Mr. Scot

That was sudden. I haven't really been a big fan of Al Riveron anyway, but now an old friend of ours will be taking some of his duties.

Remind me: Wasn't Bouye supposed to start the season suspended for a couple of games anyway? Feels like it was either him or Rashaan Melvin.

I know it's just preseason and it's not the Panthers, but I haven't seen real football in months. So yes, it counts.

We will get to see Dwayne Haskins though

If it helps, David Moore the lineman is a "Junior".

Sort of NFL football. It is the Cowboys.

Eeehhh, Jonathan Stewart used to go entire preseasons barely practicing but he still played. We'll see what happens.

They shortened the preseason.

I guess Andy Kaufman was never official. Ouch!

Neither, I'm afraid. You were wrong, dude. It happens. Let it go and move on.

I was sitting just a few feet away from a big Rams fan when it happened. Good memories

Meanwhile in Denver... I know we had some pro-Teddy trolls predicting he'd go to Denver and make us regret letting go of him. This probably isn't good news for them

Not that familiar with Whippleman. Definitely wouldn't want to be Bearer.

You know back when I was in like fourth or fifth grade, a good friend of mine always had parlay cards. I remember thinking, "Hey, I get to pick football games, cool". Little did I know...

Damn, dude

So you've given up on the whole "Appaloosa Model, Tepper runs everything" schtick and you're going with this now, eh? Okay, but still wrong. Rhule himself has said that he isn't a "run everything" guy. He acknowledged that Fitterer ran the Draft ("masterfully" he said in fact) and free agency. You can pretty easily look up the quotes yourself, or take the even easier route and just rewatch Panthers confidential. It's all there.

Can't remember who, but somebody recently said they found Hurney 2.0 was superior to Hurney 1.0. I just can't see it. Regardless of what you attribute it to, at least Marty Part 1 did have some level of success. Part Deux never even managed a winning season.

Sadly, wrong again. Having full control isn't what makes a GM "traditional". Having a scouting and personnel background is. Fitterer is absolutely a traditional GM. His background is in scouting and talent evaluation, and that's exactly what Rhule wanted because doing both the personnel and the coaching is just too much for one man to handle. What Tepper wanted was a non-traditional GM, i.e. a guy with an analytics background rather than a scouting background. Hence, why he brought in the candidates he did. But in the end, he deferred to Rhule and got a traditional guy instead. As to Rhule being technically "over" Fitterer, that's not new either. Back in the 70s, 80s and even 90s there were plenty of head coaches who sat at the top of the food chain. Heck, the team where Scott Fitterer cut his teeth has been doing it that way since they hired Pete Carroll. And again, no David Tepper doesn't drive or dictate personnel decisions in any way. Rhule has said it, Fitterer said it, Gantt has confirmed it and even Tepper himself has acknowledged that he doesn't have the skill set. So sorry dude but there's no newfangled method to the Panthers structure. They're doing what's been done for decades by teams around the league, and happily with an owner who understands he needs to back off and let the football people do their jobs. Personally, I'm thrilled because the alternative could have been much worse.

Tepper's been a mixed bag. Kept Rivera and Hurney in place too long for sure, but at least they're gone now. Rhule? Haven't really seen anything hugely negative so far. We'll see about this coming season, I suppose.

He's definitely got a weird sort of "hero worship" thing for Tepper, no doubt. And I mean, that's fine. By all means, he can be admired for his accomplishments if one chooses to do so. But acting like he picks the players, sets the scheme or does any of the other stuff that falls to the coaches and front office is just delusional.

I'd agree with that

The Panthers organization is a business, but football is a game / sport. Sports require coaching, scouting and talent evaluation. David Tepper does none of those things, and is in fact not qualified to do them (something he freely admits). That's why, as Matt Rhule stated, "he leaves the football to us", with "us" being Rhule, Fitterer, Morgan and their people. I get that you want it to be true, but it isn't, and all the wishing in the world won't change that. And sorry, but "who does (whomever) report to" isn't a clever comeback. It's basically just an admission that you've got nothing else to come back with.

Not that specifically, but I'm familiar with that sort of thing

Still could down the road. Mind you, those are the kinds of decisions I'd really rather get made before the season starts.

Breer said today that they're not willing to give any sort of "discount" on their asking price, will decline any offer that includes conditional picks and added that they're more than willing to wait it out until they get what they feel is the right offer. So basically, anyone looking for the Texans to budge on this is likely to be disappointed.