Khyber53

Just win some games, man. Crank out a winning season and the fanbase will start cheering and believing. It really comes down to that. Win. Or don't. That's the whole dividing line.

The biggest problem we've had with this team since Rivera left is that we have become progressively more timid. Certainly on offense, but mostly on defense. Football is not a finesse sport. It isn't gentlemanly. You don't want to kill or injure opposing players, but it is essential that you knock them hard enough to intimidate them or at least make them pensive about every move they make. We used to be those guys. And we haven't been for a very long time. So, I hope Dan and Dave can bring us back to this. We need it. And a tough, hard hitting team always gives you a shot, even when you might not have the finesse talent on the field. Yes, it is a passing league, but scared or addled receivers and QBs change the whole game. We need our grit back. We've been a bunch of neutered Persian cats for too long.

Dan's got quite a job to do washing the stink off from the Fitterer regime. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I wasn't happy with our choice to keep him, but even I've got to say he seems to have done well, at least on paper, for this point. But we've felt this way before at this point in the season -- All optimistic. I'm not completely withdrawing my earlier judgement, but he's beginning to make a case for himself.

In Green Bay, it all looked stupid until Aaron Rodgers had pooped in too many people's seats and was sent of to his reward with the Jets. That whole Jordan Love thing looked stupid at the time. Then by about October we were all like, "Well, would you look at that!" Cousins is on the later years of his career, is just coming back from a major injury. He's also an excellent QB to have a guy sit behind and study for a couple of years. If Cousins starts to slide or decides to retire or doesn't fully recover from last season's injury, they've got their next guy, studying and easing into the league without being thrown to the wolves (you know, like Bryce). And what if Kirk Cousins has the fountain of youth, even expands his game and just cements his spot as QB1? Well, there were quite a few guys trained behind Tom Brady that got traded for draft picks along the way. If it can keep from destroying Cousins' confidence, then this wasn't a really stupid move. As much as we'd like for it to be.

And squirrely as they come. The more I read up on Smith-Wade, the more I think this might be the best pick we made. Really hoping to see him out there making some QBs look really bad.

Just looking at this moment in time, rather than holding off until we see something for it, I'd have to give it a B+/A-. We added a lot of players and a lot of potential. We may have reached a bit with our first pick, but the simple move to make it at the end of the first round gave us a shot to make it last a bit longer if he really blossoms here. That was a pretty smart move and had a lot to do with Morgan and Beane's relationship I think. Picking up an injured running back in the second sounds like a foolish move, but honestly, it's a solid gamble. We know what the floor would be on the pick, that he might never play at a professional level due to that injury. And honestly, that is the floor on any pick you make. The ceiling on the guy could potentially be immense. He was outstanding on a mighty fine team that was pass heavy and he doesn't have a lot of mileage. If that knee heals up completely (and we have a lot of experience with that in Carolina), he could be a massive steal and just what Bryce needs. There are a lot of people harping on our LB pick, but man, I always take it with a grain of salt when folks decry a player's "football intelligence." It's one of those criticisms that is easy to lodge against a young guy, but really hard to quantify. It might be nothing. His reputation for being a hard hitter and instinctual tackler are more important I think. He's going to have a good mentor in Shaq in the LB room and there's an institutional strength in our LB corps that could give him quite a boost. Our TE pick in the fourth may very well be the steal of the draft. I think we're going to see some serious production out of him. I'm hoping for something Olsen-like. He's definitely an upgrade to what we have now. And from there, well, the tea leaves get a little harder to read. I think Morgan did well with the trading and he cast a wide net for positions. We're going to have to see how it all shakes out, but just based on the three days of picks and the work that went into them, it was a good performance, better than I expected.

We won't know a darned thing until about October 15 when it comes to our drafting today. So, in the meantime, might as well be optimistic about it.

And, well, there may not be another team with more experience in successfully returning a guy from a knee injury. Let's take it slow, play the long game with him and hopefully it pays off big. If he doesn't see the field until late November, early December, he's going to be fresh at the right time.

I miss Will Witherspoon. Dude was great and I thought that when we chose to keep Morgan over Witherspoon back in the day, we'd chosen incorrectly. I used to be friends with one of his former teammates on the Rams and he said Spoon was just an all-around great guy and had a brilliant mind.

Okay, we didn't get our Luke replacement guy. But we may well have our next Thomas Davis. We needed something to put some fight back in our defense. Morgan knows all about those guys, he was one of those guys.

You are 100% right on this. Keep Sanders because it's a waste of money not to and keep Blackshear and Cohen because we may well need them. And keep Chuba as the RB1, he deserves that. Ease Brooks into the NFL and then watch what happens.

