grimesgoat

Among RBs, Elliott is 8th in yds from scrimmage. Mixon is 3rd, Chubb is 5th, Cook is 6th, Kamara is 11th. Sure they get hurt and miss a few games. But the production is still among the league leaders. I'll grant you these extensions are usually 5 years or so and by the 4th or 5th year the production has fallen off. Usually the guaranteed money is somewhat front loaded, so if a guy has to be cut in year 4 or 5, the dead cap hit isn't crippling. For example, when CMC reaches the old age of 29 in 2025, his cap hit is 13.6m but the dead cap hit is only 1.5m. Similar sized guys like Payton, Martin, Dorsett, Thomas all played well into their 30's with some of their most productive years occurring in their late 20's and early 30's. CMC could do the same. Tossing him in the trash at age 24 is insane. Especially when you don't save any money by doing it. Just dumb reactionary panic.

History has shown... Elliott was extended in 2019 - Since then 4300 yds from scrimmage and 34 TDs in 3 seasons. Cook was extended in 2020 - Since then 3200 yds from scrimmage and 23 TDs in 2 seasons. Kamara was extended in 2020 - Since then 2800 yds from scrimmage and 30 TDs in 2 seasons. Chubb was extended in 2021 - He's got 1400 yds from scrimmage and 9 TDs this year. Henry was extended in 2020 - Since then 3200 yds from scrimmage and 27 TDs. Mixon was extended in 2020 - in 2020 he was injured (600 yds, 4tds). in 2021 he has 1500 yds from scrimmage and 16 TDs. All these guys were extended for comparable money and are among the best in the league. CMC seems to be the exception to your rule.

You could see it with Cam. He couldn't throw the ball more than 20 yards. CMC didn't even need surgery. Just rest. He's expected to be 100% next year. He could get hurt again I suppose. After all, this is tackle football. But why just assume he'll get hurt again (and therefore flush 26m) just because he pulled a hammy or tweaked his ankle?

I call bullshit. I was and still am paying attention. Dude had played in 48 straight games when he signed the extension. He kept himself in better shape than anyone on the team. And I still believe if the Panthers were competing over the past 2 years, he would've been out there. Just no reason risk a major injury or more wear and tear. Cutting him now is just ignorant. If we cut him now, we eat 26m in dead money in 2022. If we keep him, the cap hit hit is 14m in 2022 and the dead money in 2023 is around 13m. Its basically a wash. When healthy, he's a game changer in his prime. I would only consider a late first for him. A team like Buffalo or Arizona may see him as the missing link. They are built to win now and may believe he adds more value to a SB run than some late first DT.

oh good. another opportunity to bash CMC. Recall, when he signed the extension he had just wrapped up a year with 1400 yard rushing, 1000 yard receiving and 19 TDs. Dude had played 3 years and never missed a game. He was due to make less than $3m in 2020. So the panthers extended him. his cap hits were nearly identical to the hits that would have occurred had they not extended him and just picked up the 5th year option. This way he got some cash in his pocket and we said thank you to our stud RB. The guy played in 48 out of 48 games going into 2020. He was arguably the most valuable player in the NFL. He was only 24. He easily had 4-6 more productive years ahead. It was a no-brainer. Unfortunately the time machine was down that day and no one saw the injuries coming. Realistically, he would have played in a bunch of the games he missed over the last 2 years, but why bother. Unless there is a bombshell offer, he will be around at least 1 more year. Barring injury, he will put up 1500 all purpose yards and 8-10 TDs behind a rebuilt line. When healthy, he is a top 5 RB. Another dismal injury plagued year will result in cutting bait. New regime will enter and look to rebuild. The dead cap hit will only be 5.7m in '23 and '24 with 12m saved in '23. Hope it doesn't come to that because I love to watch the dude play. My 2 cents.

