SmokinwithWilly

Don't really care to emulate another team. This team needs people running it that can see what's on the horizon and be a step ahead instead of a mile behind. We knew a decade ago when they limited contact on receivers at the line that the NFL was transitioning to a more offense friendly league. We've hired coaches from the 80's mindset and haven't wavered really. A youngish visionary that really understands what it takes to build a front office and organization. That's what I want in a president/ceo. The rest can come from there.

Fantasy football and Vegas heavily influence the way the game has changed IMO. Multi billion dollar business focused around another multi billion dollar business that feed each other. It's going to stay that way until consumers start getting bored, then expect some new rule changes.

This off season sealed the deal for me on Fitts. I thought maybe it was Rhule influencing the picks, but he did the same poo again. He panicked and reached for a guy when he screwed up taking Mingo. Nothing against Mingo, but edge rushers are harder to come by than WRs. You have to know the value of certain positions in the draft. Who knew that there would be a run on edge rushers? Oh I don't know. Maybe everybody.

You said there was never any sign of him putting the littlest finger on influencing the team to sign any players contract. Tepper may not have signed that contract but he was definitely forcing everything leading up to it before not pulling the trigger. There was an offer on the table from Carolina when Watson dropped the Panthers from places he would be willing to play. Just because Tepper didn't want to hand over 180m to a guy that might never take another snap in the NFL , because the NFL hadnt handed down their ruling yet, doesn't mean he wasn't involved in decisions for the future of the team. Would you hand over $50m a year to someone who might never be at work on Monday? I'm not saying he made the BY decision. I have no idea. I do know that he's made his opinion well known throughout the building before, and as an employee, when your boss is pressing his influence, you tend to listen to keep your paycheck, whether you agree or not. But to say there's no sign he's ever pushed his influence into decisions regarding players against the best interests of the team is naive because we've seen him do exactly that very thing.

I hate you based on sheer principle.

Or two 2nds can be Davonte Adams and Ryan Khalil. Teams build through the draft. You need to get those players on rookie contracts. Trading costs. FAs costs. Draft picks are cheap. 1st and 2nds are gold when building a team.

Is Michael Jordan still a FA? *sarcasm* but not really. Maybe sorta.

KB is going to always be one of those what ifs. Everyone reacts differently to grief and combined with the knee injury, the guy just imploded.

Don't forget, Hurney was trying to trade up for him too.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/panthers-moving-on-from-nfl-trade-deadline-interest-in-deshaun-watson-sources-say/ "Panthers executive Steven Drummond is very close with Texans top exec Jack Easterby, the Texans would prefer to ship Watson to the NFC, all things being equal, and Tepper's motivation to land Watson should not be overlooked. He has made it clear throughout his organization for some time that he covets the Texans' franchise QB." https://nfltraderumors.co/panthers-owner-david-tepper-reportedly-highly-motivated-to-land-deshaun-watson/ "According to Jason La Canfora, Panthers owner David Tepper is consumed by the prospect of landing Texans QB Deshaun Watson if and when Houston makes him available via trade." https://catcrave.com/2021/02/18/deshaun-watson-david-tepper-final-say/ However, the influence of David Tepper cannot be understated. The team owner has been bold with his moves since buying the franchise from Jerry Richardson and if the billionaire has any say in the matter, Watson will be on the Panthers next season. Doesn't sound at all like an owner that's not heavily involved in the process, now does it?

When you're talking about the face of a billion dollar business, that decision isn't being pushed without the owner. You said there wasn't a whisper of Tepper putting any influence into that. I'm calling BS. There's no way in hell I allow a man accused of 24 counts of sexual misconduct to be the face of my business, especially when every other owner is sitting quiet, without being heavily involved and influencing that decision. All this was happening before the settlement agreements. He was willing to do this without knowing what the outcome was going to be. Do you know what that would do to the image of this franchise and its value? I don't give a poo how good the meatballs are, no way Tepper is letting Rhule cost him potentially billions without being heavily involved in the decision making process.

The 9ers got fuging lucky and there's no denying it. Mr. Irrelevant just happened to end up being the best QB on their team. If they didn't have Purdy, they'd be fugged.

It does count because he made it very clear that the franchise stood behind him when every other team in the NFL wanted nothing to do with him during that whole mess. We restructured contracts and made a crap ton of room for a player that never said he was coming here or even wanted to. Watson said he would play in Carolina if he had to, but he never actually wanted to play here. I'm sorry, but as a franchise, you don't stand behind an accused sexual predator with that many accusations without the owner's backing. No freaking way.

