41.1 yards per game (extrapolates to a 699 yard season) That's a huge increase in production catching passes from just a meh QB like Dalton. That production is the difference between a WR2 and a WR1. So is a guy like Mooney really the problem here? Same thing with Claypool. He's supposedly a horrible weapon yet somehow fetched a 2nd round pick in his 3rd season. His production has regressed significantly when catching passes from Fields even if you only look at this season pre-trade and post-trade. 2022 Claypool w/ Steelers: averaged 4 catches and 38.9 yards per game (extrapolates to a 661 yard season) 2022 Claypool w/ Bears: averaged 2 catches and 20.0 yards per game (extrapolates to a 340 yard season) Basically doubled his production catching passes from bad QBs like Trubisky and Pickett. So depending on who is throwing them the football, Mooney/Claypool either look like a legit WR1/2 duo or a meh WR2/3 duo. To be all "poor Justin Fields" without considering his impact on their production is pretty short-sighted.

You're not looking big-picture enough man...they tanked enough to get their franchise QB, now they just need to tank the next 5 seasons to get their franchise LT, franchise WR1, franchise CB, franchise DE, and franchise DT and then the wins will start coming.

Thank you for explaining tanking to me. I'm clearly talking about things from the perspective of the kids, unless you're advocating putting the fathers' self-interests over those of young kids who have little to no concept of tanking for draft position and just want to cheer on their team in the moment.

It's a bit ironic because it was you, @TheBigKat, posting photos of you and your sons traveling to away games, that personally felt like one of the most compelling and inspiring arguments against tanking. Seeing your kids smiling and hyped up to cheer on their favorite team made me think about things from a kid's perspective back when things were simple and pure. But now all I'll be able to picture is you shushing them at games when we score touchdowns like "Don't you understand?!?! Our draft positioning is going to suffer now!!". Smh.

Anybody who thinks losing to a hated divisional rival at home under any circumstances isn't embarrassing, has probably never played a sport in their life. "Shoot guys we almost had them! Great effort, we should all be proud of ourselves!" Remember the Matt Ryan "Get the f@#% off my field!" after a last-second game-winning FG? Yeah I bet there was a lot of pride in our locker room after that game. Posturing about the semantics of the word "embarrassing" is a pretty weak deflection.

Barely limping into the playoffs as the winner of an awful division…I thought we were against that here lol. I do genuinely wonder if Jags fans are upset about getting in or if that’s a uniquely Huddle thing.

Racial discrimination, at least in America, is primarily on the basis of your perceived race (skin color, etc.) rather than your actual lineage because it's based on prejudice, which generally derives from a baseless snapshot outward judgment of someone. If you're white-passing (like McDaniel), then chances are you have the lived experience of a white dude. So using McDaniel as a basis for Ross' racial inclinations one way or another, even if he's biracial, is pretty unreliable.

Firing McDaniel would be an insanely premature rash decision on the heels of a solid first season. But I also think he's being a little overhyped in here. The Dolphins have lost 5 straight after an 8-3 start to the season and went from a top-3 AFC playoff seed to being on the verge of missing the playoffs altogether. As Panthers fans, we are all too familiar with those late-season collapses involving loss after loss after loss and how important coaching factors into that. Yeah Tua has been injured, but Teddy is a top-tier back-up and you'd hope an offensive guru like McDaniel would still be able to manage temporarily with Teddy + Tyreek Hill + Waddle. As an OC, I'd be thinking "daaaamn *Mc*Daniel" (stupid zoomer reference) and that he's pretty top-tier. But as a HC, you're responsible for the whole team not just the offense. And at the end of the day, the Dolphins this year have progressed leaps and bounds on offense (having the best offensive skill player in the league surely doesn't hurt) but have regressed quite a bit on defense. The Dolphins' record went from 5-11 -> 10-6 -> 9-8 under Flores, and now 8-8 under McDaniel. So at best they've remained stagnant from last season, which you could argue is a disappointment considering the Tyreek Hill acquisition and Tua being in his third year. All that being said, I'd be pretty excited to land McDaniel here if he were to be fired. I think he has had a very promising rookie season, especially considering he has no head coaching experience. I think we're seeing him take some coaching lumps to end this season which I have no doubt he's learning from, so we'd be the beneficiaries of that acquired experience if we'd end up hiring him as our HC.

