kungfoodude

Depending on the scenario, sure. Get him up to speed with the team/scheme. If we have one of our RB's really rolling at that point, no reason to slow that down. Get him into the rotation, maybe. Or if our running game has been fairly pedestrian to that point, maybe see if he can inject some life into it.

Had he been healthy, I would have been upset to spend a top two round pick on a RB. To spend it on a guy coming off a serious injury that cannot play is even more frustrating. Oh well, it is what it is. Hopefully we can get a full rookie contract out of him and he is very productive before moving on. It just seems so very Panthers to keep making these kind of mistakes over and over.

It just depends on timeline. It seems like he might be behind schedule and if that is indeed the case, there is no reason to rush. He has basically gotten zero reps with the team and if he isn't back until Week 8 or later, really what is the point unless we have a spate of injuries at RB? Not that I care tremendously but there is a point where I am not sure we are really doing him a service by just throwing him out there. Not particularly invested in what happens in that regard, provided that he is actually completely healthy. If we put him out there too soon and he blows the knee out again, now that scenario will be extremely infuriating.

Well we also had much better caliber players at that time too so although he was an older vet guy to a fault, he did usually have some decent ammo. This is a different animal. This roster is fuging horrible, so we are going to get to see all these fringe players, rookies and raw material get a lot more reps than normal. Yes it will suck in the sense that our defense is likely to struggle to be consistent over the course of the season but as long as our FO doesn't end up being lightspeed retarded(TBD) then we will get extended looks at a lot of guys in our two deep to see what we have and whether they are worth developing or replacing. Hence why I keep saying I am not going to get super wound up about the W's and L's this year. I want to see evidence we have w coaching staff that is capable of putting together a winning gameplan. I want to see that our FO isn't utterly incompetent. If we can tick those two boxes, everything is good. We just have to take some lumps over the next few seasons while we rebuild this pile of ash into a real franchise again.

IMO, yes because I don't really view our WR corps as containing any two deep caliber WR's outside Johnson and 108 year old AT. There is certainly no equivalent of Hill/Jackson/etc. There is DEFINITELY no equivalent for Horn. OLB/EDGE is just gonna have to be a "figure it out" group this season. But, younger guys like Barno and DJ Johnson will get a lot of reps and we can see if they need to be cut loose/upgraded next offseason or not. It's not all bad because of that.

Honestly, just stash him on season ending IR. It isn't that relevant. We have enough decent production there. Let him heal up and be at 100% in 2025.

No. It will be much funnier when he doesn't get cut.

Why did I say that? Humor. Why did he say that? You will have to explain that to me, as well. I mean, I guess in theory there are a large group of WR's after our top two that are fairly similar in quality level. I am not sure I would call that "deep." He is definitely seeing something different than I am.

This is why I said much earlier in the offseason I felt like the defense will take a step back from last season. I don't blame Evero for it. They really gave him a tough unit to work with. Thin just about everywhere. But, we will have a lot of opportunities to evaluate the younger guys due to attrition, I am sure. Hopefully we get some hits out of that group.

We have multiple units in a stiff competition for "weakest." WR is definitely up there. CB is thin but if we were healthy the top end is better than our WR group.

He meant "weakest." He just misspoke.

Unfortunately TMJ has basically no value. DE's are higher tier value so it would probably have to be a guy that isn't likely to make a roster or some sort of rift between player/franchise.

You are correct, I looked at the last decade a few months ago and the change in trend was very clear.

AT doesn't count. He would be more akin to signing Keyshawn Johnson than drafting a rookie. We had just a crazy run of those rookie guys that would show promise in year one(sometimes two) and then poof.....gone from the league in a flash. More recently it has just been bust after bust with little to no production at all. TMJ is one, Mingo has a season to show he isn’t and XL is looking a little shaky to start out.

I am not getting excited about one preseason game. We are too far into this mess for that. It was nice to see and I hope it's what we see Week 1 too but until the bullets are real, I am just gonna wait and see. I was pumped about drafting Zavala and actually paying attention to depth(same with drafting Ikey and finally paying attention to LT). Now the results were pretty rough, obviously. But it's nice to see that the team cares about this. Look at a guy like BC who we drafted and is now a very capable swing lineman for us. That's the kind of thing we need to keep doing and probably double down on. The depth is still very questionable but hopefully it won't we the disaster that we had the previous few years.

I am okay cutting him but I suspect he gets one more year. Hell, we will probably extend him and make him a top 10 paid TE during the season.

I am not poring through years of data to compare three preseason games to(not to mention the obvious stat that goes back to 1995 is AV and that includes full season data). That's completely insane and it proves nothing. If you want to re-visit this in Jan. of 2025, set an alarm and I will gladly spend the hours comparing all the available metrics to see if you are correct or not. Not a problem at all. But....preseason????

I just want to see competence, some semblance of order and a taste of what a professional football team is supposed to look like. Make not mistake, this is a TERRIBLE roster. But, if we reveal a few core guys that we didn't have before and at least a few of our offseason additions look like competent ones, then hope may be back for 2025. IDGAF about the wins. Just show me competence and we wikl go from there. Also, I basically made this exact same statement last offseason/preseason so....yaknow....

You are also offering zero data. That's all anecdotal, you do realize(minus non-Panthers PFF data). I offer none in return because all data I could throw back(PFF/AV/etc) literally has nothing to compare to. We haven't played a single game with this unit much less a season to even be able to gather actual data to base your statement on. Hence why I said chill. Maybe my tone felt dickish but it was actually tongue in cheek. Regardless, the point that maybe we let this play out before the wild hyperbole. I don't personally hold that belief at all, so it costs me nothing but I would suggest you don't go into this season with those kind of expectations. If recent history as Panthers fans has taught us anything it's that we need to see this poo happen before believing any of that type of hype. Hey, I hope you are right. We haven't had a solid starting line alone in years and our depth has been miserable for almost a decade(reference my years of bitching about our OL depth).

Cap hit is $3.8 mil. That doesn't change if we cut him, unfortunately.

Actually, the sad part is that I miss the one year wonder guys. poo we haven't had one of those in a while.

I got very little of a high from the game. It was nice to see but it's not a real game. I need to see real games and then we can start figuring out what we have. I figure by week 5-7, what we have will be revealed.

Excellent. I agree. Now lets just watch it translate to real games. He will get ample opportunities to play as it is unlikely we see the guards stay healthy for 100% of the season. Maybe in the end he makes one of those contracts look very foolish. I'm okay with that.

Sure, at a place regarded as almost always having solid lines. Which, they also opted to let him walk too. Point being, maybe we just calm down and see some live reps before we start annointing GOAT status to a bunch of guys who have either never played here or have never been great here. I hope that turns out to be true but I would think after the past 6 years of this purgatory that people would be a little more tempered in their takes after.....one good preseason game.

The difference is that recent NFL history(10-15 years) has turned that old adage on its head. Most of the elite WR's in the NFL produced or became regarded as elite in their first two years in the league. There have been less of the 2-3 seasons of obscurity before having a big breakout kind of WR's. So he does have a point that if we don't get a pop after the first couple of seasons, it's very unlikely that we will. That isn’t to say he may not mature into a pretty good backup WR but that isn't the type of player you select in the first round. Unless someone really blows us away this season and sort of permanently buries him on our depth chart(which wouldn't be a net negative), these first two years will be kind of critical. He needs to show he isn't another TMJ.