Yep - people forget we got a good player for that 3rd. Eventually he'll figure things out and we'll have a steal. We snagged the Houston 4th and extra 5th that somewhat makes up for losing the 2nd and 6th. I just have to keep reminding myself, if we still had our 2nd, we probably would not have Horn. We might have picked Fields who I do not believe will amount to much long term. Or we could have picked Horn anyway, rolled with Teddy B (who no one on here wanted) and be contemplating which mediocre QB we should pick with the second we still have. We just need to grab an OL stud in the first, a potential starter in the 4th, and ride it out until 2023 when we will likely have a very high pick and a new coaching staff. As someone else said, take the layup.

I agree with this. Let most of the vets go. Play the young guys. I'd add erickson (I don't remember him even bobbling a ball this year), Zylstra, Haynes, and Ricci for cheap if possible. I'd consider Mariota if Trubisky is out. Just no splash signings - let's keep our comp picks and develop the guys we have.

Tough call. There are at least 4 teams that may be interested in a QB and all pick in the 9-16 range (WFT, Den, Pitt, NO). If Pitt wants Pickett, and they believe there might be a bidding war, we may be able to get 15, 45, and 79. If so, I grab the Iowa center, a G in the second, and an DE or LB in the 3rd. Build the trenches and continue to tank next year. Then grab a QB in 2023.

1. New Coach (keep GM) 2. Let everyone that will cost more than 5m. walk (Jackson, Reddick, Gilmore, etc.). Load up on comp picks. 3. Draft best OL available in first. If we can slide back to mid-first and pick up an extra 2nd I do that and draft a QB in the 2nd. LB in 4th. Guards in 5th and 6th. 4. If Cam wants to stay for 10m per for 2 years, grab him. Keep Darnold as backup. Start him in preseason. If he looks decent in preseason, we may be able to unload him at some point. 5. Move CMC to the slot.

I have no doubt we have a number of temple and baylor players on the roster because matt rhule is familiar with those guys and they are familiar with him. That alone does not make them unqualified. Same with any assistants. Who better to execute your vision is people you are familiar with and have worked with. If these guys are good, they will stand out and get hired away to other teams. He had success before with these people, he probably thought he could do so again. Frankly, I was surprised we ended up with Brady because Rhule did not have a relation with him - which makes me think Tepper had his hands on that one. I guess we agree on all of this except you see it as a bad thing but I see it as probably what happens everywhere you look. I can't imagine a new coach going to a team and hiring a bunch of strangers he's never met to be his closest advisors. But your last sentence is a puzzler. I feel like you may be putting words in my mouth there. I was onboard with hiring the guy, but given the current state, I'd be ok if we moved on at this point. He just doesn't seem ready yet and after almost 2 years, the fanbase is all out of patience.

yeah - i get that you don't think he's qualified, but I don't know how you hire a guy and don't do what you can to give him the tools (players) he believes he needs to be successful. To me that's a little different. Now if you have evidence that Rhule is negotiating salaries and extensions and managing the cap while handling the building of the new practice facility, organizing the off season weight lifting programs, and putting together the menus for the player's spread, you'll be on to something.

I don't understand the commissioner thing, but he did take a 1 win team in a power 5 conference and 2 years later they were ranked #7 in the country. That same school is now ranked 6th in the country. Temple will never amount to much but it seems like Baylor is definitely challenging the top tier teams. Hell - if Baylor is a mid-tier school, how the hell did they manage to win the NCAA basketball tourney last year?

I don't really know what you expected. Isn't a GM and Coach supposed to work together to get the guys the coach wants that fit his scheme.

You're right - it is 2022 5th. misread that. We have 2 5ths this year. Prime OL spots. My thinking on free agents - sometimes you just have to take a chance. There's not a limitless supply of guys available. Hopefully you win on most knowing there will be some stinkers along the way. Elf and Erving haven't been great, but it wasn't like we gave them 10m per year. Having said that, I would not have paid Robbie that much money, especially right after drafting Marshall. But the good news is, if he totally sucks again next year, he'll only cost us 4m in dead money in 2024 (vs. paying him 16m in salary).

