lightsout

Gotta win, man. Look at the Canes. Sustained success leads to fans showing up and being loud and excited to go. 2015 was an anomaly, but showed what our franchise could have if they sustained that NFC contender state of play. We all hated Fox and Ron...but they at least had the mindset that Carolinians could respect. Tough, nose to the grindstone type of guys. Lead to us having hope. Now we have Reich and co. And Thomas Brown has that "it" but he's being handcuffed. Let that man run the offense dammit.

A Rivera and Sam Howell led offense looks miles better than our first overall pick, Heisman winning QB and offensive juggernaut staff led offense. Jesus fug.

I am now in a position of watching games to root for my fantasy players. I'm not taking the living room tv from my kids to watch the Panthers suck and get pissed off. We're either watching Toy Story for the 6000th time or I'll find out which game Sunday I care to watch, if any. I'm not sure I have the heart to dump my fandom for another team. But at least watching good games will suck less than watching our JUCO team posing as an NFL team will be less frustrating. That's good enough for me.

Head Coaches are managers. They manage personnel and time. No different in football. Stay on the headset with your coordinators, stay on top of the play clock and game clock and reps guys are getting, stay on top of injuries and protect your guys from themselves. Let the guys you appointed to roles fulfill the duties of those roles. You don't need your hands in it to ensure it'll be good. Don't like what you see from Brown calling plays? Adjust at half, talk it over during film study and game planning, figure poo out. But Reich has got to see his way of running the offense is the weakest poo the league has right now. If he doesn't, his ego is a massive fuging problem.

I guess Yahoo since that's my other app and Sleeper actually doesn't even have hockey. Thought it did. Lol

Do it on Sleeper and I'm game. Can't manage another fantasy app. I am in two football leagues across two apps as it is. Lol

Precisely. They gave Dalton the Carolina Panthers playbook and Young got Fisher Price's My First Playbook.

I think anybody that understands the Xs and Os here knows this is a two route read. Either you're hitting the skinny post because the backer stays down or you're hitting the in because the backer bails with the post. This is a very common RedZone route concepts in the NFL, we see it weekly if you watch enough highlights on sportscenter. Bryce gets the block, that could be 6. Ideally he doesn't have as long of a bitch there and he hits it quicker. I've seen QBs but this quick enough that the pressure doesn't get there. It's doable. But still, Chuba has to have that block.

This is my guess as to the play calling system we seem to have. We have the called play, and then an instant check. So the playcall is either two plays or the initial play is designed with a certain backup play in mind that "kill" activates. This seems to be the case and most agree on it. Bryce is told to check his numbers, check if it's there and determine. The calls are designed as simple as they look and that is to not place Bryce in a position to lose us the game. It's safe for his sake. "If we lose at least Bryce won't beat himself up as bad, we set this up and cuffed him to it. If the plays don't work, then they don't work". They don't want to open it up and call a real offense because they don't think Bryce will handle it well if he fails. If the above is true.....boys, we got a big fuging problem.

I hated it when we were competitive and letting teams take over. That is stupid. Now that we're the worst team in football? Deserved. fug Tepper.

Sam Howell is looking like a pro bowl level QB and he's a glorified Darnold. Wilks would have us in a good spot right now. But we're here now. Welcome to obscurity, folks.

Step 1: You force Reich off play calling in favor of Thomas Brown. Step 2: you evaluate Brown moving forward. If the offense improves and shows sign of promise, you meet with him to discuss what he believes needs changing and how he feels about Reich, as well as his gauge on Reich loyalty within the staff. Step 3: you get a new GM. One with proven track record of improving rosters. Step 4: if the team continues losing, you fire Reich, promote Brown (I really fuging like Brown as a coach if you can't tell). If the team wins, you keep Reich...unless Brown has misgivings about Reich. In which case, fire Reich, promote Brown. Step 5: you go back to a grass field. Step 6: you never let Nicole have sway over football decisions again.

Too late. Damage is already done.

I'm about done. I'm hanging on but it ain't fuging easy. I miss having a team I was proud to root for, even through shitty seasons, I knew we'd get it fixed the next year. I knew it in 01, I knew it in 2010, but not now. Right now, all hope is lost. This team has done nothing but regress year after year since Tepper. He's the common denomination. He's the culprit.

I mean nobody is open, Bryce doesn't have the athleticism to escape pressure, and the only semi open option was the deep route that the deep safety was hawking towards. A sack was almost the only good play. And that's sad. fug these play calls, this roster, and this owner for giving it to us.

Miles is a decent RB. Problem is, he has such little vision. I've seen him lower his head into guys rather than just following the butts into a gap for an easy 4. Make a guy miss and it's more. I don't have the energy to find the screenshots but there's a few at least. He just doesn't know how to find his hole sometimes. If it's square in front of him, he's gaining yards but fug man, this is the NFL. D-Will and Stew were great for us because their vision. They'd find that one cut to make to get second level and then let their skill sets gain from that point.

