kungfoodude

Lol. I think recent history has proven I am not the one emotionally overwhelmed by a message board and a lack of team success, given your recent hiatus after successive meltdowns. The Panthers sucking impacts me in terms of being frustrated that my season tickets are pointless to own. Other than that, if they keep sucking I will just keep watching with friends and roasting the team during the game. It's entertaining enough when the team is as bad as we have been for the past four years. There is little to no reason to be optimistic, hence why this board has turned so negative. You act as if that is the fans fault when in reality it is the fault of the franchise. This is what you get when you lose for this long. If you get out much, which I suspect you don't, you would rub elbows with some other suffering fanbases that are just as negative if not more than ours. Anytime you stink this bad for this long, that's the result. Unless you want a parade in downtown CLT for winning 6 games in 2022.

He would be best served as a vet minimum 3rd stringer, IMO. That allows him to just basically be around better players and watch them work, while the team not having to rely on him seeing the field in anything other than a scenario where they are likely to lose anyway. Could he develop some in that case? Possibly. But that also requires that he put in the work to improve and I think the results show he doesn't do that or can't accomplish that. He'll be a sad, funny footnote in Panthers history like Jimmy Clausen was.

Lol. I think we can all just jettison the idea of Sam Darnold at this point. He is who he is. He's basically doubled down on what hasn't worked, so he probably has 2-3 years left as an NFL player.

Yeah well you said the same thing last offseason despite the OL signings being obviously terrible. Your opinion is basically just full delusion. Which, don't get me wrong, is highly entertaining.

I am going to start out pretty skeptical but what I hope to see is gradual improvement over the course of the season. My bar for success is that Ekwonu shows he is the future and we get at least one other average caliber starting OL from the interior. If that happens, it's at least forward progress and something to build on in 2023. Anything beyond that is a big victory.

I like Ekwonu, Bozeman and Corbett better than what we added last year but I need to see results at this point. I just can't trust this staff/FO anymore. Let them prove it on the field and I will buy in. I said a couple of offseasons ago it would probably take 3-4 years of consistent investment in the OL to build a decent unit that had depth. Given that we have not consistently or intelligently invested, I still think we are probably still another 3-5 years away from being a good unit with quality depth(based on level of investment from 2020-2022). The QB situation will be extremely interesting if we don't add anyone or have an injury. I fully expect this will be a 4-6 win team but the QB battle alone should be worth the watch.

I would assume if he was dangled in the Jimmy G talks that he was in the Baker Mayfield talks, as well. Maybe Andrew Berry literally answers all Scott Fitterers calls, "Hi Scott, we still don't want Sam Darnold. What else did you want to talk about?"

It is an assumption BC at LG is an improvement. Honestly, a very big one. My guess is that he is not going to be ready to make that transition as a starter for 2022. I still think he ends up being the top bench option.

I would take that solution in a heartbeat but I am curious to know if Carolina has even tried to use Darnold. Or if Cleveland just immediately balked.

If the rookie LT works out, that means we have upgraded to a fairly bad offensive line. If Bozeman ALSO works out, we have probably upgraded to a slightly below average offensive line. If ONE of the OG spots ALSO works out, then we probably have upgraded to an above average to good OL. If BOTH OG spots work out, we are probably a good to great OL. And IF alllllll that works out, you are going to be getting worse with each injury, because the bulk of our backups are probably going to be guys that weren't good last year. It's not impossible that we could be a top 15 OL unit, but it isn't a clear path. A lot of things need to break our way to be an upper half OL unit and even more need to break our way to be an elite OL unit.

I think the fans tend to believe that these organizations are monolithic despite all the insane amount of evidence that this is far from the truth.

Yeah, the idea of him being a QB whisperer are pretty hilarious. He was with two established, accomplished professional QB's. At best, he may have done some minor tweaking. At BEST. I am pretty sure had we fired Rhule this past offseason(which we should have) and McAdoo was the hire, the bulk of this board would be up in arms about how we made another stupid hire.

Yeah, we are getting deep into the conspiracy realm if we are taking THIS article as Browns propaganda. It's definitely not going to be effective propaganda, if that's what the attempt was. The Browns are just likely waiting for someone to have TC or injury troubles and hoping that eventually someone is willing to budge a little to get Baker. You never know, we could be that team eventually. I am certain we are probably one of a fairly small group of teams that even has passing interest.

There are a LOT of ifs there. Keep in mind that includes some pretty bad lineman that if forced into action will torpedo at least one spot on the OL.

The infatuation with McAdoo is really quite amusing. Don't get me wrong, he probably looks like a genius compared to the clown we have running the show now but he really made his name by just being around teams that had successful QB's. It's really unknown how much of that success he was actually responsible for.

If we can jettison Darnold, I am definitely down for Mayfield. But, I don't think they would be willing to accept him in return. Outside of that, they need to pay the bulk of his salary and accept a pretty low draft pick(nothing above a 5th). That's about what he is worth at the moment. I don't have a problem with a one season gamble on a streaky QB.

Also a lot of the credit Rhule gets for playing rookies is from 2020. There was also almost zero option in 2020. Most of those guys had to get burn because our roster was complete trash and we had a rash of injuries. It was more of an inevitability than a choice in 2020. One thing that seems to be pretty clear is that you can't trust that Rhule will consistently make the right decision on personnel/playing time. He's mediocre at best in that regard.

Remember him trotting out Elflein and Erving game after game after as they get embarrassed snap after snap?

Yep. It literally makes zero sense what we did at the end of last season. It was just another in a long list of strikes against this coaching staff.

Yeah, if Robby has another year like last, heads should roll somewhere on the staff or FO for that contract.

I mean....we can get a WR that does what Robby did last year on a vet minimum deal.

1000% agree. We the fans don't get to see the practices nor film study nor any of the work these guys are putting in to get better. So when you have a bunch of underperformed veteran players playing ahead of the guys you drafted, it's extremely frustrating as a fan. Are these guys not capable of playing? Do they just need more development? Is the coaching staff making good personnel evaluations? What exactly is the reason we aren't seeing these guys more? Is the player evaluation a problem? Is the player development a problem? Is standard roster bureaucracy the problem? When we don't see these guys play as the team loses game after game, with veterans playing terrible....we have only questions and no answers. It sucks.

Yeah, but getting into games and getting meaningful time is completely different. A chunk of that PT was due to injuries or poor performances from players ahead of them. From our 2020 guys, we need to see a clear improvement and the start of being a solid NFL professional. From our 2021 guys, we just need to see the incremental improvement that shows they are learning and progressing. Brown definitely has a critical year coming. He has to show consistency and shore up his technique issues that lead to him getting out of position so much. If he can't get that accomplished, he's leaning bust at three years of starting experience. For YGM, we need to see him basically come in and establish himself as a starter or critical rotation guy. Establish yourself as the DE that should get the most reps on that side. Chinn we just need to see get better at coverage and understanding his role as a safety. If all those things happen, 2021 was a home run class. If none of them happen, it's not looking great. For 2021, it's just about getting Horn on the field and getting some production and high caliber play from the rest of the draft. If Hubbard can take a step forward, we have a plan if/when CMC goes down again. If Marshall finally wakes up, we have another serious WR threat. If we find some actual role for BC, that is a big win. If Tremble can establish himself as a more consistent pass catching threat and keep improving on his blocking, he might be a long term solution. If we can get basically ANYONE from the rest of that draft as a solid rotational player or even a starter, that's a home run. But we need at least 2-3 of those things to happen. If not.....ooof. That 2021 class is looking really bad.