Khyber53

You don't have to have a legendary or great QB to win the SB. It does take a good one on a solid team. There are some really legendary QBs without a Super Bowl ring, many with gold jackets. And then there are some solid but modest QBs with one or sometimes more rings. Still, that QB spot is the most important on a team, by a fairly sturdy margin. It's just not as steep of a margin as they want you to think. Dan Marino has no ring. Eli Manning has two. Trent Dilfer has one.

I like him, he's from here in Greensboro, never really got the chance because of injury at end of senior year and then was sitting behind a suddenly and impressively reinvigorated Goff. Practice squad signing here is a really good move. Maybe he can grow into the roll a bit more and take over back-up QB duties after Dalton hangs up the cleats. If not, maybe he can just be a really good player to run practice drills here. Either way, a good kid gets to keep living the dream for a while longer and get a paycheck. I've got no problem with that!

Oh yeah, I admit that I just came up with that one out of thin air. No idea how he did here, but honestly he was pretty good on the field. I just fired that one off mainly because he was cracking on a guy who really was putting it all out there and performing, even when it looked like no one else was.

Well, I mean, if he just hit the line and produced two yards a carry that'd be a problem. Like Mike.

I can't say safe for a few more seasons. If this goes bad enough, like a total retrograde, this thing is going to get blown up, and hopefully completely.

Man, we got screwed. Looks like Morgan did learn a lot from Fitterer. We're going to regret this. Good luck to AT, though and thanks for all the hard work here.

That depth chart is full of holes and who?s. Lord, I hope there's a plan.

I wish him the best in whatever comes next for him. Not right now doesn't mean never, it also doesn't always mean this thing. Guy could take everything he's learned and move into coaching.

Prayers sent up!

Oh, I fully understand that. And you don't make the list if you didn't do anything of real note last season. There's stuff we took note of because, well, peanuts in turds, but the rest of the league's fans overlooked it, as well as the serious sportswriters. If we want to make these lists next year, then we've got to actually do something and win some games.

None of our folks are making a top 100 list until both they individually, and we as a team, prove that we are worthy of consideration outside of an area bounded by Gaffney and Asheboro. You don't get accolades with losing records year after year. And not just slightly losing records but bottom quarter of the league losing records. Sometimes the worst of the league. Ask anyone who cheers for a pro team in Ohio how it feels. They have decades of that. Well, unless you count Ohio State. They're pro, right?

I've been pounding the drum for seven or eight years about this: Our scouting and evaluation department is crap. If we don't show marked improvement this season, it's time to blow the whole thing up from GM and HC on down to scouting and trainers. Clean slate, no "hey my buddy from back in the day is perfect to join us" crap anymore. This poo has to end somewhere.

Let's be completely honest about this... Our WR room is AT and a bunch of question marks. Thielen is the only guy we know who knows the route tree completely, understands play calls and can regularly get open/beat close coverage when necessary. He's long in the tooth, isn't the speediest guy on the field but he plays like a pro, starting level wide receiver. Xavier, last season looked great at first, but man he kind of petered out down the stretch and would disappear in a number of games. He wasn't reliable on routes or getting open and where he was supposed to be a king at contested catches, he often looked a bit intimidated. I'm not saying he's a washout by any means. Anyone with his size, speed and catch radius could make it big in the NFL, but can he do it? He'll need to show more than he did in the preseason before we can really rely on him as a WR1 or WR2. Coker was a revelation last season, he really played way above his (non)draft status and flashed multiple times in games and was a steady performer. What we need to find out, though, is whether he was benefiting from being an unknown that wasn't getting maximum effort from opposing DBs or if he was just outworking and outhustling everyone on the field. We should find out this season. We sure as hell didn't find out much in the pre-season (from him or any receiver or QB for that matter). He's still a question mark, but I think he has the look of the real deal. He might be this generation's next Thielen. Now, let's talk about Tet. High first round draft pick, first true WR off the board this year. Stellar career out west in college. Has the swagger of the WR1. And man, y'all are going to get mad about this but... he comes across as a mook. And in the pre-season he performed, well, not so great against poor opposition of second and third stringers. Yeah, he caught that one moonshot ball in the first game but really, nothing else lighting the place up. Rookie endzone drop in that game, too. He's still young and adjusting, I'm sure, but I was hoping to see something of a breakthrough kind of guy. I'm still looking. Hunter Renfro? Gosh, I hope he can make the team and make a comeback to his old form. It would be such a great story. But maybe neither one of those happens. We won't know until Tuesday and then, if he makes it past there it could be weeks. So, TL;DR: AT is all we can bank on right now. We couldn't afford to let him go considering the number of unknowns we'd be throwing out there for our QB, who himself is still an unknown. One thing to add: Our receivers coaching group has their work cut out for them. I hope they are up to the task, but the pre-season gave me little reason to believe in them. And I really need something to believe in here in Carolina.

