kungfoodude

I literally said he is a top 10-12 pass rusher. Is that not an elite guy? The difference is that he isn't one of the pass rushers that just simply takes a game over. Those guys do have elite value. Look at the Khalil Mack trade. That's what trading for an elite pass rusher in their prime looks like. He's also not an elite run stopper, at all. There is definitely a world in which we trade him for way less than two firsts. It is the world where we are in that our GM overvalues his trade value yet somehow undervalues his contract amount. All it takes is for that situation to continue and his value drops every single day. Because the rest of the league can read the tea leaves and just simply wait us out. He isn't going to take $25 mil. He has no reason to take that from us. We showed that we view him as the best defensive player in football, so he has no reason to expect that we shouldn't pay him like that. If he becomes a free agent, I think he will quickly realize he isn't going to command that price tag in free agency(although we are also talking about two years of salary cap bumps, so it's possible he would get close to $30 mil). I know you believe that it is simply a matter of someone just handing over two firsts when he get tagged but that rarely ever happens. Especially because the player has to actually WANT to go to the franchise that is willing to pay that. So why shell out all that draft capital for a guy you have to sign a long term deal for? I'll make a healthy wager that he ends up not being a Panther and he will leave here for way less than two first round draft picks.

My guess is that we trade him as soon as Scott Fitterer is gone. I suspect something in the range of a 1st and 3rd or 4th rounder. Possibly two 2nds. Something far less than what you are describing. If Fitterer sticks around long term, my guess would be changed to he just walks away when we can't tag him anymore and we get absolutely nothing. Or, the real nightmare, we actually sign him for $30+mil a year and we always look back at this as the worst deal we have ever given a DL. Making the Charles Johnson contract look pretty amazing in comparison.

That isn't a sustainable situation. You will be forever awful if you fail in the draft consistently. That issue must be remedied or we will never make it out of the NFL cellar.

Lol. Perfectly timed for an 89 yd DTD to make that narrative shift.

Penix may be the second top Heisman candidate in as many weeks to knock himself out of contention. Being the sole reason you lose a game is an immediate disqualifier for me.

The depth in this class is bananas. Not sure about the top end talent being "generational." Williams isn't as polished as some seem to think. Maye is supremely talented but I am not convinced he is a top tier QB prospect yet. But, going back to UNC would be a bad idea because I don't think he will develop any further there. More of a project than I think most are thinking.

I really doubt many teams in the NFL would have interest in taking him for two firsts if he gets franchised. Our fans massively overrate his market value. He's a top 10-12 pass rusher in the league but two firsts is a haul that is reserved for truly elite players or very high draft positions. The only teams that might make even a little sense for would be someone like the Eagles, Chiefs, 49ers, etc. Teams that expected to have very low first round picks in the next few years. But even that is unlikely because they have cap issues they need to manage already. Not to mention all of these franchises have very well run front offices that actually get pretty good value from their draft picks.

The way to fix this team is: - Get competent front office personnel. - Identify core players that can be retained for market rates or lower(Brown, Luvu, etc) - Move on from assets you don't plan on retaining(Burns, Chinn, etc) to obtain draft capital. - Draft competently. That's literally it. We have no other option but to abandon this idea of "quick fixes" every fuging offseason. Build for the long term. We have to give up on this idea of being a competitive team in the near term. It's unlikely to happen. We were "rebuilt" very poorly by two bad GM's and head coaches. That damage has to be undone and a new core built. We literally already traded away two of our top 4 most valuable roster assets in the last year for draft capital. This process already started anyway.

Burns would never garner 2 1st's. That is an insane price for someone like him. That was a once in a lifetime haul that we will never see again. The reality is that we might get a first rounder for him if we are lucky. Has nothing to do with his talent level. His contract is ending and he wants a fuging pile of money(literally driven by the haul we turned down for him). All anyone has to do is wait it out. He'll either be moved due to holding out in the next couple of seasons or he'll be a free agent. 100% of our leverage with him and on the trade market is gone. We mis-played our hand and now every player at the table sees our cards.

If you are operating under the assumption this is a "young team, not a bad one" then that is the problem. There is very little in the way of young core talent. The two biggest examples of talent are Burns and Brown. Neither of those guys is likely to be in Panthers uniforms in two seasons. Make no mistake, this is an extremely bad team with a perilously little amount of talent. If you want to dig out of a hole like we are in, the answer is not consistently trading away draft capital for players. As a very bad franchise, the only thing we really have that is worth anything is our draft capital. The is the sole hope of getting better. Trying to add free agents at above market rates is very far from the answer. Trading away draft capital for disgruntled players is very far from the answer.

Yeah, that is possible too.

Yeah, that will forever be the issue. Maybe Morgan just gets the job.

Am I crazy? Didn't Tepper fuging say in the decision to fire Rhule that the constant trading of draft resources was a factor in that? Yet here we sit doing the same fuging thing again and again.

We can get a good talent evaluator and actually start drafting guys that aren't busts at WR. That's the route we should be taking. Not spending a ton of money on a guy that isn't going to come in and help us win enough games to justify his price.

We have no business paying any free agent an exorbitant price. We need to actually start building a good roster first.

We need to figure out what we have here, not scramble to shine a turd. No moves that aren't unloading players for sufficient draft capital until the offseason. For that matter, hopefully with a new GM.

We are fuging fools if we trade anything significant for a WR mid-season. If you want to move Burns, I get that. It's probably inevitable anyway. We shouldn't be net buyers.

The question is if he ever figures it out. Snyder didn't. Bad owners usually don't.

Yeah, until we get some indication Tepper is learning from any of his experience as an owner, it's probably going to just keep getting worse.

You are hyperfocusing on a rather small part of the picture. If you simply watch him play it's very evident that he is not anywhere near an average NFL QB. He may eventually blossom into an average or even above average guy but that isn't the case through 10 games.

This year alone, yeah. Troy has been better. Which, we also have to remember that Donte is coming off an Achilles injury. He may simply not be the same player he was before that injury.

I would generally disagree on the "playmaker" because of Donte's career INT numbers.

Yeah, I mean we keep hearing this is the time to strike but we are like 3 years into this and I don't really see us doing much to get ahead. If the other teams are closer it's because they are moving backwards not because we are moving forwards.

He is a situational/depth guy. Kind of by definition a JAG because there are a lot of guys in the league that can fill his role. Doesn't really mean I would want to cut him loose because everyone needs depth but I don't view him that much differently than someone like, say Obada. Although the Obada story was so cool that it did suck to see him go.

Basically this. Donte is the biggest playmaker we have in the secondary but he is currently getting paid like a better CB than he actually is. Without Horn and the safeties, he is basically a liability too often. I like Donte and I would like to keep him. I just don't think he really moves the needle for our current team. If anything we should be stockpiling picks.