Mr. Scot

Yet still didn't succeed, even with arguably the best quarterback coach in the game helping him. Improved stats aren't the same as winning.

If we have a winning season next year, I'm going to say "well that was fun". I'm also going to say "sh-t, another year of Matt Rhule". Glass always slightly off...

Newton could throw. Jackson can throw. But Vick? No. Heck, I remember Falcon fans arguing for years that their receivers were terrible only to see them suddenly turn around and get a lot better after Vick left. And that was no accident. (that on top of the whole "how many years does it take to learn the West Coast Offense" silliness) Gearing the Atlanta offense around Vick's running was actually the better choice. It wasn't going to work, but it was still the smarter play given his abilities. Rivera built around Newton using the same concepts Buddy Ryan did with Randall Cunningham. The idea was that if you had a quarterback who could make two or three big plays a game, the defense would handle the rest. While Rivera did get closer to succeeding with that approach than Ryan ever did, it still ultimately failed and wasn't really built to last anyway. What Newton could have done with better will always be a huge unanswered question. It's also one of the big reasons why while I think Rivera the Man is worthy of respect, Rivera the Coach is somebody I just can't like.

I don't know that I'd consider them a unified front at this point. Fitterer seems to want to build for the long term. Matt Rhule can't necessarily afford to do that.

The offense under Shula, yeah. And as odd as it might feel, the Shula years up to 2015 were the most successful years we had. There were entire articles dissecting the kind of run concepts and ideas that Shula was using to make the offense go. Unfortunately, Dan Quinn and Wade Phillips dissected them too. Once there was an answer out there, Shula wasn't good enough to respond. Turner actually did a better job developing Newton, and I've always believed that if we'd have had someone like Turner from the beginning, things could have been different.

That's not really working out so well with Lance so far. And to be clear, those "ifs" are the problem, especially if he's a Panther. (I agree with you he'd be better off to not be)

No visit set with Penning? I mean, the obvious thing to do with him would be to take him to a horror movie.

What I would want to do and what would the Panthers do are different questions. They're also two things that hardly ever match up

That doesn't really help the argument though given that what Newton's injury affected was his passing, not his running. To be honest, Cam Newton discussions in general don't really benefit Malik Willis because Newton wasn't a running quarterback. He was a dual threat. Willis could conceivably turn out to be a dual threat, but arguing that he's one now would be a pretty big reach.

It's never worked, and until somebody shows a way to make it work, it's not gonna change. But chances are not too many teams are going to do that because, as mentioned, up to now it's never worked. It'd also be a pretty extreme reversal of history because when the NFL started, there was no such thing as the forward pass. It was the AFL that introduced the forward pass. Purists from back then hated it but now it's everything. I seriously don't see that being reversed. As to Newton specifically, his running ability might still be the same but his passing clearly isn't. Pretty much everyone acknowledges this is why teams aren't clamoring to sign him.

Well...

The Panthers would certainly like for teams to think so. I don't buy it.

Not exactly... If you have a quarterback who can't run, it doesn't matter because you're still going to have wide receivers, tight ends and running backs who can. If you have a quarterback who can't pass, are you going to ask one of the other skill positions to throw passes for them? Over the past 20 years, I've seen two teams try to work with an offense built primarily around running. One was Michael Vick's Falcons, the other was us with Newton. Neither won a championship. We got closer because Newton was a far better passer than Vick, but we couldn't keep it up for much longer than they did. Future seasons with Norv Turner as OC told us that if we had tried a more balanced attack and spent more time teaching Newton to be a better passer, we could have had greater success. But we hadn't...so we didn't. In today's NFL, especially with the rules set up the way they are, you can win with a balanced attack, you can win with a pass heavy attack, but you're not going to win championships with a primarily run based attack. (heck, that's why we constantly have the arguments we do about how much we paid McCaffrey)

People thought it would. It really hasn't.

That might leave our resident UNC homeowners with a bit of a dilemma

Old friend update... Of course he did

Don't we all wish...

On that note...

FYI: Pretty much everything The Observer puts out these days is behind a paywall. If you're only posting a link, most people won't be able to get anything out of it. Obviously you can't post a whole article, but excerpts are a good idea.