That wasn't vanilla. That was dishwater. I hope you are right.

I'm not seeing much change and that makes me feel less enthusiastic than last season. I hope what we've been seeing is a big deception.

Just bought Jesse Wells' newest album. The kid is good, really good.

Dang. Still using my hotmail address. I am an old fart.

Nope. He has completely washed that out for me over the last couple of seasons. We have not built a defense, he hasn't seemed to have developed any of the talent we've drafted or lured here. Our defense plays with lackluster effort many times and I've noticed that since Shaq was gone (after he was injured and all) that players were often out of place. Shaq appeared to be coaching on the field at times. Honestly, I want to see us transition back to the 4-3. We've never successfully transitioned to the 3-4 and we've been trying hard to do it since Tepper took the reins.

Stumbled across this guy. Really like his style.

Greg Olsen got shipped off by Chicago to us because they didn't realize the time involved in making the transition.

Me, too. I was expecting to see some single digit scores there. Still, really glad to see Tremayne make the list. He played very well while he was in there. Big guy. And good grades for our ILBs. We need some hope there, even if they are second and third stringers. That QB room, though. It's going to need realignment by next season if not sooner.

And a linebacker who was the management student of the last guy who was GM here. That guy wasn't exactly football Yoda. And Morgan was never the brightest bulb in the bin. Remember how he used to make sure that he took the head off of every rookie LB during the first training camp day? Ended one guy's career. Then, well, Morgan himself had to call it a career because of concussions himself. We could have done better somewhere out there for a manager choice. We just let the last guy fall on his sword and promoted his caddy.

Okay, I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Are we not allowed to look at the product that has been put on the field and say "That doesn't look good, not good at all."? And the comment about the owner and picking coaches that aren't intimidating is actually a very pointed statement about potentially why we aren't doing well and, GOING BACK TO THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD, might very well explain why we have an effort problem. Football is about imposing your will on the other guys, it is about extreme effort, guts, toughness, determination. It is a street fight every game at this level. And, well, we've had some real, well, pussies for the last couple of coaches. I'm still holding out that this one might have something to whip our rather lackluster team into something competitive. But, I think, I see, that Tepper has chosen analytics guys and confidence builders over hard work and culture guys. And I think it's because those first types make him feel more in charge. But hey, I was on topic, but you dragged the other thread into here.

No, I disagree. I think that it reaches right to the core of what is happening with the team, the fanbase and then filters down to the Huddle. We're all in here just gnashing our teeth because, well, there ain't much cheering left to do at the moment. Give us something to believe in and this crowd will be back trading high fives and being all rah rah. Right now, though, I've been on this board for 16 years and I've just watched the fanbase slide into this malaise. It sucks.

Nah, our last three head coaches were a bag of wet socks. Fox, Rivera coulda whooped all three in a fight by themselves. Heck Capers probably still can and is waiting for a shot. Seifert... maybe.