Khyber53

Well, that bit of suspense has been settled. JJ may be 75 before he retires from the NFL.

He's not bad, but really, I can understand him not being tendered. If he can get good money elsewhere, then the team is smart to let him go. It's more cost effective to roll the dice at this point. I did think he could add something in our passing game, but man, there are a lot of dead-weight guys in front of him with actual contracts. There's going to have to be an axe taken to that group before he's got a shot at getting in there. But... if he's still out there getting offers at vet minimum or a bit more, then expect the Panthers to make a move to retain him, matching those offers but not much more than that.

A center is always at a disadvantage in 1 v. 1, it comes with the duties of the job. Good ones learn to compensate and the great ones learn how to do that and then leverage their guy into someone else.

If you want to build an O-line, you have to start with the smartest and most skilled Center you can find. You have to get a guy who can call protections, who can direct the other four guys, who can learn the playbook and recite it to the other players. We made it to the Super Bowl with Ryan Kalil and four guys who couldn't start for most other teams. You need THAT kind of guy. I thought Bozeman was it, but last year was terrible. In his defense, he lost both of his starting guards before the season was really under way, his LT hit the sophomore slump, and his rookie QB who thought he could explain the blocking schemes really couldn't. Plus the overall coaching and position coaching was terrible. Oh yeah, and there was no help from the back up tight ends and the highly touted FA RB who weighed about 125 lbs with a handful of rocks in his pockets. Maybe Bozeman wasn't that bad and is still our guy. Who knows? It's way, way, way early before the draft to be etching picks in stone.

Oh that would be lovely to get, wouldn't it?

I disagree. I think Jamie puts a lot more into the show than there was before. Losing Nate, now that was the tough one. Talk about a guy that just blossomed AFTER a good on-field career. That guy was born to be on TV.

Kay Adams kinda made a huge mistake stepping away from Good Morning Football. Kinda nice to see she found something besides Draft King commercials.

We've been bad for what like five, six years now? And we've gotten demonstrably worse each year. Our brightest spot has been a fairly okay run by an interim coach that we chose not to hire. Folks, this ain't tanking. This is a franchise that is swirling around the drain. Where there was once the Destroyt Lions and the Cincinnati Bungles, we have become the Carolina Punthers. It ain't tanking if you don't have the choice but to suck.

Maybe the answer isn't what can we do to make Burns better, but could Burns be the thing that makes someone else better. Maybe he just isn't the lead edge rusher kind of guy, but works best as Edge2? It may be the thing his agent hopes that no one starts saying out loud.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner folks! He didn't marry her for her brains.

Oh, you are probably right. Not going to get an argument there. But there have been crazier things.

It's a bitter pill, but it's the truth.

Or we could see something magical happen like 2003. Or we could see more of the same. Whatever is going to happen, one thing is for sure, times with this much speculation aren't boring.

Having a dependable QB would really benefit Tremble, too.

It's the last gamble that another team will want him at that price tag for the season. I don't think we actually do, but we're willing to give it a try. Honestly, his trade value will remain high up to the early season trade deadline, so we might as well. I still think there's a suitor out there for him, but he didn't do himself much help with the season he just posted.

I really had a lot of hope for him, but he had a lot of struggles on and off the field I guess. Good luck to him in his future stops. Wish it would have been better here for both him and us.

Draft WRs and build them. In FA, the good ones, as well as the great ones, are incredibly expensive and sometimes risky investments. In FA, that's where I think we can make some waves at RB on the cheap.

The beginnings of A Tale of Two Cities keeps getting played out again and again in life, doesn't it? We should be worried that someday the rest of it will again, too. (In the book a rich noble's carriage runs over a little boy and rather than stopping, it goes on by with the nobleman tossing a few coins out onto the roadside.)

I like your thinking but honestly, I'd worry less about a FA WR2 and look at the rather large stock of quality FA RBs that are going to be available out there. The top two will get good money but there are others that are going to be looking at the need for a 1 year prove it contract. Snag the best of them and give us something. Chuba played well for us and Sanders, honestly, we're stuck paying him the money but let the guy's roster spot go to someone else. Screw it, the guy just sucked here last year. In the draft, this is going to sound harsh, but if there's a QB like Rattler available at 33 take it and compete for QB1 here. As much as I think Bryce got pretty well screwed by coaching, roster building and injuries along the O-line, he's still got more questions than answers. And screw the costs already sunk into the position... QB is important enough to just keep searching for the guy until we find him. If Bryce does prove it and wins the starting position again, Rattler (or whoever) can be developed as either trade bait or as a quality back up at rates that are cheaper than the going FA rates for one. O-line will be better next year if everyone gets back to being healthy. But what we need is depth. We need to scour the FA pools for interior and outside linemen and then pick up someone in the later rounds for added depth. Most O-line candidates wash out early, this is just a fact of the game and we are going to have to just invest knowing that most won't make the grade. But some will, and we may find just the right guy for a starting position -- We have three guys on the line that aren't really young and three guys who have had injury issues. We need to plan ahead for that. On defense, we need pressure. We need to decide whether Burns (if he stays) or Brown gets a top end running mate to push the pocket with. Are we going to be strongest inside or outside? And then we need to look at linebackers to match that decision. I hope we can retain Luvu, he's a foundation piece and I believe Shaq will be back with a vengeance (and at low costs for the next two years), but that third Will LB needs to be top end good. FA or draft, we need better than we've gotten. And no more grabbing "stars" at the end of their careers... we need to get guys who want to play not just snag a few more paychecks by flopping onto piles and calling them tackles. Our DBs need serious help, but ain't nobody got time for that or the money or the draft picks. We've got a kicker, we've got a punter, darned good ones, too. And maybe JJ Jansen will be willing to come back for another season. Lose him and those darned good kickers and punters are going to suffer. poo man, it's going to take a miracle around here.

Well said and wise.

I just hope that they were asking the right question.

We'll know for sure by about week 3 of the regular season. If he's no better, then we should go ahead and start looking at who we will get with a high draft pick that we will "earn" and hopefully still get to use. And we could, of course, all be going "Wow, he was worth it" by week 3, too.

I think you're 100% right. It was a total clusterfug of a season and it started in coaching, management and ownership, then it was made worse by injuries.

Shingles first shot didn't bother me at all. I wheeled in for that second thinking I was in the clear. The next day I thought they needed to declare another nationwide pandemic shut down. Woof that was something.