We have the concepts to open the run game. We just don't run them. We run a lot of inside zone and a little bit of trap. Problem is we can't trap with our backup guards because they simply can't. Fold blocks are a tad better, so our b gap runs are there some but teams are loading up on us and running man and blitzing it. Which forces us back to the inside zone to account for bodies. Then not getting push because they're just firing off harder. We run counter and it usually works. That's the benefit to running so much inside, teams fast fly to where it appears the play is going, we get easier blocks. Then they just compensate for that by having their ends not be outside contain, which means the backside end crashes, closes the gap, keeps his outside arm free, forces the play to bounce and the Will or backside corner/safety get there to mitigate. We need more tosses and power. We need more straight up iso (chuba was chunking with it, but then they realized that was his butter). We need more variety and that includes formation variety. As it stands, I can call most run plays for us presnap. Not a flex, it's a bad thing. I shouldn't have the success rate that I do there. If I do, then defenses certainly do

I mean run blocking is run blocking and most of our zone work seems to be inside zone, which is basically just chipping and passing off. Very physical and not a lot of lateral movement aside from the initial step to gain ground. The stretches we have ran haven't looked great but that's because zone stretch isn't as effective with the speed most defenses have in today's NFL and the schemes teams are running defensively. It's why tosses are so prevalent, it's about the only way to get outside apart from power hitting and letting the edge contain squeeze himself inside due to momentum, because that allows the linemen to actually pull and run instead of stepping and then trying to wall and climb.

fug yeah. It's why I love hockey. Yeah you'll get your occasional 6-4 when goalies are off or when you have superstars with the puck, but the 2-1, 3-2 outcomes leave tension that football, basketball and now even baseball are lacking. It's a shame. High scores aren't exciting. They are dull. These sports have taken a NASCAR persona of "it's kinda boring until the big wreck and the last 10 laps when everybody is throwing it all out there".

Idk if I'd call it moderate success. We had our way running the ball more often than not. Jake being Captain Comeback absolutely helped make that team though lol. Without him being a magician in comebacks, that team is a 6 win team at best.

I mean you're not wrong but that was moreso because we gave them the ball on short fields too. They ran more than they passed because we couldn't get out of our own way and the scoreboard. But they did find success running down our throat.

Yeah I definitely would have been fine keeping Wilks as he proved he could take an abysmal team and turn them into a competitive unit on short notice. That and yes the philosophy he instilled was one of being physically dominant and playing mistake free football. It's a philosophy I love. People poo on Fox and Rivera for being that kind of coach, but the fact is they weren't wrong. They each needed an OC with fresh ideas for sure, but the concepts didn't have to change, just the approach. Rivera was running 21 and 22 personnel from the pistol, because Cam. But you could just as easily move that under center and now you have offset-i and the plays all still work. And another fact, Fox and Rivera each took us to the Super Bowl with that philosophy. They both got out coached in their Superbowl, but they each got there.

See I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not because I know people genuinely love it too. But I'd be like "fug this". Seeing two defenses fail for that long isn't exciting to me.

I found myself recently rewatching Bama vs Michigan in the Orange Bowl. Tom Brady leading the Wolverines against Shaun Alexander's Tide. The offensive philosophy of the game definitely shifted to spread a decade after that game, and with that came athletes redesigning themselves to fit that mold. Slimmer, faster, twitchier, more elusive. Gone are the gigantic warriors, the bruising backs, and the art of play action (I haven't seen a hard bite from a secondary on a play action in forever it seems). Now it's speed, speed, and more speed. Instead of plugging for 3-4 yards with the hopes of wearing down the defense and hitting the big one, it's pass for 4-7 yards with the hopes of your playmaker popping one. Let's be honest with ourselves...this current era offense is fuging boring. Everybody here knows it. You bitch about it weekly. "dink and dunk offense", "no down field shots". Look around the league. Everybody is running similar poo, they just have speed to do it. Throw the obligatory shot, sometimes your guy wins the foot race but most often? Crossing route or screen and hope. There's no mind games with defenses. No defense is overly concerned with stopping the run. You have strong run games still for sure, but nothing approaching 2000-2009. Saquon should be this generation's Adrian Peterson, and would be...if they had a philosophy of "here are variations of I and single back, we're gonna make you suffer for all 30+ carries he gets". But of course he can't because finding 5 road paving OL on the same team is rare now, let alone a fullback since they all either became linebackers or tight ends. Which brings me to us. If you ask me, Bryce would benefit most from his football IQ if he had the flexibility of yesteryear offenses. Remember QB play back then? They come to the line, you're reasonably sure the call is this, but then the entire formation shifts, now you've got no clue. Then the big play hits. You don't see that kind of poo anymore. Even better when there's just a subtle hot call. Jake and Smitty provided some of their best with the simple helmet tap. Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's the pain of this team right now. Maybe it's me hitting old age in my 30s and missing what used to be and hating these kids that are on my lawn. But who here wouldn't take a Davis/Stewart type back with this current roster and see if we can cook something up? Beats the poo out of watching 4 yard passes knowing we don't have the athletes to really break one for 40 plays every game.

Given that he and Thielen are used similarly, you'd think we would utilize some misdirection and force teams to guess which safety valve they need to cover. Chark on the deep route, Mingo backside post, Thielen and Hurst running intermediate and short. Would force teams to actually respect us rather than running the same combination of crossers with an out/flat we've called 90% of the time. Or the poorly executed four verts where we're just keying the crosser.