I hear a lot of people say he was a mid-tier college coach. I'm genuinely curious, how would you tier the college football conferences. For me its.. Tier 1: SEC Tier 2: Big 10, Big 12 Tier 3: Pac 12, ACC Tier 4: everyone else

I don't know what bullshit you are referring to but Rhule definitely had some success and was the hot coach at the time. Dude went from 1-11 to 11-3 in 3 years in the big 12. Hell in his last year he had a 10-4 record at Temple, an historically bad doormat. To get a sense of how bad Temple is, they were 31-148 from 1990-2006. I mean that is beyond pathetic. Rhule may get better as an NFL coach over time, but he clearly is not ready now and I suspect Tepper sees that. I imagine he will be let go at the end of the year. But I don't question the roll of the dice that brought him here in the first place. Its not like there were a bunch of sure things out there. There were pros and cons for each guy interviewed. But I think its time to move on.

When we traded arnold and the third, we got henderson and a 2023 5th. Your numbers for Sam, Erving, Elf, and Anderson are a little misleading. The 77m is spread over 3 years. The salary for those 4 guys this year is about 19m. The salary in 2023 for those 4 guys is 49m. The salary in 2024 for those remaining (Anderson and Elf) is 21m or 4m dead. We made a mistake with TB. I think the Darnold trade was a calculated gamble that probably will not work out long term. The only one on the hot seat is Rhule. I think Fitterer is safe. And therefore he will not allow a 'mortgage the future' scenario to play out. He will try to get some guys Rhule likes (assuming Rhule is here) by trading back, etc. but I don't think he will trade away any future 2023 assets or make a bunch of splash signings that will impact our comp pick picture. Think about it, if Rhule is here, his warm seat will prevent Fitterer from doing something stupid. If Rhule is gone, we will be in another rebuild and Fitterer will not squander assets on a win now mentality. We finally have a competent GM - let's watch him work.

I agree for the most part. I'd roll with Darnold and Cam. We won't get anything for PJ. But between Reddick, Jackson, Gilmore, Jones, Carter, Thomas, we should be able to get some decent comp picks for 2023. Maybe a 3rd and 5th to go along with Jacksonville's 4th next year. That should give us some ammunition to grab a QB next year after we win 6 games again. I like moving CMC to slot. Maybe we get more production that way. Draft the best OL we can get in round 1. Between Moton, 1st Round Rookie, Christianson, Brown, Elflein, Erving we should be able to piece together a line that is not too embarrassing. Stay away from Free Agency. Maybe use money to extend some guys we like but don't waste any more money except for 5-10 m. for Cam. In 2023 we'll have Darnold off the books, more flexibility in dealing with CMC, and a ton of draft capital and cap room to get our QB and target our needs. We just need to suck it up for a year.

I believe at the time, the salary was not outrageous. The cap hit in 2020 was only 14m, which is not crazy for a starting NFL vet QB. Only when we traded him did he cost us the additional cash. To me, keeping Cam was not an option. In 2018 he lost his last 6 games in a row (before finally sitting down the last 2), averaging 18 pts and throwing 9 tds and 9 picks. In 2019, he lost the only two games he played in (cap hit 23.2m). In 2020, the choice was pay him 20m and hope he holds up or start a rebuild and take a 2m hit. That's assuming he would not hold out for an extension. It would be malpractice not to cut him at that point. Heineke hadn't showed anything at that point but I wasn't opposed to him. I was in favor with rolling with Allen and signing someone like Flacco cheap to come in and mentor him. I thought that pair would create competitive games but still land us with a top 5 pick. Bridgewater was not on my radar and did not like the signing but whatevs. I won't debate the OL issue. Pickings have been slim. They've tried some stuff, but most draft capital has gone to the defense. This may prove to be the right move in a year or two as these guys mature. We'll see.

