Khyber53

Well, I don't want to make it sound like that, although it does, but it was more of a "easier to import the culture than to change everyone's hearts." We sent Cam packing not just because he really wasn't Cam on the field anymore, but because Cam still owned the locker room. Can't change the whole culture if Cam says, "No man, that's not how it works around here." Still, I don't think the culture has changed in a perceptible way. We've gotten younger, but I don't see us with the mentality of "we will outwork anyone else to win" or any sign of a chip on our shoulder. We don't seem to be making this a pride thing, or even a professionalism thing. Hell, I'm not even sure what our identity is supposed to be and I sure don't want it to be what it is looking like. We had something those first three games, but Dallas broke us. It wasn't the CMC hammy going, but it may have been the first time someone really hit us in the nose and we just didn't have a bit of grit.

What he wants is guys who bought into what he was selling before so that he has a cadre of guys he can lean on to get his point across. Please note the large number of Temple players as well as those from Baylor? It's six Temple, three Baylor. Was anyone else scratching their head when they saw #57 Clay Johnston out there on defense last week? He's a Baylor guy and I have no idea how he earned a jersey much less a chance to be on the field. And what have we found out? That out of those nine players only Haason Riddick is starter quality. But all but Tecklenburg saw the field on Sunday. That worked out well.

I tried, I really did. I've been on the bus for him in hopes that he lives up to the talk, the potential. I was very critical of Snow last season, slightly critical of Brady, but stuck with Rhule. I've not been on the Fitterer bandwagon and there's been little to recommend it. Now, after that loss to the Giants, he embasrassed us. That was a case of an unprepared, poorly built team having no plan going in to play someone they clearly should have beaten. Put as much of it on Darnold's shoulders as you can, but there is sooooo much blame to go around. We've lost four games in a row to progressively worse teams. We've got Atlanta next week and probably another loss with even more embarrassing results. Excuse me while I think we've found the newest version of Chip Kelley.

I've railed about this before, but Robby Anderson did next to nothing after week 5 last season, missed the OTAs, most of the offseason, good portion of training camp (if I recall correctly) and has done nothing outside of one long TD catch this entire season. How in the hell do you sit down and write the guy a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract during a rebuild? And he's playing even worse since the contract was signed. We thought he was here to play football, but he had a whole other game planned.

I get where you're going, I'm just not headed down that path. QB aside, and that Jimmy Clausen reference is pretty close to the mark except that Darnold has shown a few episodes of competence, there's the whole look of the offense that is worrying. I'm not talking about halftime adjustments (which have not been good at all), but also just the ability to adjust a game plan for the resources available. Someone earlier said Brady was just calling plays from a stolen Sean Payton playbook, but that Brady didn't actually understand how they work. Sometimes it seems that way. At LSU, Brady was heralded as creating the most effective passing game college football had seen in a long time. It was fresh off his two year stint with the Saints and Burrows, Chase, Marshall, et al racked up wins and a national championship. Crowns all around, great stuff everybody. The next season, Brady moved on to the NFL to join Rhule's staff for the Carolina Panthers. He had just one year with LSU and two years prior to that with the Saints. Now, he's an offensive coordinator and had been bandied about as the next hot HC prospect a la Sean McVey. Sadly, he's really just proving himself to have had a really great year and not a lot of experience. The cupboard was loaded at LSU that season, and it was nearly bare when he came to Carolina. Genius? Maybe. Deep understanding of building an offense from the ground up and getting full grown men earning millions of dollars to buy into what you are selling? Not looking like it. Understanding how to build an offensive line and use it to dictate the game at the pro level? No, he does not have that skill set. At all. He's a former wide receiver from William and Mary (a school that HAS produced two of the top coaches in the NFL right now) who still looks at the game from a pass-rich environment perspective. While this is a pass happy league right now, the winning teams understand the importance of more than just winging it and slinging it. We have no play-action passing game, no RPO, no moving pockets, and no screen game without CMC. We have a QB that is underdeveloped and regressing. We have a decent RB playing but getting very limited carries and have lost four games in a row, three that we should have won based purely on defense. Sorry, TL;DR version: The young wunderkind got the flyer from a one year championship run, but does not have the history to build. He was Mozart for a year at LSU but has been unable to build the piano he is expected to play.

Sometimes you don't have to wait until the house is built to tell that the carpenters didn't know what they were doing, if you know what to look for. Rhule and Co. just weren't ready for the big leagues. It happens.

Chuba would be starting on a number of teams in this league because he can play the position and he can get yardage. He does need to develop some parts of his game, and while he is learning on the fly, we've got to remember that he's still a rookie. He's got a lot to learn, he's got to get more familiar and comfortable in the passing game and he needs more time in strength and conditioning. If you base his evaluation against the starting RBs across the league, he's going to fall into place somewhere around 26th-27th in capability. He beats out some team's resources because they just don't have a decent running back on their roster. And Hubbard is decent right now. He isn't, however, ready to be a RB1 that anyone outside of his home team knows his name. His game just isn't complete right now and he isn't delivering the big hits and big runs. Not saying he won't, he just isn't there yet. So, in my opinion, Hubbard is in just the right spot for him. He's a RB2 behind an excellent (great) RB1 and he's seeing starting RB work because of an injury to the guy in front of him. He's getting on the job training and he's pulling his load when asked most of the time. Another year or two and he's going to be noticed.

