Mr. Scot

It's also true that what frequently happens in the NFL is everybody starts doing one thing and then a team that decides to do something different becomes a powerhouse and starts things trending in the other direction.

Ellis offers his take...

Pretty much...

That's kinda what struck me. I'm not all that used to us being patient. (or smart)

Mayfield could conceivably still be an option in Seattle too

It hasn't exactly been what I'd call a strength either.

Hence the line "from the same Albert Breer article linked in the 'Good Insight' thread..." I'm calling out a sub point in the article that I think is worthy of its own discussion.

Overrated as far as media perception vs how teams saw him? Yeah. Overrated as an NFL player? That judgment is going to take a few years.

The team has a deal in place for a second round pick at a time when every QB but Pickett was available but ended up backing out of it. From the same Albert Breer article linked in the "Good Insight" thread... Which was what guided them midway through the night, when they had a deal worked out to acquire a late-second-round pick, with every quarterback but Kenny Pickett still on the board. Inside the war room, Fitterer leaned over to Rhule, sitting to the GM’s left. “I had the card in my hand, and he looks at me and says, What do you want to do?” Fitterer said. “And we both just kind of took a moment, and we looked at the board, and we decided the right thing to do was to be patient. Let’s not overpay. Let’s be smart about this. Let’s not dig ourselves in a hole for next year. Let’s inch back on trading with these quarterbacks.” At that point, he, Rhule and the group resolved to wait a little longer and, since they had enough conviction on a couple of the guys left, take another look when another quarterback came off the board.

In his last presser, he referenced finding out that he was "even stupider than he thought he was". It was also pretty clear in several things he said that he's conscious of how negatively fans view him.

