Mr. Scot

Mods, this should be pinned too

Could this affect Bozeman, I wonder

@TheCasillas , I looked at the link. Didn't see anything about the Giants. Saw they did misspell Gantt's name in giving credit to the source.

I think we'll be better off if we keep the NFL discussion separate from the Panthers discussion, but I'll leave that up to the mods.

No mention of the Panthers...

A thread for news and rumors specific to the Panthers as the legal tampering period begins... Here are a couple of good preview articles to start us off.

Giants?

Passing accuracy, processing speed, football intelligence, and pocket presence are things that make a great quarterback at the NFL level. Running ability is a "nice to have" but it's not an essential. CJ Stroud has the quarterbacking skills already. That's why he's a far superior candidate to Richardson.

If we stay at 1, I'll be highly surprised if it's not Stroud.

The skills that he has are mostly just physical traits. A couple of teams have gone the route of trying to take physical specimens and train them to be quarterbacks. It hasn't proven to be a good strategy. That's why I'm not a fan of drafting Richardson (or Will Levis, for that matter). You take the guy who already knows how to play the position. If he's also a great athlete, fine. But having actual quarterback skills will always trump having athletic skills.

I remember Prisco having a back and forth with Tom Sorenson back when Sorenson was writing for The Observer. My favorite though was when he made a list of the ten best quarterbacks in the league listing Chad Pennington as the tenth. Then had an angry exchange with a reader where he proclaimed that Pennington wasn't a top ten quarterback

Breer is probably the best behind the scenes reporter you can find. And with the trade being over, there's no reason for anybody to smokescreen any of this stuff. Hell, look at what he said about the Panthers discussions (or lack thereof) with the Colts and Texans.

Yeah, pretty much every iteration I've seen of "the Panthers like" is "Stroud and (insert player here)". Stroud is the only guy everybody seems to be able to agree on the Panthers wanting. Worth noting though that this doesn't guarantee he'll be the guy.

Breer actually stated that one of the reasons we decided to go all the way up to #1 is that there wasn't a huge difference between what the Bears wanted and what the Cardinals wanted for their respective picks.

Not at all... If you like more than one player equally, you could move back, gain additional picks to make your roster even better and still get one of the guys you wanted. Don't know that anything like that will happen but if it did, I'd call that pretty smart.

Hate to tell ya but per Dane Brugler, Frank Reich really likes Levis.

Tis the season...

Reports are that Tepper likes Levis

The article confirms the Bears wanted Moore, but if there's a definitive statement on the Panthers being willing to trade three first rounders, I didn't see it. Hell, we only really gave up one in the end.

Definite possibility...

DJ Moore was essential to the deal on the Bears side for certain, but I'm not sure how you get out of this that the Panthers were pushing to create an extra first rounder. They were always looking for the best deal they could get.

Breer Is the best around at getting the behind the scenes info on major stories like this.

A little more about the lead up to the initial discussions... • The Panthers’ work in the fall wasn’t over the top, but it was thorough on the quarterbacks. The scouts were out, and the position was circled for them, obviously, with both Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold in contract years. GM Scott Fitterer’s exposure to the top guys was limited: He saw Will Levis and Hendon Hooker play against each other in the Kentucky–Tennessee game (ahead of the Panthers’ Halloween weekend game in Atlanta), he saw Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud play against Maryland (the day before Carolina played in Baltimore). • That Carolina could be picking in the top 10 crystallized around that game against the Ravens, which dropped the Panthers to 3–8. Early draft meetings started soon thereafter, and that’s when the discussion on strategy began. The front office didn’t think the team was far off, and, with a little luck, wouldn’t be drafting so high, in striking distance of the top of the board, anytime soon. Also, the feeling was the roster didn’t have a ton of needs—the team could use a tight end, maybe another receiver. That balance, the brass thought, plus the haul that came for Christian McCaffrey, would give the team flexibility to get aggressive. • Fitterer, assistant GM Dan Morgan and the scouts went to work on the quarterbacks’ tape when the season ended, and then had new head coach Frank Reich, offensive coordinator Thomas Brown and quarterbacks coach Josh McCown dive in with them once the staff was assembled. By the time they packed up for the combine, logically, they’d have to get to a comfortable level with at least a couple of the quarterbacks to justify having real discussions about moving to the top of the draft. • The Panthers got there, and Reich was a big-time resource in helping find the way—his ability to see the tape through a quarterback’s eyes helped the front office get a cleaner read on Stroud, Levis, Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson, as well as a better feel for how each quarterback moved, felt the game and saw the field. Then, and now, the Panthers got conviction on a couple of the quarterbacks. They’ll keep working on all four and try to figure out whether there’s another one they gain a similar strong feeling for. • Poles and Fitterer met first in Poles’s room at the Hyatt, and again later at Lucas Oil Stadium, more informally, after running into each other before prospect workouts. The Panthers showed motivation to get something done by being direct—going early would give Carolina a chance to fully vet every quarterback, and do it out in the open—but Fitterer also told Poles he could be patient, if that’s what it took. The two resolved to keep the lines of communication open, with both talking to other teams about trades as well. • The Bears talked to Houston about dropping from No. 1 to No. 2, but it was a little unclear whether the Texans were ready to pull the trigger. (The idea appealed to the Bears because of the idea that they could trade down twice.) One other team seemed serious about coming up, with a fourth team also throwing its hat in late—but talks with the Panthers were advancing faster than with the other three.