Mr. Scot

Just FYI: This week's award went to Jordan Love

I wasn't gonna lie to Lady Cowboy Fan on that play. Told her straight up that was bullsh-t. To be fair though, the late game OPI call on Jake Ferguson was kind of a head scratcher too NFL officiating, ladies and gentlemen...

You should. Marty Hurney has said in an interview that had Houston not been picking ahead of us, we would have drafted Carr over Peppers. And to be fair to Carr, he not only received weekly beatings behind Houston's poorly equipped offensive line, but on top of that also some absolute dog sh-t coaching from Chris Palmer and company that probably aided in derailing his career. Just one of several examples from that era where somebody else's screwup actually saved us from screwing up ourselves...

Went back and looked at page 3. Pretty sure I found the post you were citing. My opinion: I think that post was trying to use hyperbole to make a couple of different points... One, yes there have been people grumbling over Bryce's stats in games we won. And in doing so ignoring that a lot of our early games relied on a very run heavy game plan. Honestly, not hard to find examples of that if you look back to the posts made around some of those arly victories. The Saints game forced us to go back to a more balanced attack, and we have indeed won games that way, including Young's career best game against Atlanta when that game unexpectedly became a shootout. Two, the size factor. Win or lose, good game or bad game, some folks are never gonna be happy with Bryce because of his stature. It's not so much that anyone expects Bryce to 'be Cam", but if you peruse this board during draft season you'll find loads of threads about prospects that "remind me of Cam" or "could be another Cam" or "might be Cam lite" or at the very least insisting that we'ill never win a Super Bowl unless we get a dual threat quarterback (a false, but somewhat widely held belief). That was a lot of the draw around Justin Fields, CJ Stroud (who I wanted, but not for that reason), Anthony Richardson and others. If you look back at threads touting those guys, it usually only takes only a few posts for someone to invoke Newton, even if the quarterback in question doesn't really resemble him much at all (Fields was a prime example). There are people who want Cam back (in spirit if not in body). if that's your ideal, having a guy like Bryce is anathema. But Cam isn't coming back, and as mentioned in the referenced post, guys like Cam don't grow on trees. So basically it's kinda futile to insist on that being the only path to glory. The overriding point in all this is unrealistic expectations. And yeah, we got 'em. We actually have something else that might be even worse though. Fear. Subtle feat, rationalized fear, but at heart still plain old fear. Why do I say that? Because the ridiculously illogical narrative that we somehow "win in spite of Bryce" is a fear based defense mechanism. Bryce can't ever be allowed to do anything good or receive any sort of credit for the Panthers winning games because to do so opens the door to the possibility that Bryce could end up being retained... ...and we simply can't have that Silly? Sure is, but I think we've all seen cases where people could rationalize just about anything if they're motivated enough. I'm not gonna go that route. I acknowledge every Bryce's skills, his progress, his growth, his "clutch gene" and any number of other good qualities he's demonstrated. And I still don't want to have to depend on him long term. And no, that isn't a contradiction. I have reasons.

No argument

Insert John McKay quote here

Same Granted, the Patriots are doing well this year.

No. I experienced my mom going through it. Still have PTSD

We close the season well but don't make the playoffs, then we don't see Bryce tested at that level. That'll certainly make for some... interesting offseason discussion

This board has more moos swings than a schizophrenic woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy, so...

Could definitely see them doing well as analysts (I know David already is)

Hold on to your drink

I can't have smoke of any kind in my house. I've got birds.

I haven't even looked at playoff scenarios. It's been so long since they had any significance for us, I forgot the existed

Aren't you suspended?

Good Now I'm gonna raise my hands and back slowly out of this thread

You don't think I'm a neutral party? See, the problem isn't "apples vs oranges". It's "should vs will". Sad to say, a fair number of people don't seem to comprehend the difference between those two things, and that lack of comprehension leads to a good amount of misguided discussion.

Has anybody actually said anything of that sort? (if they did, I missed it) I get why some folks rely on stats. I don't, and honestly I'm not sure why people keep trying to convince me I should. (it ain't gonna happen) Consistency is my big thing too, and the lack of it is why I want to move on from Bryce. But again, that's an argument I make without denying that he can indeed play in (and yes, win) NFL games. Hating bad QB play is fine. Denying when you see good QB play is silly. Let's be real for a second... This may not be you specifically, but there are some folks for whom Bryce can do absolutely nothing to win their approval. Some are always gonna want a bigger / stronger / faster / more athletic (in some cases, Newtonesque) quarterback even if Bryce does start to play consistently. At that point, they'll just shift the argument from "we can't win with Bryce" to "well, we can't keep winning with Bryce" You know all this as well as I do. So again, I want to move on from Bryce as well. I'd happily (hell, merrily) keep him as a backup, but I doubt there's a realistic path to that happening. But no matter what, I'm gonna keep my debate points based in reality, and I'm not gonna be responsive to "he just sucks" level persuasion. Is any of that unreasonable?

Oookaaay. just to review the original topics and where we're at to this point: - Jeremy Fowler, Dan Graziano, Joe Person have all said that they expect Young's fifth year option to get picked up, with Person calling it an "easy decision". I've yet to see anyone say otherwise, and barring something crazy happening there'll likely be more insiders and analysts making the same prediction in months to come (especially if we make the playoffs). - Also doubt anyone disagrees that Dave Canales isn't being retained (which was actually the first point thrown out in this thread) and any staff changes that do happen will probably be backfilling as opposed to replacing. - Front office? Turnover, title changes and promotions are pretty close to an annual thing there. May or may not be major moves, but there will likely be changes. Heck, there are some prior positions currently unstaffed which they may be looking to fill (Neil Stratton is always a good source for news of that sort). ... So, questions? Comments? Insults? Or are we good?

My thread predicting Bryce would get the fifth year option (again, not even arguing that he should, just predicting he will) is up to 34 pages now. Likewise, the one wherein ESPN guys did the same now stands at 12 pages. Who do you think is driving those discussions? (Hint: It ain't the "Bryce Brigade") There's a thread whose sole purpose was to mention that Bryce was up for Player of the Week honors. What happened there? Hell, this thread is ostensbly about a guy on another team. How long did it take for someone to bring Bryce into the topic? Was it for positive reasons? This is the mood right now, and it's why, in the midst of at least a potential playoff push, we're not universally jubilant about our team's successes. And this coming Sunday, the cycle will start all over again.

Depends... Every few years there tends to be one or two guys designated "Rooney guys" who a bunch of teams interview in order to satisfy the rules even if they aren't really interested. That sucks, but it happens. I wouldn't wanna see Evero (or anyone else honestly) be one of those guys, but the league is what it is.

This isn't an area where I have a whole lot of options

Defense still isn't what I'd call great, but at least it's better than last year. Whether that's Evero or better personnel is a matter of opinion. Bottom line for me is I won't be all that upset if he gets a new job.

I can sign on to that. Heck, as a fanbase we've seen so little winning over the last several years, it'd be nice to just enjoy it while it's happening. Cause if it stops, who knows how long it'll be till we see it again?