Here's the full text of Breer's Panthers analysis: PATIENT PANTHERS EVENTUALLY GET THEIR QB It was two days before the draft, and after a couple of weeks of meetings where Panthers coach Matt Rhule, GM Scott Fitterer, owner David Tepper, assistant GM Dan Morgan, VP of player personnel Pat Stewart and college scouting director Cole Spencer had agonized not over which player to home in on with the sixth pick—but which position to focus on. For most of that time, Tepper had been in on these meetings over the phone. And with decision time coming, he’d come to Charlotte, huddled in a film room with the group to make final what they’d discussed. The owner peppered his football people with probing questions, challenging them to make the smart, most-well-thought-out decision possible, and, in the end, it kept coming back to who the best players were. “It really came down to, What’s the right football decision? Let’s not push need. Let’s not be desperate. Let’s make the right football decision for our team,” Fitterer said Sunday morning. “And that was a conversation that was really guided by Mr. Tepper at the time, and Matt and I worked through it with him, and we had all these scenarios mapped out that said, Hey, let’s take the tackle. If the quarterbacks fall, we can always trade up.” At the time, they didn’t know that four of the presumed top five quarterbacks would tumble all the way through the first and second rounds and the top of the third round. But it sure helped that they did. And it put the Panthers in position to address both needs. As that meeting wrapped Tuesday, three scenarios were set for the sixth pick. 1) Like many teams, the Panthers had Mississippi State’s Charles Cross, NC State’s Ekwonu and Alabama’s Neal as the draft’s top three tackles, with two sitting a notch above the other one. And the plan was that if one of those two fell to Carolina at No. 6, there’d be no messing around. They’d sit there and take him. 2) If the third tackle was there and the other two were gone, the Panthers were comfortable taking him. But in that scenario, they’d also have considered trading down. 3) If all three tackles were gone, they’d have weighed taking a quarterback or trading the pick. And if they didn’t take a quarterback there, they’d have looked to deal up for one Friday. From there came the surprise—shock even—that all three tackles would be available for Carolina at six, and the Panthers would have their pick of them, choosing to keep the Charlotte area native Ekwonu home. That stroke of luck wound up making Step 1 of the plan the easiest part, with Ekwonu checking every box imaginable, with unimpeachable character, toughness and versatility to go with a rare athletic skill set for a lineman. Then, it was time to get the quarterback, and, had the financial part of the equation set up a little differently, maybe the Panthers would’ve wound up with a veteran instead of a rookie. But as it was, the Panthers were going to try to get back into Day 2, after trading their second- and third-round picks in deals for Sam Darnold and C.J. Henderson, and they were going to do so within some guardrails they’d set up for themselves. The big one was this: They were not going to part with a future first-rounder and really didn’t want to deal off a future second-rounder either. “You can’t keep borrowing from the future,” Fitterer said. “It was like, we need to be smart about this and be disciplined about it.” Which was what guided them midway through the night, when they had a deal worked out to acquire a late-second-round pick, with every quarterback but Kenny Pickett still on the board. Inside the war room, Fitterer leaned over to Rhule, sitting to the GM’s left. “I had the card in my hand, and he looks at me and says, What do you want to do?” Fitterer said. “And we both just kind of took a moment, and we looked at the board, and we decided the right thing to do was to be patient. Let’s not overpay. Let’s be smart about this. Let’s not dig ourselves in a hole for next year. Let’s inch back on trading with these quarterbacks.” At that point, he, Rhule and the group resolved to wait a little longer and, since they had enough conviction on a couple of the guys left, take another look when another quarterback came off the board. It didn’t happen for a while. But eventually, 10 picks into the third round, the Falcons pulled Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder off the board. Twelve picks after that, the Titans drafted Liberty’s Malik Willis. And, stunned again by how guys at a certain position fell, the Panthers got aggressive and started making calls—very comfortable with the idea of taking either Ole Miss’s Matt Corral or North Carolina’s Sam Howell. In New England they found a willing partner who’d work within the parameters Carolina set for itself. Which meant the Panthers had to give a little, too, sending the Patriots their 2023 third-round pick to essentially move their fourth-round pick into the third round (from 137 to 94). From there, Fitterer sent in the card, choosing Corral over Howell, with Corral’s physical ability, plus a meeting he had in that same film room to address a host of off-field questions, giving him the slight edge over another local product. The meeting, for what it’s worth, came after the team had already met with Corral at his pro day and the combine, and followed a group meeting with offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo and QB coach Sean Ryan, and a one-on-one with Rhule. “We had one of the most honest, deep conversations; he opened up to us,” said Fitterer. “And he was very truthful, and you could feel the change in him and the realization of what he wants to accomplish in life and in football. And when he got up and walked out, Mr. Tepper and I looked at each other and we’re like, ‘This guy’s been through things, and he’s better off for what he’s gone through. He’s learned from it. He’s grown.’ “And at that point, I think that’s the moment we felt comfortable.” So now Ekwonu’s a Panther, and Corral is, too, and the team’s first- and second-round picks for next year are intact. Carolina’s first pick will likely start at left tackle, and its second pick will compete with Darnold to be the team’s starting quarterback. The Panthers will still kick around the idea of adding a vet like Jimmy Garoppolo, Baker Mayfield or Nick Foles to the mix. But they’re no longer in a desperate spot to do something. Which is really the key to all of this. They made a sound football call at No. 6. They have flexibility at quarterback. And that leaves them better positioned than they were Thursday morning.

Some teams lose because their coach says dumb sh-t like that. (along with players saying stuff like "hey, sacks happen")

Breer probably writes more about the Panthers than a lot of other national reporters do.

Losing isn't enough to judge by in and of itself.. You have to understand why you're losing. If the reasons don't stem from quarterback play, then no, your first option should not be to replace the quarterback.

Anyone wanna tell him that posts on this board don't affect what the team does? A thousand pro-Newton posts don't accomplish a thing.

The flaw in David Tepper's thinking...

Knew a kid who went to one of those. His parents were doctors in New York. When one of them got hit with a malpractice suit and he ended up being moved to a tiny high School in West Virginia, let's just say he wasn't the happiest person.

It was reported.

Hell, plenty of those fights happen in football practice.

Back when he was in high school, Randy Moss put a kid in the hospital. He wasn't in a private school. It was at a small high school in West Virginia. It didn't exactly hurt his career.

Never assume anything is obvious on this board.

Here's the Twitter account I mentioned, talking about the scouting movement I mentioned... Anybody planning to take the agent exam?

Well, prepping for updates at least Colbert stepping down is the only move that's official to date. Don't doubt there'll be other changes though (there always are).

Well, at least he cited a source. That's different from his frequent MO of copying and pasting from a tweet but not posting the tweet so it looks like his own info. (that's usually referred to as plagiarism, but hey...)