Mr. Scot

Oh hell

Damn.

That's a bullsh-t call. The refs in this game are horrible.

Couple of those were phantoms, but yeah...

Man, what a sloppy game. Dropped passes, missed blocks, defensive letdowns, ugh!

Word is he's still a week away from being fully recovered.

Falcons have been to the Super Bowl twice (lost to the Broncos the first time).

Occurs to me that this game is happening at the site of the Panthers good Super Bowl.

Actually, that is possible.

Giving up Donte Jackson is not my definition of "instantly better".

No I don't, especially not with the coaching staffs intact.

Comparing by units... QB - Newton was definitely more talented. Darnold could conceivably wind up being more successful though given the makeup of the team and the coaching staff. Throw in that 2015 was far superior in the backup quarterback spot. RB - All the respect in the world for Jonathan Stewart, but Christian McCaffrey is significantly better. On the flipside, Mike Tolbert was a true fullback and Fozzy Whitaker was a better backup (so far, that's subject to change) WR - Yeah, no contest here. The current unit absolutely blows away the 2015 receiving corps. This is the group that Davis cited when he was making his claim. TE - There's nobody on the current squad that's as good as Greg Olsen. Depth is probably a wash. OL - Gotta go with the 2015 group here even though the 2021 group is looking better than we thought they would so far and Taylor Moton is a huge upgrade from Darryl Williams. DL - This one's tough, but I'd say the current unit has the edge because there was nobody on the 2015 squad as dominant as Brian Burns. DTs are more of a debate but I would say Derrick Brown is likely better than Lotulelei or Short. LB - Obviously you go with Luke and Thomas Davis here, but the 2021 version of Shaq Thompson is significantly better than the 2015 one was. DB - Due respect to Josh Norman and Kurt Coleman, but Jeremy Chinn, Donte Jackson and Jaycee Horn tip the scales to the 2021 group. ST - Long snapper is a wash. Punter might be too. Current kicking situation is a nightmare though. But even if it wasn't, 2015 probably wins this one anyway.

Durability questions aren't limited to certain kinds of injuries.

I'm...not

Breer definitely likes the Panthers this season. From Matt Ramas (@matt_ramas): Did we learn more about the Saints losing or the Panthers winning? Matt, I think we’re learning about a Panthers team that is finding its footing—and has a very real identity, and the kind of rugged one that Matt Rhule’s been looking to build over the last two years there. Naturally, the path there for Carolina has come through the lines of scrimmage, and when you look at the makeup of the Panthers’ groups on each side of the ball, we probably shouldn’t be surprised by it. • On defense, the Carolina front features an eighth pick (Derrick Brown), a 13th pick (Haason Reddick), a 16th pick (Brian Burns) and a 38th pick (Yetur Gross-Matos). • On offense, the Panthers don’t have quite the same line of high draft picks, but there’s a right tackle (Taylor Moton) and center (Matt Paradis) the team invested deeply in, and former first-round pick Cam Erving, who’s making $5 million per year, stopgapping left tackle. So clearly, there’s ability there. And even if there’s still work to do on the offensive side, the work has already allowed them to play a physical brand of football. Which brings us to the second piece of the equation: Rhule, Joe Brady, Phil Snow and the staff have harvested the talent. And they did that the old-fashioned way. As the team’s new quarterback, Sam Darnold, explained it to me the other day, the summer was tough by design. “The way that we practiced during training camp, we had two joint-practice weeks early against Indy and Baltimore, and I feel like that helped us a ton, to be able to practice against those teams, really veteran teams, teams that know how to practice,” Darnold told me. “That really helped us, and we had a hard training camp in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I think that kind of gave us our edge a little bit.” Darnold then cautioned that it’s still early, and that’s true. But the early numbers to back up the point are good. In Week 1, Carolina sacked Zach Wilson six times, held the Jets under three yards a carry and were very balanced run to pass (27 to 36). In Week 2, the Panthers knocked around Jameis Winston, sacking him four times; held the Saints to fewer than 3 yards a carry; and had a near 50-50 run-pass split with more than 38 minutes of possession. Long story short, I had the Panthers making the playoffs before the season started, and now I’m wondering whether I had them seeded high enough. I think they’re for real. Link

The irony here is that Gooby has been caught making sh-t up himself on more than one occasion.

You don't know what a hot read is.

The talk on him pre-draft was that while his skill set was great, it was questionable whether he could take the kind of punishment the NFL dishes out.

One is a rookie... The other just got here... Run blocking is an issue...

Pro personnel is Morgan's specialty. Hopefully, he'll have more of a role in that next year.

Yep

I spent years hoping that somehow, some way, Rivera and Hurney would put together a winner. But deep down, my gut was always telling me "it's not gonna happen". I very much like no longer having to try and convince myself that maybe something good can happen even though the people in charge aren't good at their jobs. There's still a lot to learn, but at least right now good things feel genuinely possible.

Very cool video...

I would add this as a big change for me personally... It feels damn good to feel good about who's in charge. (got a feeling I'm not the only one saying that right now)

I don't know whether Rhule is ultimately going to be successful or not, but at least so far I like what he's doing. I'd love for he, Scott Fitterer and Dan Morgan to build something special together.