Martin

I was surprised nobody had complained about it, but I just couldn’t see this thread as it was blocked by the f ing GMC ad. How’s that for irony?

This needs to get fixed without me having to add ad blocking software on my phone.

Kind of a bullshit move by Fredlund (?), they were essentially going back and forth a bit. 
 

On the other hand, let’s stop apologizing that we exist, let’s bring some of the attitude that’s been missing since Cam’s days. Sure we might lose the game, but we need some fire on this team. I think the rest of the team loves it, but I might be wrong. 

Who would be QB 3 after Corral and Strong?

We were never going to start a rookie, as we wanted to see two veterans battling it out. Baker is waaaaaay better than Corral would have been this year even if he got half the reps.

Corral was never going to be ready to start. Would have loved to see him get more time obviously, but even in his limited time I would have liked to see a splash play, just something. However we have no idea how he will turn out long term. He has all the tools.

Corral should’ve been the clear 3 during training camp, that’s my number one issue. He shouldn’t have shared snaps with PJ. 

14 minutes ago, rippadonn said:

I'm inclined to believe the sources that say Matt Rhules players couldn't make it in most NFL rosters. That would seem now to include Sam, Baker and PJ. It's a cluster of suck.

I have to say that I’m very optimistic about Baker, but we will find out. 

If we would have had an unquestionable starter, like all other teams with rookie QBs, Corral would have gotten more snaps in practice. But since we have cluster fxxk at QB, and are trying to decide who should be the starter in game 1, that is the priority, as it should be.

Corral has all the physical attributes of a long term starter, outside of being a bit injury prone, but he was deemed as not ready due to his college system. He was always a long term play. Not sure what is confusing about this.

39 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said:

Corral looks like he hasn't taken any practice reps all training camp.

Ickey apparently has looked shaky, which is incredibly concerning. I really like Ickey, but I wanted Cross because he was a better pass blocker right out the gate. He needs to pick things up quicker if we are going to be halfway decent. 

Ickey allowed two sacks, looked good otherwise. I think Cross had 5 penalties last game so they are all learning at this point. I don’t remember the last first round LT that came in and played flawless from the start, so I’m not too concerned. But I’m optimistic by nature.

From Panthers.com

1 hour ago, *FreeFua* said:

They truly believe someone is going to trade for Darnold lol

I assume their thinking is that after another terrible week of practice having him start for other teams to see isn’t going to improve is already negative trade value 

So with that said I understand standing PJ. PJ will be QB2 this year I’m guessing 

I agree, that is the only logic I can see as well. I don’t think it will happen, but I can see the reasoning behind it.

3 minutes ago, CRA said:

But the take on Matt Rhule was never....Matt Rhule is hands off but just was forced into micromanaging Joe Brady.  The take on Matt Rhule is simply that he is a micromanager that has to put his fingerprint on everything football related.   Those coaches exist.  McAdoo worked under one in NY.   They are what they are. 

 

 

I think that is a great point and we’ll see how it plays out this year. We have on paper very solid coordinators this year, so Rhule should be able to back off and focus on being the HC. He does trust Snow and, as far as I know, he doesn’t micromanage the defense. 

If he backs off, that will be a different Rhule than we’ve seen in the past and would show that he can evolve/change. If not he will never change. 

I’m still super concerned about his game management etc. but maybe even that will change if that is his sole focus. I can see it go either way at this point, but for now I’m going to lean on blind hope

Here’s my guess. Baker is now the starter, so Darnold starts Q1, , PJ starts Q2 and Matt plays the second half. I hope I’m completely wrong on this (outside of the Baker official announcement) and Matt plays the first half and PJ second half.

8 minutes ago, w280sax said:

Why would baker not be playing?  You'd think our first team needs some reps before cleveland. 

From what I’ve read they see the joint practices as much more important then the game, so essentially no need for the game. 
 

Got this from Panthers.com
 

“Now that the league has reduced the preseason to three games instead of four, do the coaches view joint practices almost as a preseason game? — Eric, Jacksonville, FL

14 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Yeah, I spent years hearing how criticisms of Marty Hurney weren't valid either. "You just hate him"

Look how that turned out...

That last line is a big part of the problem. When you say something like that, you don't actually have to defend your position because you're attacking the messenger, not the message.

As far as specifics, the way most pro teams get a guy ready to play his chosen position is to give him as many reps as possible at that spot, not make him "earn it". That's a college approach.

Could Ekwonu be ready? I sure hope so, but I don't have a lot of faith the team as a whole will. And I've got two years worth of reasons why.

I apologize if my response was confusing. I think Ickey will be ready and I didn’t mind the way they brought him along. That was my position, I thought that was easily inferred.

You inferred that he wasn’t going to be ready in your previous message, so I was curious to why (outside of “but Rhule…”). 

So that’s my final point as I don’t want to clog up the board with another drawn out “debate”.

I look forward to your condescending response.

6 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

And that's just a small sample, but an accurate one.

Teams have been doing this for years. Heck, even prior Panther teams had rookie quarterbacks.

Newton looked awful in his third preseason game, but at least he got the reps and was ready by week one.

Corral doesn't have to be ready for week one, but Mayfield does. Ekwonu does. Hell, at this point, Cade Mays might have to.

Oy...

So why isn’t Ickey be ready for week one? 100% of his reps has been at LT, sure he started on the 2nd team for 2-3 weeks, but maybe it was a good way for him to get ready. As soon as his very respected OL coach found him ready he was moved in to the starting line-up.

This would not have been an issue with anyone with another HC. Get over it.

To the “there is no plan, we are all going to die” crowd. The plan all along was to announce the starter after the second pre season game. I don’t agree with the plan, but they actually had one. Same with Ickey.

I think they expect Baker to win the job from the get go, but wanted to see how he picked up the offense, interacted with team mates etc. Again, I think it took too long. But they had a plan in place that they stuck to. It’s not like they are just winging it on a daily basis.

Rhule deserves a lot of criticism, but everyone calm down a bit.

24 minutes ago, stirs said:

And they actually pay Person to write this.

Should he not write about it?

2 hours ago, MHS831 said:

I think that we all developed our opinion of Elf when he was sucking at LG--when I watched him at C, he was decent, in my opinion.  Discuss amongst yourselves.

I agree, he was decent. He does get bullrushed too often, but on a lot of other occasions the LG was supposed to be there to help out, but since that left guard was MJ…

Not super excited if he’s the C, but not a disaster either.

I prefer Bozeman, but I wonder what Elflein looks like next to two competent guards. No C in the league would look good next to Jordan at LG.

I’m thinking we might draft a C high next year.

A lot of whining about our beat reporters. Personally I think we have a lot of good writers, Joe is great over at the Athletic, Ellis is great at the Observer, Panthers.com has a lot of well written pieces.

What we don’t have is the “breaking news” crowd.

I take writers over breaking news tweets any day, but maybe I’m old school.

I thought it was really well done, I enjoy the behind the scenes interactions between the players and coaches. Darnold seems like a great guy, just not a good quarterback.

Super encouraged by Baker, drinking the cool aid with no hesitation.

Brady looked really good at LG, he didn’t get fooled by anything (the opposite of Jordan), he’s obviously a very intelligent player. 

For the most part Ickey and Brady looked really good together, which is great news. It’s a no brainer for everyone but Rhule.

Anytime the WR bobble a catch over the middle it turns in to a hospital ball. Not sure how much of that was on Corral.

1 minute ago, Tbe said:

I know this isn’t popular, but the team so far looks disciplined and well coached.

 

Agree on this, really like what I’m seeing. It’s the playing Elflien and Jordan as starters that is driving me crazy.