Khyber53

Big guy, big heart, still a big future ahead of him.

Oh that is such awful news. God bless the family and give them strength. Cannot imagine the hurt of losing a child.

That's how great teams are built. Been true since 1957 or thereabouts.

1. If you aren't a solid starter, you're at risk of getting cut to make room. A seven year player even at vet minimum is more expensive than a UDFA rookie. 2. FA guards are always over-priced, especially if you've ever heard their name mentioned before. 3. The good tackles stay on teams, even when there is a cap crunch. The tackles on free agency/trades you know of are probably sporting some long term injuries or have some locker room issues. If there is a unicorn OT out there, particularly a left tackle, you can't afford him without losing a lot of your future cap space. 4. If a player has been in the league for more than three seasons, particularly if they saw the field regularly, chances are they have some lingering injuries. All vet players have lingering injuries, some worse than others, some more able to cope with it than others. They all have hard miles, but its the quality of the maintenance that often matters. 5. Some teams have bad position coaches and they can ruin some players beyond redemption. More importantly, some teams have terrible trainers/conditioning coaches and those teams often spin out players with lingering issues that will spring up. It wasn't that many years ago that the Bengals facility had MRSA issues that spun out with almost all the free agents that came from that team. 6. If the average fan knows a free agent player's name, you can believe there is an entire hype machine out there working to gin up interest in them. Some are legit, many aren't and some are just looking for one more good paycheck before they pack it in and call it a career. 7. Beware of guys coming from a team that had a "players' coach." These vets are often used to just rolling up to the trough and feeding while not being required of much. Giving one of these guys a big contract can produce a whale you're stuck with. 8. The draft is still the best building tool out there. There's a whole legion of agents, bloggers and Twitter artists that want you to think otherwise. Many of them are happily paid to lie. 9. There are always a handful of bad players who blossom into something great with a new team. It's worth it to try and snag a couple of them on the cheap. 10. Top quality scouting departments are very rare (maybe only four or five in the league right now). Really bad ones can cripple a team for a decade or more as their bad evaluations are often blamed on the players and then the coaches. (We may be suffering from this.)

If our GM is looking for a WR for this team right now, he needs to be fired. It's like picking out new drapes while the kitchen is on fire.

Sadly, I think that it is the rotational part of it. I think that the new regime wants rotational guys to be young ones -- rookies or second year players. Cheaper, more development, maybe find a star. I loved having both Kerr and Obada in Panthers uniforms and I think both contributed majorly last season, I hate to see either or both go. But, let's be honest, our defense got trampled to death in the majority of our games last season. There was/is going to be a hog killin' on the defensive side this year, particularly among non-starters. Just hate to see it happen to two fan favorites like that.

Dude's cup of coffee never even had a chance to get cold. Honestly, didn't even know he was on the team. Good luck to him, though.

Hate to see him go, I really like the guy and he has a great story. He's a rotational player on the d-line but someone is going to pay him big for potential. Can't blame them or him... if he keeps going, he'll be devastating. If he maintains where he is, though, he's going to be an expensive rotational guy and that is probably why nothing came together before today between him and the Panthers.

Ding, ding, ding... we have a winner here! This could be a bad thing for the team's capabilities. There's nothing in Fitterer's past (look at Seattle's on field work -- Russell scrambles so well because he has to) or the 2020 Carolina Panthers that gives me a reason to believe we can build a good offensive line. I hope they prove me wrong, but looking at the two guys so far just shows injuries, an inability to keep starting spots and meh performance versus a bit of flexibility and maybe some coachable potential? I mean we've got guys who've come from Minnesota's organization (and boy didn't Remmers and Kalil the Lesser work out for us) and a guy from the Cowboys -- a team with a ton of top end draftees on their line and nothing to show for it. We're going to have to see some magic on draft day and then some bigger magic from Pat Meyers after that.

He had a helluva year when someone finally figured out how to use him. If he gets on a team like the Ravens, he's going to be a madman out there. His abilities and a hyper-mobile QB... scary.

My worry was just that -- the Vikings don't have a good track record with their offensive line spin-offs, even beyond the turds they've dropped on us over the years. Six games with the Jets last season after being released... not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Honestly, out of that group my wishlist is pretty much just Samuel and at least one of our starting guards from last season. And, to be truthful, I'm not sure either of the two guards couldn't be replaced by a healthy, young, mean, cheap UDFA.

I can see them wanting to bring him back, but Efe might be able to get some serious interest on the free agent market. I hope they move quickly and get him back on board before he hits free agency. I can see someone like WFT or the Falcons grabbing him.

We need something. Not sure there won't be someone in free agency floating around that might be willing to go for a cheap prove it deal. We could use a top end draftee at CB, but with our other needs I'm not sure if there's any way we get to snagging a CB until round four or later. And then... the drop off is pretty bad.

Same here. Me, I'm going to cheer for whoever we take and whoever we trot out onto the field in September.

Sad as it is for the Panthers, you are probably right.

We'll see, we'll see.

You sure get triggered easily.

Mac Jones doesn't make your top 50?

You forgot Jimi Hendrix, Heart, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Foo Fighters... Just quoting the TV shows set there is like appreciating a good looking woman by her earlobes alone.

Don't we ever get tired of articles where a writer speculates about what another writer speculated about in one of their own opinion pieces? It's the circle jerk of the off season I guess.

Plenty of tape on him running (pretty impressively). Any result other than some astronomical number (4.4 etc) could only neutrally or negatively affect the assessments.

That's my only hitch on this guy. He has everything except the tape against top tier defenses. He's young, though, so learning it isn't out of the question. He also seems to be a student of the game and motivated to improve beyond just his physical gifts. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he's not the guy I want at #8 for QB, but if we get him, I'll be darned happy with the choice. His upside is incredible, even if he may not be ready for prime time right out of the gate.

And Okung has the Bitcoin to prove it. Crazy dude, but he was right about that move.

This... 100%. And do not revisit those we traded away. We traded him to San Diego... errr LA2, to get a problem off our books in exchange for us taking a problem off of the Chargers' books in Okung. We got the verifiably nuttier one of the two, but we actually got a few good games from him. I don't think LA2 could say the same for Trai. Just let him find a new home. If it were Norwell, on a very team friendly deal, yeah, I'd swing for that. He left for bigger bucks than we could afford at the time, not because he was literally being called out in the middle of games by Cam for not doing his job. Edit to add: always best to grow Guards, draft Tackles and get the smartest center you can find.