Brady proves each week that he can't call a game. He also can't oversee development of an offensive line. But he's not the whole problem. There's something systemic here that makes you just about wish for the days of Jerry Richardson and Marty Hurney again. Our team owner knows nothing about the game of football and makes decisions based apparently on his gut and not on wise advice given. He talks about analytics but apparently he never checks the numbers. Our head coach appears in over his head and there's a chance that he has lost this team. Our new GM is "in on every deal" and he appears to be the rube at the poker table. He's hit on one player this year after being incredibly busy in the wheeling and dealing. He's apparently the guy you hope and pray will walk onto your used car lot. We can't change the owner, none of us have that kind of money. The rest, though, need to be changed.

Some people buy things just because they are expensive. Houses, cars, girlfriends. You know the type. They never look behind the scenes and see what wise people do -- that there's no need for four more bedrooms than you have people, that the Bentley doesn't get you there any more reliably than a Toyota, or that the gold-digger is just there because you shower her with gifts. Sadly, though, those folks, when they're proven wrong can just put on their Tom Brady jersey and get tickets for another team's games. Those of us who are more interested in the long term, and doing the right thing, are all about hoping DeShaun gets to travel to a state income tax haven state like Florida. There, he can sit on the commissioner's exempt list for a year or two while his peccadillos are investigated. We can rebuild like a smart team and avoid doubling down on our mistakes by taking Houston's mistakes into our own house. The cost is too high, the potential is iffy (the guy has been sitting for a year now and may have to for another, and honestly character counts -- there's no kind of guarantee he won't go out seeking masseuse/prostitutes again.

Yeah, I know. Our scheme has also been figured out and the loss of Shaq Thompson has hurt more than anyone could have imagined.

Hey, y'all can pick the least stinkiest turd up and try to polish it, but our defense isn't very good anymore. It's way better than our offense and special teams, but it's fallen off mightily just the same.

Nope, not accusing him of faking it. I would say he's smartly taking his time on getting back and getting fully healthy again. This coaching/management regime isn't going to inspire anyone to Jack Youngblood it and play in the Super Bowl with a broken leg, yanno?

The defense has been getting worse and worse each week. Holding the Giants to 5 points in the first half is pretty much what every team they've played has done. They were roundly considered one of the three or four worst teams in the league. They are riddled with injuries along the line, have a questionable QB and their star RB is out. (Sound familiar?) Our defense balled out the first three weeks against bad teams. We threw a defense out there that was somewhat novel and caught some of the other bad coaches by surprise. Dallas pulled us apart and we lost Shaq Thompson. Haven't shown any real dominance since then.

I don't think he's injury prone. I think he may know more about pro football than any of us here (growing up with his dad in the NFL and all) and he can tell bad coaching and a bad team as well as anyone. I think he's making some business decisions, again, to ride out this season on IR as much as possible and hope for something to change. Stay at home with the girlfriend, do some modest workouts and rehab, cash checks and not throw your health away for inept coaching? Seems like a smart, Stanford-educated idea right there. I mean, why Barry Sanders it? Same thing for Thompson in my opinion. And I can't blame him, either.

For the first three games our defense ruled the whole game, or at least three quarters of it. And then Dallas came to town with the blue print on how to beat us. We haven't won a game since and other teams have been marching on us at will, including the Giants yesterday. The Vikings just kept having their way with us throughout the game. The Eagles, the freaking Eagles, just ate our lunch. No, the Snow Job is just about as bad as the rest of the game.

No, I understand football. And I understand the offense's part in giving the defense a good shot. Our defense has been found out. And just like how Buddy Ryan's 46 defense kicked butt until it was figured out, the Snow Job defense has been figured out. We did well during the first quarter, but they just moved on us after that. Our defense, however, is quite a bit more effective than our offense, but that's just comparing rotten apples to questionable oranges.

Never thought someone would make us miss Hurney and Rivera... but Fit and Rhule are doing just that. Heck, David Gettleman's team just ate our lunch and showed they had more depth and desire to win. David frikkin' Gettleman. I mean this is send in Chris Weinke bad level of coaching and management.

If Fitterer is on the phone for Watson right now, then it's like the Captain of the Titanic gunning the engines and trying to hit yet another iceberg. It's time to put the cork on his fork.

The defense isn't that good. Hasn't been since week four. They just gave up 23 points (two were the offense's fault directly) to the hapless Giants. They moved on our defense pretty much at will (well, for the Giants that was at will). HC, OC, DC, STC are all basically mid-tier college football guys and that's where they should have stayed. New GM was a mid-level scouting dude for a team that drafted well a couple of times nearly a decade ago and have been falling apart since. He's out of his element and cannot evaluate talent, especially under Rhule's guidance. The tools for fixing this team aren't in the coaches offices or front office, either. And the owner is just a self-possessed, bloviated tyro who wants to grab his trophy wife's ass at press conferences.

I was like, yanno I've never seen that happen before with this team. Talk about sinking to a new low.

Now it's just how soon the firings begin that's the only reason to pay attention. Team might be midflight over Maryland when it happens.

"We're going to get at least 33 rushes this coming week." 16. Rhule and Brady need to be pushed off of a pier and left to swim home. Might as well push Snow in after them because once someone went back and looked at 1953's Best Defensive Plays Quarterly, we haven't been able to stop anyone.

Sideshow Bob, just another bad deal from Temple. Clean house. Top to bottom.

First thing, Teppper will need to eat the rest of Rhule and Co.'s coaching contract. Second, get rid of Fitterer. Third, hire an outside consultant to help with hires for the ENTIRE staff including the scouting department. Fourth, then we can think about new QB. And finally, get rid of 90% of the frikkin' Temple players.

Possibly the worst performance by the Carolina Panthers I have ever seen. They should tell the players and coaches to find their own way home after the game. fug 'em.