Khyber53

He flashed for about a minute and a half here (but loved his sack celebration). Would be great to find out he is ready and able to play, but that's a lot of time off and not much tape on the guy.

I'm optimistic by nature. I like the coach, even if we really didn't see many wins or great performances last year. I think the Darnold pick up was probably a smart gamble that could pay off well or crater. Cratering, though, would come with some upsides in the next draft and we wouldn't be on the hook for a terrible amount of money for too long.

Honestly, the thing that worries me the most is our defense. They didn't do us many favors last year and we ended up in some shoot outs where the other team never had to send out their punter a single time. I don't think it was personnel that did it so much as our non-aggressive play style in most of the games. There were games where it looked like their mamas had told them not to get their uniforms dirty, yanno?

I'm optimistic that we're getting closer to what the coach wants and has been planning for. I think we'll see a less competitive Saints team, but we're staring down the barrel of Tom Brady and the Falcons have a lot to prove. If we can take the Saints twice and split with the Bucs and Falcons, then I like our chances with the rest of the schedule. 

Meh. Jags gonna Jag.

15 hours ago, Jon Snow said:

The big guy will have to lay off the cheeseburgers for a while.

Me, too.

On 5/8/2021 at 11:03 AM, MHS831 said:

I am scared they will.  He want elite LT money.  And if so, they let him walk.  I always estimate on the high side, however, so maybe his demands are just a negotiation tactic. Nobody should negotiate in 2020-21 if they could get tagged.

I'd want to see him at LT before we talk about paying LT money. Moton is really good, the best we've got, but if there were plans to move him to LT from RT, they'd have really tried it last season for a few games. 

I think we'll see him offered $12-14 million which would put him in top three salaries for RTs in the NFL and they'll let him test the markets at left tackle. Sadly, that's going to mean he's going to walk. That might not be the worst thing to happen to us, though.

Right tackles are easier to come by than LTs, we all know that. We can, if we have to, replace him in the draft or develop one from the guys we've got on team at the moment. One of those modest LT prospects could be a solid RT for a whole lot less money. And while Moton looks great on our team, we'd have to be major homers to not recognize a bit of bias created by the fact that the other guys around him just haven't been all that good. Like Andrew Norwell a couple of years back, he looked like a beast bookended by a couple of Kalils, but he was just meh when he got the big bucks to go somewhere else. 

Yeah... right. 

Canfora's just throwing darts at the map and making clickbait with it now.

I'm holding out hope that Darnold will flourish here, mainly because that's my nature. Realistically we'd be in good shape if he got us to nine wins because we could see growth and some promise to the next season, but that's going to all be on coaching and the kid. He's got the best weapons to work he's ever had, but our O-line is still a question mark. And our defense, for all the "names" (names that we know if others outside of the fanbase don't) was fairly lousy last year and may or may not be improved moving ahead. Bad defense means a QB who is always chasing the lead and fewer opportunities to get the ball -- not a good recipe for someone with Darnold's resume. Still, if he is able to live up to his promise, we could see maybe four more wins than last year and feel good about growing the team.

The other two sides to this are the bad, bad side: He comes in and just cannot do it. We end up putting one of the unheralded bench sitters in by mid-season and we just ride it out. Maybe he plays out the pre-quel to 13 Ghosts, maybe the coaching isn't as good as we'd hoped, maybe there's a key injury. We're on the hook for another season with Darnold and we could end up with a high draft pick in an iffy QB class. 

The remaining side, the wow! look at that side, could see the kid have a renaissance under Rhule and Brady, he works wonders with the WRs, TEs and CMC and generally lets everyone say that QB isn't our problem spot anymore. We roll on with him into the playoffs and maybe make it a ways.

No one freaking knows at this point and honestly, there are so many moving pieces to the change Darnold has been given that watching old film might be nearly pointless.

(Just please don't be like David Carr was when he came to the Panthers.)

1 hour ago, rayzor said:

He's also the biggest human we drafted.

Is he the biggest we've ever had on the roster (if he makes the team that is)?

35 minutes ago, WarHeel said:

Apparently there is a waiver for such players. Still not sure what this gentleman’s major is but grad student are apparently eligible to compete in Div 1 beyond the 4 year mark.

He could put his skills to use here working out 14 years of practice squad eligibility.

20 hours ago, ForJimmy said:

They should be. I kind of like Ramsey as a backup. Smart QB just has limited ability. I think he is capable of stepping in a game or two and playing safe football to steal a win/not lose the game.

Actually, yeah, I think he takes a roster spot here. Smart guy who has the skills to go in for an emergency run. He'd be a good observer on the sidelines as well and wouldn't be a threat to Darnold right now. 

If things went crazy, who knows, he might have a bit of that Jake spark in him.

Let's neither crown him nor cushion him before he ever takes a meaningful snap for us.

We might not see anything until mid-season that let's us know what he's going to become here. Lots of moving pieces, lots to gel, opposing teams that are squarely trying to make him fail (because that's their job). 

It's going to be a long wait until opening day, but I can hardly wait.

Sorry for not knowing, but what exactly were his character issues? There are character issues and then there are character ISSUES, yanno?

Good luck to him. Never heard of him before, but if he's going to get a shot in the NFL at safety there's no better place for him to be than here. Right time, right coach, wide open competition and we have a need for an inexpensive, coachable and dependable player at the spot.

I'm not sure any other coach in the league is as open to giving a UDFA a shot at not just the roster or practice squad but at a starting position even. Still, even with that it's a long, hard climb.

