Mr. Scot

Person's take was that it never got far enough to ask (which shouldn't exactly be seen as encouraging to Watson fans either). Realistically speaking though, it isn't especially difficult to imagine that Watson might not want to be part of Matt Rhule's Panthers.

There's a saying that the opposite of love is not hate, it's apathy. That's where an awful lot of Panther fans are right now. And ultimately, the fault lies with David Tepper.

That's a pretty big question.

Hope not, but we'll see. The presence of Rhule makes everything harder.

They all are. He's good... very good.

Makes me wonder if Rhule is still only doing what he did at the college level

Losing Payton is surely gonna hurt, but they have some damn good assistants.

Yeah. Somebody with that attitude is somebody I want no part of.

It's written into his contract so that's not likely an option.

Yeah, that's not good. I would say Mayfield would be as talented a quarterback as we've had in a while. The mental / attitude side is what concerns me about him as well.

Anybody but Walker

There is a lot to like about this guy.

Granted...

They're saying you can find someone like Teddy for a reasonable price. Don't know that what we paid would be "reasonable".

This is from Sheil Kapadia's latest article in The Athletic. How to avoid a disastrous offseason Also from that article, under the heading of not using significant resources to acquire mere competence at quarterback: Having said that, if you don’t have one of those guys (i.e. a franchise quarterback), you don’t just sit the season out. You look for someone competent who can buy you time. The key is you shouldn’t commit significant money or draft capital when doing so. The way the league is set up right now, you can find someone like Teddy Bridgewater or Gardner Minshew at a reasonable price. That’s much more preferable than coughing up $25 to $35 million per year and/or draft picks for a player who might have a higher floor but still has a relatively low ceiling. Moves like that aren’t going to get you very far anyway, and you’re probably going to end up regretting them.

I'd like to hope it does. But if I'm being realistic, it might not.

That's a big unknown factor right now. Among the available options, who does McAdoo want?

Big balls don't make you smart. When it comes to money, he's smart. When it comes to football, he's not. The cardinal sin for an NFL team owner is trusting the wrong people. Tepper has done that continuously ever since he got here, and at least so far he shows no sign that he's learned any better. He still seems to think that he can just big ball his way into being an NFL champion, but there's no indication he has the requisite brains to make it happen. And as long as he keeps putting his trust in the wrong people, it's not going to.

Tepper was never the guy people made him out to be.

Yeah, it's pretty clear the whole "knocking people down" thing is his favorite part of the job. Everyone agrees Penning has a mean streak a mile wide.

It was reported that the Panthers requested to interview him so they could ask some questions and get some clarity on his situation. The request was denied. Unclear whether the denial came from the Texans or Watson. So yeah, we never got to the point of actual negotiation.

That's why I asked the question of whether any free agent with options is going to want to come here. I can't see it.

I can't look at the state of this team, especially with everyone knowing they're likely one year away from blowing it all up and starting over on the coaching front, and think this is going to look like a desirable destination to anybody. If we're talking about someone who has other options (which Watson probably will) you can probably forget it.

I think the more likely scenario if they do go after a veteran is that we'll end up with someone who takes a lot less compensation to acquire than Watson, Rodgers or Wilson. That likely means Cousins, Garoppolo or someone on that tier.

This year there's interest from another Florida team (Tampa) and others who will be in way better position draft pick wise to get him. If we trade more than what others will be set to offer, we severely mortgage our future and hinder any ability we might have had to build around him. It's just not a winning proposition.