I actually had like an hour-long conversation with a PFF analyst last week at a party where I picked his brain about how they do their grading lol. He admitted there are always going to be subjective judgment calls cause they’ll never know for sure 100% of the play calls and assignments of each player. But they also have a ton of former coaches and players that they employ in consulting roles who give more credible front-line insight so it’s not like it’s just some Madden nerds sitting there making unilateral decisions when it comes to reviewing film. There’s also a lot of oversight with multiple analysts and management personnel reviewing each piece of film so those grades are an aggregate consensus from many sets of eyes.

Having the fortune of being a UNC grad currently living in SC, imagine how annoying it was to be lectured by my own coworkers how in fact nobody calls UNC "Carolina" (apparently even their own graduates) and that "Carolina" = USC. Basically the opposite of reality. I'm not one to use this expression other than facetiously, but I almost had to bust out the "bless your hearts" on them.

PJ had the highest grade out of any QB in the NFL all year. For his performance against the Bucs.

I hope not…if I’m the Panthers, I’m 50/50 on bringing Darnold back and I spend the last game of the season letting him loose in the pass game to help me make that decision.

I think the rationale behind opposing a DC head coach is associating them with a conservative offense coupled with an over-reliance on a strong defense (i.e. a DC’s bread and butter). Wilks seems to fit that mold based on what we’ve seen…if Ryan can buck that stereotype and hire an innovative OC to hand the offensive reins to, then I’d be gain. Then again, this is the DC that got diced up by Jarrett Stidham

Excuse me…where’s the option for Intramural Flag Football team??

“Defending superbowl champs” is a generous way of referring to the 5-10 Rams. His master plan was to force his way out of the Panthers to go to a worse team?

He had a pretty awful game against the Packers last week…you guys have a short memory lol. So far he has played well every other game with the Rams.

Who is BC? Corral? Give me Darnold, Corral, and a raw talent like Anthony Richardson and I’m happy.

Why do you guys fall for Linville’s trolling? Imagine giving credence to someone who admits to not watching our games. The dude formulates his arguments entirely from box scores it’s very convincing if you’re in third grade.

Eh I dunno he talked a lot about how we were “hungrier” than they were. Does anyone refer to coaches as “hungry”? That generally implies a lack of effort from the players on the field.

Some people value winning, some people value garbage time stats. Tomato tomatoe.

I would argue that what you just laid out more-so highlights Wilks' conservative nature. He appears to stick with the status quo and is reluctant to change things unless absolutely necessary. To some degree, that's an important quality of a HC because we don't want a guy who makes rash impulsive decisions. Consider though: we give Wilks credit for playing Bozeman over Elflein but remember that even Wilks started Elflein in his first game taking over, and that he only turned to Bozeman after Elflein's injury once he was placed on IR. We also credit him for giving TMJ more snaps but again that was only after Robbie Anderson imploded on the field and forced Wilks' hand into trading him. But yeah I definitely agree with your succinct summary so we can just leave it at that lol. Appreciate the cordial exchange.

What do you mean by Wilks trusted Baker and PJ over Sam? He literally cut Baker and currently has a healthy PJ sitting on the bench in favor of Darnold lol. Do you mean he was more aggressive with them in the pass game? If so, I don't know if you recall PJ's first start of the season against the Rams under Wilks, but it was quite possibly the most egregious lack of trust I've ever seen of any QB in my lifetime. He had one completion beyond the line of scrimmage, and that was 1 yard out lol. And if you recall the end of the first half, Wilks opted to go into half-time with all 3 timeouts instead of calling a timeout and letting PJ try to score with over a minute left and 2 timeouts. They opened things up for PJ more in his second start against the Bucs, but I think we are seeing that same trend with Darnold as well from his first start to his second start (compare his passing charts between the two weeks). Baker only had one start under Wilks and then subsequently was cut, so again not sure how you figure Wilks trusted him more. Don't get me wrong, I sure as hell don't want our gameplan to be to let Sam Darnold sit back and try to carve up defenses. I just think we can't be so one-dimensional like we are now. We should definitely be a run-first team but still sprinkle in enough of a passing game to prevent the opposing team from just stacking the box on every play. Especially if the run clearly isn't working, we can't be so stubborn to stick with it and put ourselves in 3rd and longs every drive. I think CRA said it correctly: Wilks is part of that old-school ultra conservative Ron Rivera type philosophy that gets figured out very quickly.