There's not a position on our roster that can't be upgraded in the draft. If the right guy at the time of the pick is a running back, then take him. We are literally a "the cupboard is bare" team right now. There's one sacred cow on the team that can't be replaced and he just got an extension this off-season to play DT for us. But there's still a spot to either side of him that can and should be replaced. Running back under appreciated in the league, well that's a load of bull. Undervalued does not mean under-utilized. If that RB can catch and can find the hole in the line and make something for us, it'd do so much for our offense. And if he can pick up the blitz and block like a demon? Heck, that'd be great. We had a guy like that. Dude played in the Super Bowl this year while our team took vacation and watched the game on TV.

I think we're going LB. We need to go LB. MLB, get a field general for the defense. There will never be another Luke, but it's time for his replacement to be found.

On paper and in hope, everything looks much better out there for the wideouts. And let's not forget Thielen who still has it and was our steady performer even when opposing teams knew he was all we had. Heck, give that guy some breathing room and he'll turn out an even better year. We need, need, need help at TE, though. That TE room is pretty mundane at best. Better line, better receivers, better get some performance out of Bryce and we'll be better than before. We did not set a high bar to jump over to count ourselves as "improved."

Well, okay then. Welcome to the team, hope you do for us what you did senior year in college, over and over again. Now let's see who we get at 39.

With the full knowledge that I will think I'm a genius if I get even one of these right... 33. Troy Franklin, WR, Oregon 39. Payton Wilson, LB, NC State 65. Cade Stover, TE Ohio State 101. Jonah Ellis, Edge, Utah 141. Nehemiah Pritchett, CB, Auburn 142. Blake Corum, RB, Michigan 240. Tyler Owens, S, Texas Tech

Okay, let's be honest about this. It happened a long time ago. It can't be changed. We made it to 2nd place that season and played in our second Super Bowl, two more than some older organizations have ever had and one more than most. It's time to let it go. It's time to let Cam go. Time just flows in one direction, we need to be looking downstream.

And offensive linemen.

No, they failed the Panthers. Cam, great as he was, was just a part of the Panthers, not the whole organization. They treated him like he could be enough, that he was Superman like he claimed he was. You can't rest a whole franchise's hopes on one man of flesh and bone. Eventually they can't reach the summit, eventually the wear and tear takes them down. They wanted Cam to be that guy. Cam wanted to be that guy. We all wanted to be that guy. We all just got blinded by the light.

Then let's let someone else take a swing at him instead.

The biggest knock on Cam was that Cam was such a superstar, once in a generation talent that the coaches leaned too heavily on him, that the rest of the team leaned too heavily on them, the management of the team just sat back and didn't build like they should have, and that in the end, no matter how much Cam believed he was that guy, one man can't win you a Super Bowl. Cam took up most the oxygen in the room, always has, always will, he's just that big of a deal. And sometimes that's just how it works out. Marino had the same effect. Rodgers was always a threat of being that way. The game revolves around the QB, doubtless, but there has to be more to it than that. We had other guys, certainly, like Luke and TD, Double Trouble and Jordan Gross. But it was the Cam show, make no bones about it. And we just never built it to be more than that.

Anyone can make a mistake and there's no better story than a redemption one. Still you've got to really look into who this kid is and what kind of man he'll be once he has a ton of money piled in front of him. Character really does matter, especially in this day. If the DUI was a one time situation, then snag him as he falls. If there's even a hint that the DUI just happened to be the first time he was caught, then let him go and be someone else's headache.

And the latest. A guy's wife goes missing, he knows she's gone, decides to head into work that day instead of calling the cops. Gives them a ring after he finishes his shift. Doesn't bother to join in the search parties, has a new girlfriend a couple of months later.

I'm going to harp on this once again. The one glaring advantage to having the #33 pick, the first one on day 2 is that there is going to be a full night to develop clarity on who is available. And there are very good chances that we can take the very best player available for the entire rest of the draft. I know we are needy at Edge, WR, CB and LB. And those are most likely going to be the most picked over positions for top end performers. On the flip side, there is an extremely good chance that neither an RB or a Safety will be picked in the first round. Perhaps only one TE would be gone by the end of the first round as well. Could we go RB or TE at 33 and find our man? Yeah, I think we really could. And I'm beginning to think we really should. Give me the best RB of the draft coming in at #33 and never let him forget all of those that passed on him. Get that rolling ball of butcher knives we need. Or get that sure handed, big TE who can work the seams in the defense and grind out the difficult yards. There's opportunity where we sit, as long as we don't fritter (Fitterer) it away by trading down to take more, lesser, players.

I think the economy outside of housing is actually the strongest it has been in a couple of decades, but housing hits everyone. If a person is already on a mortgage or has a long-term lease locked in, they need to just stay the course and ride this out. And make the most out of the job market... if there isn't more money for you where you are, move on and move up. Job loyalty sure is taking on a new appearance.