Seattle is another artificial turf field. Soft tissue injuries just keep piling up.

All of these moves have issues after the fact but at the time, they made sense to a degree. Gilmore - a DPOY in a young CB room. I remember an interview with him and he was talking about how coaches can only teach so much, but it's on the field that you see what some of these receivers do, how to look for it and how to recognize it. That's a very good presence to have in the locker room, especially with young CBs. We should have re-signed him, but Tepper wanted Watson, team be damned. CMC - Good haul for his durability issues over the 2 years prior. Of course, CMC was also pretty much done here. You couldn't realistically expect him to lay his future health and career on the line for the process. We weren't buying Rhule's BS, do you really think he did? He was done in Carolina. Young - too soon to tell but Fitts will be forever tied to this trade and pick Henderson - a 3rd round pick and JAG TE for a top 10 draft pick who was considered a very talented college CB in Urban Meyer's dog house in the shitshow that was Jax. Made sense for a trade. Scenery change can have significant impact, look at CMC in SF. Darnold - We had no bargaining leverage here, even as the only ones inquiring about Darnold. T2G was gone, we had no capable backup, much less a starter on our roster. We needed Darnold and the Jets knew it. You can't play poker with your cards face up on the table. We overpaid because we had already played our hand with Bridgewater. I'm not defending Fitts as a GM. I think he's done a rather piss poor job, especially this offseason without Rhule. He's made some major mistakes that have hurt the team that weren't too difficult to point out at the time by just a regular Sunday GM. He should be done after this season is over. Unless something seriously changes, so should Frank. I don't think Fitts is the guy. He's actually made more egregious errors, with Young yet TBD. Panicking to trade up for Corral - 3rd and 4th for a project cut in 1 year Panicking to trade up for DJ Johnson - 26 yr old project edge rusher that can't get on the field on game day. Not a good sign. Firing Rhule when he did - We all wanted Rhule poo canned. He should have been after year 2. There was no need to do it 5 games into year 3 when this team was tanking without a future at QB on the roster. We were going to need a QB in the draft. Keep Rhule, send this team to a top 2 pick and don't trade away your WR1 and future picks you need to build around your rookie QB. He's shown he doesn't have the ability to make good decisions under pressure. How much Tepper is involved in some of this, who knows. But Fitts is the face we see and it's ultimately gonna be his ass on the line. Personally, I'm ready to cut our losses and be done.

I learned that lesson in a keeper league after Demarco Murrey was a juggernaut in Dallas then went to Tennessee.

Pretty easy to see why Sanders had a career year behind that line and we were the fools who paid him.

If we were going for an offense minded coach, Steichen should have been the priority after Johnson removed himself. If we were going defense, Wilks, Evero or Ryan's.

If you want to talk about tanking your way to the number 1 pick, Rhule was definitely the guy.

Everyone wants BY to succeed. Far to say most are worried that he's played the worst of the 3 top QBs, all with new coaches and new systems. Also probably fair to say Fitts evaluation of picks and trades/no trades is suspect to say the least and our 200 years of NFL experience has resulted thus far in a offense that looks behind Matt Rhule's. Winning fixes a lot, but we ain't winning and unless poo changes soon, it's gonna be a while.

With Kupp seeing a hamstring specialist and no telling how long Staffords arm is going to hold, there's a chance they end up getting to draft their QB of the future and we look forward to another draft season because the regular season sucks yet again.

Right there with you. We end up with 4 or less wins and Frank and Fitts both need to be shown the door, Fitts regardless. Evero is an excellent HC candidate but we need a FO with vision of the future, not one living in the past.

We have over 2 centuries of coaching experience and right now, this team is playing on par with Rhule last year. If I didn't know we had a new head coach, I would think this was year 4 of the Rhule Era.

We need young energetic, open minded coaching. You're not going to get that from a John Fox or anyone else like him.

Part of me thinks it's because of the rule changes over the past 15-20 years making offense such a driving factor in the NFL. Players rarely made it to top speed because they were getting contacted at the line. You could actually hit guys like you normally would, instead of taking bad angles and contortions to avoid silly roughing penalties. I think a lot of these soft tissue injuries are happening because the lines between being a NFL player and a guy watching from the couch have become finer than ever and bodies are just being kept on the edges of their limitations. One push just a little too far and boom, injury.