ladypanther

I have not posted here in the past 2-3 weeks except for a couple of posts in the Lounge.  Like @Mr. Scot I am about done.  Have been lurking here some and reading a few posts here and there. Mr. Scot's post prompted me to post at least 1 more time.

He and I have communicated some so I have been aware of what he and LCF have been going through and as always wish the best for them.  As I would for anyone here.

Just as someone said earlier I came here from the old Observer forum.  I was “recruited”  here by NanceUSMC. A great football poster from the past.  I still have a message saved from him from years ago.   Times were different.  There were so many knowledgeable football people....quite a few of them women. I learned a lot.  The nature of debate was different. I met a lot of good people.  That was also back in the day when we had the Huddle tailgate.  Each week someone sponsored the food and everyone gave donations so that we could buy hundreds of bicycles for Toys for Tots. ( @Zod    ...would love to know the total number of bikes that were donated)  We met each other and had a community. Things were different when we actually had face to face contact a few times a year.  Very few of those people remain today. As the nature and quality of the “discussion” changed a lot of the good ones left.

I hung around.  There were still some good football posters around and there was still some good information and debate to be found.

Now....it is just too different.  Too many personal attacks.  A good thread gets derailed by about the 3rd or 4th post.  Nothing but hate and insults.   There is nothing constructive or informative or clever about posting the pic of Tepper as a clown...have seen that one about a hundred times. ( By the way...I never wanted him but many here fell in love with the brass balls thing. They loved it because it was so badass.  To me, that smacked of an enormous ego...no respect for others, superiority and tyrannical. The bully gets his way.  I wanted the guy from SC who was a true Panther fan...that was his motivation.  Tepper wanted a trophy and to be part of another rich man's club. Well, he's in the club and the team has been a mess since).

Anyone can bash the team, players, and coaches.  There seems to be a contest here to see who can do it the most. There is also little respect for others and way too often a lack of decency.  Example...I have stayed out of the Game thread but Sunday, I pulled it up while Chandler Zavala was down...CBS kept going to commercials, would not show anything, and the Viking fans in the stands looked horrified.  CBS was saying little/nothing...so I looked in the game thread in case there was someone who was listening to radio...or some other source who might have said more. What did I find?  There were posters concerned and there were a couple who trashed Zavala as a player.  And then there was SpecialJuan who said that Person reported  Zavala would never walk again (he should be banned for a long long time for that shitt). I immediately was sorry that I gone there. Under the circumstance I expected better and got so much worse.

There are some good people here but they get drowned out by the others. There are attempts to have a football discussion and I admire those who try. Maybe this is all going the way that our general society is going...not sure how to explain it but here we are.  I miss what we had and wish things were different but they are not. For a while, I'll still peek in some and will check out the Lounge.

It is a tough time to be a Panther fan but I've been a fan from the beginning and not going to change that.