And one more piece of draft related info... Someone did an analysis of which teams have the most draft capital (point wise) and posted a list from top to bottom. We're not as low on the list as you might think. I'm not a big stats and points guy, but I still found this interesting.

Do you really think a league full of guys that basically worship money is going to turn away someone who has that much of it though?

There's also this from Albert Breer about how everyone thinks the Saints are looking to trade up into the top ten or even top five, but that might not be true. A lot of people are waiting for a second-order move by the Saints, after last week’s trade with the Eagles. Maybe it’ll happen. But I just don’t see the logic in it, at least at this point. For those who missed the ins and outs, a week ago, New Orleans sent first-, third- and seventh-round picks (18, 101, 237), its 2023 first-rounder and 2024 second-rounder to Philly for the 16th and 19th picks, plus a sixth-rounder (194) this year. In the MAQB, we broke down how if you split the whole thing into two trades, it looks pretty ugly for the Saints. And that sort of logic had some deducing that this might be part of a plan from Saints GM Mickey Loomis to make a bigger move into the top 10. Maybe it is. My question then would be … why did the Saints need the Eagles to play middleman? The draft value chart shows that the Saints could spin the 16th and 19th picks to get up into the top four. But this year, with perception (and maybe reality) that the top 10 lacks real blue-chippers, more teams up there are looking to move picks to next year—so my guess is if the real plan here was to get into the upper reaches of the draft, then packaging the 18th pick with next year’s first-rounder alone might’ve gotten it done (and you’d have saved yourself moving this year’s third-rounder and the 2024 second-rounder). Again, maybe Loomis will do what some think he will and spin the capital he just got to move up. But it seems to me it’s more likely that the Saints did this to get to three picks inside the top 50 (16, 19, 49), allowing them to lean on Jeff Ireland and his staff to find three starters to come in on rookie contracts and help alleviate the team’s cap strain now and in the future, and bolster a team that’s still got a roster that’s very much in a win-now type of place. (And for what it’s worth, Loomis, entering his 21st season as Saints GM, hasn’t shown much inclination, publicly or privately, to rip the Band-Aid off cap-wise and undergo a post–Drew Brees and Sean Payton rebuild).

This might help... (it's also funny)

From Peter King (link) QB Desperation Truest words of the week, from draft maven Greg Cosell of NFL Films: “You can make the argument that every year there are two drafts: the quarterback draft, and the draft for the rest of the players. This year’s no different. It would not surprise me if we saw five quarterbacks go in the first round.” One GM told me he sees three in the top 20, though there appear to be no sure things among the passers set to be taken. Those three are likely Kenny Pickett of Pitt, Malik Willis of Liberty and Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder. I’ve heard very good things about Ridder’s exchanges with teams over the past month, but each QB has his critics. Has Pickett hit his ceiling already? Can Willis develop the pocket presence teams want to see? Ridder has run NFL style concepts at Cincinnati, but he misses throws he should make and isn’t strong throwing on the run. One of the issues is when a team picks a quarterback in the first round, there are expectations he’ll play as a rookie. Play some, at least. What if, say, a Willis would be best served with a redshirt year? Will his team feel fan, media and owner pressure to play him before his time? That’s an inescapable issue when a guy drafted to be the future at the most important position in the game comes onto the scene. Sometimes, pressure foils the best-laid plans. Chris Simms, the QB maven for NBC Sports, likes Ole Miss’ Matt Corral as his QB1, for his quick release, strong arm and quick feet. But Simms predicts only two in the first round: Pickett and Willis. He thinks Detroit should take Corral late in the first or early second (the Lions have the 32nd and 34th overall picks, last in the first round and second in the second round). “Corral really excites me,” Simms said. “He’s got the quickest release I’ve seen in a while.”

This bit of info from Peter King's latest column is relevant to the topic... I think, not to pick on Malik Willis, but as a Liberty quarterback, he played two top-25 teams in two seasons—Coastal Carolina (2020) and Mississppi (2021). He beat Coastal Carolina, rushing for four touchdowns, and lost to Ole Miss. Notable numbers in those games: zero passing TDs, five interceptions.