I like Rhule, I really do. What he's done here is essentially what he did at Temple and Baylor in his first season and a half at each. If he builds the same way and gets the same work ethic from his team, we should start seeing results this season and then become world beaters by the next.

Still, let's not crown him yet. This is the NFL and it eats head coaches alive and spits first them out every year. There probably isn't a tougher gig to keep hold of or a more high pressure one. 

We just ended a season at 5-11 (with some optimism), but it was basically the same record the last coach left town with. This year's really a make or break one for the coaching staff (no matter how long that contract is for -- bad results will mean some kind of shake up). The draft we're all cheering and saying how great we did trading back and back and baaaaack. I hope we are all patting ourselves on the back at the end of the season for it and that Rhule didn't just get his guys, but got guys that will compete and win here. Still, there are a lot of big names that we passed up on, so there's some reason to worry about the "could have beens".

I'm looking forward to this season and I hope we do great. I hope we can make the play offs. But I do realize that Rhule is a straight from college Head Coach and this is the toughest division in football over the last 20 years. We're staring at two games with the world champions (and probably the best QB to play the game), two games with a Falcons team that still has a dangerous QB and a new coaching staff that wants to win now. And we have the Saints, leaderless and wounded but still a dangerous team.  

Rhule is a gutsy, gritty guy full of character. I hope he comes out swinging and clears the room. 

Looks great, maybe we will have the new version of Double Trouble out there. Mac&Chuba.

Hope they put up 3,000 total yards between them.

Welcome back! Now just point that helmet in the right direction and let's get this season going!

11 hours ago, MHS831 said:

IF any CB goes to S, it will be Pride.

That might be a good move, honestly.

47 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

People lost their minds when I said the Panthers have mortgaged their future on Sam Darnold, then Gantt of Panthers.com writes...

The Panthers did a lot of things over the weekend to make Darnold's life more secure. That's good news, but it also puts the bright light back on their quarterback.

By not drafting one, and picking up Darnold's fifth-year option, they've cast their lot with the former Jets first-rounder, and done their best to insulate him. Now it's on him to prove that he can grow into the job and earn that trust. It may not be New York, but there's still plenty of pressure.

That's NFL political talk for "mortgaging the future".

I don't know about Darnold having the future mortgaged by this, honestly. First, we grab him for basically a second rounder. Secondly, all of the guys we've picked up are foundational pieces that if they work out and he doesn't, they'll still be in place for the next guy.

Darnold's got a rough resume` and we've got to see if the game was too big for him or too big for his old coaching staff (HC, OC, QBC). Since those guys got canned for their efforts, it's a fair gamble that their suckage carried over into his game. The question is, did they damage him beyond repair? Did he ever have it in the first place and was he a bad choice made by bad coaches and a bad GM? 

We don't know yet. Rhule seems to think he can fix the mess and that Darnold is the kind of guy he's looking for. This year and next will be relatively cheap if we get a decent to good QB for our efforts, and it'll be a steal if he's better than that. If he's disappointing, which honestly there is a chance of, we're back to picking high and we're on the hook for $22 million over two years, basically no worse than we were with Teddy. 

I sure wish I could read the tea leaves and see where this will end up, but I can't. Just going to have to trust the coach and the process. We have to believe that Rhule won't be taking all seven years of his contract to build a winning squad. Don't we?

Pretty good article, but it's soooo early in the process. Hoping with all of the "no names" in that bunch, a couple rise to prominence.

1 hour ago, Mr. Scot said:

 

One good part of that though is that unlike a typical rookie, he won't have to get adjusted to the speed of the game.

This could pay instant dividends.

I wasn't happy with the trading down, and down, and down. I think we passed up on some sure things in an effort to get quantity. I've been told to trust the process and the board, trust that the coach knows what he needs and our new GM knows what he is doing.

Okay, I'm certainly going to try.

September is a long way off and it's going to be a long wait to see the plan fall into place. I just don't think I've got the patience for another 5-11 (6-11/5-12 now) year in me. If we can't begin moving forward then I'm going to lose all faith in Rhule.

We've got some outstanding talent here in CMC and Moore, Brown and Burns, Chinn and Moton. We've got a kicker that will probably break the longest FG record (and miss a hunk of them, too) and a former first round draft pick QB who can hopefully become what he should have been.

I just don't want 2021's season to be like the one before: a 16-week binge watching of Scrubs. I don't want to see another rendition of the "Team that almost won."

No love lost for the Iggles here. That is a franchise that always tends to make chicken poop from chicken salad.

24 minutes ago, rayzor said:

Eventually, but it could be argued we weren't ok with him here.

We knew he wouldn't stay forever. We'll start winning again soon.

Sure hope so.

He certainly was something special, though. Like Julius Peppers and Steve Smith, there won't be another one like him; they are just legendary players, not just legendary Panthers.

14 hours ago, rayzor said:

 

And we'll be ok without Luke here.

We haven't been so far. 

When a starting LT who is decent to good just gets cut for cap reasons, you have to wonder two things:

1: Is there an injury or off field issue that hasn't come to light yet?

2: If the player is fine health and issues-wise and is still ready and willing to compete, what is the paycheck demand going to be? LTs aren't cheap, reliable ones are downright expensive and great ones are ludicrous. This guy would rather try the market after the draft than renegotiate his contract? 

You might get a very good guy for your team. You might get someone with a hidden health issue. You will probably over pay for them.

Maybe we pass on this and see what shakes out in training camp for our guys.