Could be worse. Many advocated for trading our first and next year's 1st and 2nd to move up and pick Fields. Imagine sitting here with Fields as our QB1, no Horn, no 1-3 round picks next year (assuming we still traded for Henderson), and the same shitty line.

interesting. I think Teddy was supposed to be a bridge as well. But then Darnold became available and they thought he would be as good as any rookie they could get (and they get to keep their first rounder). That's why they kept saying they consider Darnold a "rookie" even though he'd been around awhile. Arguably they were right from a wins and losses standpoint as Darnold is (was?) 4-5 whereas Lawrence is 2-10, Wilson is 2-6, Lance is 0-1, and Fields is 2-6. Can't get behind keeping Cam though. Not sure Teddy would come if Cam was still here and after the prior 3 seasons, there was serious doubt whether Cam would ever throw a ball more than 20 yds again. Teams would stack the box and it would get ugly fast.

If you screw up at work, is it because your boss hired you?

So glad the panthers picked G at 182 in the 2000 draft. Jeno Jones is ok, but a guard is so easy to find or retain. We should have picked Tom Brady, who went at 199. Typical panthers.

This is an interesting topic that will challenge the critical thinking skills of a lot of people on here. I've observed a number of our "fans" will see a play where a guy messed up or hear the announcer say something negative about a player and project it out over a guys season or career. I think this will really separate the solid posters that contribute vs. the reactionary dummies. DJ Moore - Solid possession receiver. Already has as many receptions and TDs as all of last year with 5 games left. Yards per catch is way down, probably a system issue as our OL just can't block anyone. Would like to extend him, but not more than 10m per. If he does not sign an extension in that ballpark next year, I start giving Marshall and Shi a lot more reps. Burns - Seems to be less effective but numbers say different. Last year: 9 sacks and 8 tackles for loss. This year: 8 sacks and 12 tackles for loss already. He will probably end up with 11-12 sacks and 15 TFLs this year. Those kind of numbers easily net a 12-15m salary on the open market. we got him for around 4m for a couple more years. Brown - stud. Has already matched his PD, SK, and Tackle numbers from last year with 5 games left. He's there to absorb double teams and that's what he's doing despite getting "benched". I've seen him labeled a mistake and a bust, a dead giveaway of football intelligence. Jeremy Chinn - switched positions but still effective. Had 117 tackles last year and is tracking toward 110 this year. Last year he had 2 TFLs but already 5 this year. Dude had 13 tackles just 2 weeks ago vs. Washington. He has hardly disappeared, you only need to know where to look. Carter - Solid career so far for a 5th rounder who is making under $1m this year. Hope we can find similar production from one of our 5th rounders this year as I don't want to pay the guy. Anderson - huge huge disappointment. Tracking toward his worst season by far. We seriously screwed up handing out that contract as he started to fade last year. Probably the biggest blunder this FO has made in the last 2-3 years. What were they thinking. Again - thanks to Mr. Scot for starting this conversation.

I admire your tenacity. Darnold was a roll of the dice. It doesn't appear it was a successful move at this point, but I think worth a roll. He may be broken, but no way I just cut him. He could still be a backup. I think everyone is so focused on the short term they often miss the big picture. When Rhule was hired, he said it was a 5-year rebuild. I don't remember anyone in here arguing that it should only take 1-2 years, but here we are. Last year I expected to win 2 games and we won 5. This year I was expecting 7-8 wins and I believe we will be pretty close to that. Meanwhile we've had a couple of good drafts, built a solid defense, have a few good options in our offensive skill positions, and our coach is learning the NFL game. Draft 3 was clearly designed to build the OL, and I suspect that will be the focus. My guess is we trade back and pick up a T and G on day 2. Moving forward, I'd keep to the plan. Draft OL and give the QB a chance. The only change I'd make is to move on from Brady. Let's get an offensive coordinator in here that can get something out of Darnold. We will snag our QB of the future in Draft 4. He will arrive on a nearly complete team. He'll get his feet wet and gain some experience. Then year 5 we start competing for championships. I think we are still on schedule despite the bumps in the road.