Mr. Scot

Fair. Heck, up till earlier this year, there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic. But man, did things go into the toilet fast. To be clear, I haven't had all that much issue with the past two years draft picks. Free agency hasn't been as kind to us but it hasn't necessarily been awful. Still, I think the real problem this year hasn't been either of those things as much as it's been coaching.

Had a feeling you might respond thusly

So did Rivera. Maybe in the future, we should take a great initial press conference to be a bad sign

Let the arguing begin.

I'm on for the same reason I always have been. I enjoy talking about football. Granted, sometimes it's not as much fun as others.

That wouldn't be a huge surprise.

Depends on how you define prioritizing. All indications are that the team was prepared to take Penei Sewell over Horn if he'd fallen to them. And to be clear, I'm not defending Rhule. I just have a different criticism than you. I still hope next season's OL is under a different coach.

The real world changes things...for some of us, anyway.

Yeah, not reading this either. Keep talking if you feel like it, dude. I learned a while ago you're not someone worth engaging in conversation so I don't really care to do more than drop a random insult. Declare yourself a winner and pat yourself on the back if it makes you feel better. Being a big deal on this message board seems to mean something to you. Not sure what that says about your life in the real world but hey...

Prioritizing it in the coming offseason because they get that the current iteration is a disaster.

Don't the local guys typically take holiday weeks off?

Yeah... I'm not reading that. I just wanted to see if you were actually dumb enough to take the bait.

I'd suggest you go back about ten years or so and research everything as thoroughly as possible.

Haven't read much on it, but I do know that was Doug Marrone's final year too so I'm guessing things were headed south.

Well, they still know more than you do. (granted, that's a low bar to clear)

One year ago tomorrow... Happier days

Definitely not a fan of promoting anyone on our staff. Lots of speculation from analysts that this will be "the year of the retread" but I'm just not that keen on the idea. College coaches? Never again (though Harbaugh's not a pure college coach). Kellen Moore's not experienced enough. Obviously, my favorite is Hackett.

I'd point you back to this thread by Ricky Spanish... Quite a bit of discussion on that topic within.

In their opinion, it is. That's the problem.

Approaching this from the coldheartedly realistic side... It's not Matt Rhule's job to give Cam Newton a proper sendoff or to make his fans happy. We sh-t all over Ron Rivera for trying to give older players storybook endings, and rightly so. Rhule's job is to win professional football games, and if benching Cam Newton is the best way to do that, he'd be thoroughly justified in doing so. That's a perfectly valid argument... ...with one major flaw Matt Rhule has shown quite clearly that he doesn't really know how to win professional football games, so why should we trust his judgment on this decision anymore than we trust it on others? Me? I'm no professional but of it were my ass on the line, I'd keep Newton as the starter through the rest of the season. ... Course, if it were my ass on the line, I'd like to think I wouldn't have hired a college coaching staff to do a professional job

Zylstra basically described a West Coast Offense (with a few modifications). And while WCO 101 might be valuable info, it doesn't exactly answer the question. Throw in also that the best West Coast type attacks include at least occasional deep passes.

Yeah, if they can run on us they'll beat us, and they probably can. On the flipside, I expect Todd Bowles to blitz the living sh-t out of us.

Just to be clear, what do you think should happen with Matt Rhule?

Honestly, the more telling response to me came yesterday when Newton was asked what's wrong with the passing game. His answer? "I don't know". I'm not sure I buy that at all, but it's not hard to imagine that he might have to refrain from saying what he's actually thinking.

If Rhule is back, I have a pretty tough time believing Newton will be. If he's not, it depends pretty heavily on who the next head coach is and what he wants.