Martin

Looking at guards and centers for the draft. One name that comes up a lot is Ikem. Any State fans with insights on him?

I feel pretty good about it. Eagles whole O-line is down so our D should feast. I’m worried about Hargreaves vs. our o-line, but we should win fairly comfortably. I expect a big bounce back game even with our injuries.

Anything other that Brady on one side and Moton on the other would be a big disappointment. I don’t really care which side. Would love to see Brown at G as well, but that might be too much to ask for.

The other thing about second half adjustments. This year we’ve had really good first half’s, so how many adjustments do you do? You have to be ready for the other team making adjustments though, but it is not as easy as making adjustments on things that didn’t work. But maybe I’m overthinking it.

One thing that had a huge impact was Burris missing. It looked like miss communication on at least two of their TDs. Burris is not super flashy, but he’s always where he needs to be. It felt like Chinn was trying to compensate for other safeties being in the wrong spot. That’s why they were wide open. But overall the game was lost due to their run game.

So you are finding joy in Darnild throwing 2 ints? What a sad person

I was looking at the player interviews at panthers.com and it was cool to see the common thread. Everyone said the same thing about missing Jaycee, Christian etc. This is not verbatim, but directional: ”The standard is the standard, doesn’t matter if someone is missing” ”Next man up” ”The process is the same, all about going 1-0 next game” There were no hints of excuses or lack of focus, they 100% trust in what they are doing. It also came across as very honest and authentic. It really is a different mentality and attitude that Rhule and his staff have brought and it bodes very well for the future of hopefully building a consistent winner.

He also said they did a lot of work on him last year. He just haven’t spoken to him since then. So the homework was done last year and he would have been our pick if Brown wasn’t there.

Hahaha, you are not wrong. There is so much childish bickering and arguing going on so I wanted to make clear that was not the purpose of my question. I was genuinely interested in his opinion.

Just curious, when you say Manziel but without the drama/personal issues, what do you mean? That was the whole deal with him. Not agreeing or disagreeing, just trying to follow your reasoning.

I agree, the above snapshot is awesome. Nowhere to go for Jamies.

Exactly, they want the backups to be versatile. So if Brown is a one position guy, that makes sense. Would I like to see what Brown can do? Yes. But the logic for the backups is sound

Thanks for posting, good read. I also think this puts to rest the dumb “Panthers don’t care about QBs” nonsense. They do if they find someone they like. They just didn’t love the QBs in the draft this year that were available. I’m going all in on blind optimism and Darnold at this time!

I like what we’ve seen from him on camp confidential. Before each game, it was clear that he is the leader of the secondary. Good for him, and promising for the Panthers.

From what I’ve heard from 49ers friends, Salah is mostly a rahrah guy that looks great on the sideline. Not that impressive as a cordinator, but time will tell.

Interesting on how Belichick views joint practices vs. preseason games. Very much aligned with Rhule. This is from the Athletic: “However, sources cautioned Monday that Belichick places much more stock in joint practices than the preseason setting. That’s because coaches can control the setting. Last week, for example, Belichick and Joe Judge collaborated the night before each practice to align specific personnel groupings and create different challenges for their teams to counter. The coaches could learn more at practice than in the preseason, when teams are reluctant to put anything on film for their regular-season opponents to study. Belichick’s actions validated that claim, as the starting offense only played seven preseason series but got significantly more work in the two weeks of practices with the Eagles and Giants.”

Except for Fields, right? You already know he is a superstar and we were stupid for not taking him, right?...

We did try to trade for an established QB in Stanford, but he went to LA. There were few other established QBs sitting around out there for the taking. It is the same stupid take as for LTs. “Why didn’t we just pick up a great LT for cheap” It is the same moronic take over and over again. Just because we didn’t pick Fields doesn’t mean we don’t care about QBs. WE DIDN’T WANT FIELDS, deal with it. Three other teams with QB need picked other QBs as they didn’t think he was good enough. He has proven nothing. He might turn out to be great, but a lot of teams didn’t think so. But that doesn’t mean Rhule and Fitts don’t care about QBs.

I’m terrible at predictions anyway, but our 2/3s have got all the playing time in the last two games (hence all the complaining about not playing our starters) for this very purpose, so our staff should have a very good idea

Agree with this. There is no doubt Cam was super tough, took a lot of beating, carried the team at times. But to not acknowledge that was a very weird play in his career is just odd. I’m not one to blindly support someone no matter what they do, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing all the time. It is ok with constructive criticism at times. Doesn’t mean you are a hater. Loved Cam, but this will forever remain a head scratcher.

I’m more interested in hopefully seeing an O-line with Moton at LT in a real game to be honest. And I think we’ll get that. Darnold playing is a bonus.

Well played! Loved Cam when he was playing for us, and wish him the best. But not diving for that ball down by one score late in the super bowl will never stop blow my mind.

From what I understand it is used by the Miami Dolphins and one of our new coaches brought the idea. It feels college style, but it comes from a veteran former Patriots coach.

I agree with you that it is worth watching. What I think is the difference is that Sam won’t be afraid to take a shot when it presents itself. Teddy on the other hand essentially passed out with fear if he had to go deep. I’m hopeful, but we’ll see.

Early on they said the were working on eliminating mistakes, trust his reads/take what the defense gives you and it looks like it is working, “Darnold hasn’t been doing much downfield lately, which he said is more about following his reads than anything scheme-related.” But hey, jumping right in to “... the pass game struggling.” is one way to look at it.