kungfoodude

Worst in our 30 years of existence by a comfortable margin.

Need to see offseason results.

Yeah and it isn't gonna work against every opponent but we have faced some of the rest of the bottom 10 rushing defenses and did not consistently make them pay, IMO.

Yeah, I mean one of the best ways to handle a suspect defense is to grind the opponent to paste with a dominant rushing attack. Which....we are literally built for.

So, about that.....

I am not arguing about rushing attempts at all. I am saying he all too often will go pass happy after 2-3 very successful running plays. He has killed multiple drives doing this over the course of the season. I am not arguing we should be hitting X percentage of rushing plays per game in a scenario with a historically bad offense but when you are calling plays that are working, then you bludgeon that team with them or at least set up a nice play action strike. That's not Canales. He runs hot and cold and when he is feeling himself, it often seems like he just starts breaking out the passing plays over and over until we HAVE to pass because we got jammed up in a 3rd and long scenario. This happens literally almost every game at least one drive. It's another reason I say that I am not very impressed with him as a play caller. He seems to do well with the scripted plays but once he gets into the flow of the game, he seems to be far less effective.

Mingo's floor was below CFL caliber. XL's is PS player. If he doesn't make a big jump next year, I think it will be unlikely he turns it around. It's pretty rare that a modern NFL rookie WR has a very long development cycle to being serviceable. And we can't say he isn't going to have opportunities. It isn’t like we have more options(yet). I also think if we see a big offseason signing or a significant draft pick, then you will likely see that the FO has shifted their opinions, as well. I doubt either will happen but you never know.

I would say XL should have been a 3rd rounder, IMO. High ceiling, scary low floor. That usually when those guys start getting pretty attractive. Samuel had 26 targets in his first year and produced very little. Mingo was very similar to XL. 85 targets for 43 catches and 418 yards, 0 TD's. TMJ literally has had 116 targets in his entire NFL career. XL is probably Mingo+. I don't think his career will fall off a cliff the same way. however.

Remember during that era they almost always had some freak WR that ended up in the NFL. That fuging blew my mind that a triple option team could get those type of players.

Yeah, anyone who has been mega impressed with DC as an OC had their brain broken by the Rhule/Reich eras.

So this season has been a wild success?

Right but Calvin Johnson had a career sub-50% passer in a literal triple option offense but still averaged almost 1k yds and 10 TD's a season over three years. That's largely why I was down on him as a one year wonder as a 5th year player. There aren't many of those NFL success stories. Look, we have probably beat this horse to death. I suspect he is just going to be another bust off our roster in 3-4 seasons. If he isn't, awesome. We fill a need and we have a very marketable and likeable guy.

100% agree.

Right but he doesn't change this behavior, regardless. He is a very suspect playcaller. I think a clever play designer, sure.

Our entire draft history under Tepper is littered with square pegs or even no pegs at all. It's another in a long line of facepalm worthy draft decisions. That's why I get so amused by the tankers wanting to move up the order. I mean....we fuged up a #1 overall and a #32 overall in the last two years alone. What more proof do we need that where these picks are isn't the issue?

Well it doesn't help that XL is quite frankly, not good at all. I genuinely hope he doesn't have a sophomore slump because my God I would hate to see what that looks like.

Yes but he does this when we are up on the scoreboard or down on the scoreboard. His playcalling leaves a lot to be desired. His play designs are usually pretty good but his playcalling is very suspect.

I mean, you are describing a WR who is a poor man's Ted Ginn(which is probably ultimately accurate). Also, it isn't like he balled out with Dalton who is much superior to Bryce in terms of arm strength. Even if your assertion was true, why on earth would you draft a WR for a QB you don’t have?

He has a ton of talent but he has the skills of a freshman college WR. His utter lack of development and production at SC was a big red flag, IMO. I hope I get to eat these opinions in a big way(I had to with my take on Cam) but this story just seems so very familiar to a Panthers fan.

I am not arguing he would be as productive here as SD. I am arguing he would be far more productive than XL has been and could have eventually occupied AT's role when he moved on. Is that basically a luxury pick by definition? Yes, probably so. But XL was a panic pick, and that's infinitely worse. Like I said, my argument has and will always be, get NFL caliber players. Don't spend resources on longshots in early draft rounds. This is not even close to an apples to apples comparison for several reasons but remember how people grumbled about taking Luke Keuchly at 9 when we had very good LB's already? Honestly, if you look at a lot of stable franchises, they don't often reach for need. They get players that could be successful in the NFL, regardless of position. This is a very long winded BPA pitch, TBH. XL wasn't remotely close to the BPA, even at his position alone.

Yeah we don't have that guy now. Especially once Johnson was jettisoned. Go look at the games, XL is rarely drawing a double.

Right but this is also a situation where David Moore is getting snaps and we had to elevate Coker to the active roster. If you have a guy that can get open and catch the ball, you will find a role for him. That is the fundamental difference. It was not role/scheme/etc that doomed guys like TMJ/Mingo/Funchess/etc, it was the fact that they were not capable players. My point isn't that Ladd fills XL's spot. That's not really even an argument because there are ample amounts of unemployed or PS players that can fill XL's role as ineffectively as they have. My point is that in a modern NFL offense, you can't have ENOUGH guys that make plays. The easy part is finding the snaps, the hard part is finding the players.

It isn't an excuse. We are dramatically less talented than easily 95+% of the NFL. I literally said in the offseason that it is the least talented roster in franchise history and it mostly has been. It's not just me saying this. I believe one of the NFL Network pundits said in the offseason that this was the worst roster he could recall in his time covering the NFL. Also....look at Evero's history. The more talent he has....shocker.....the better he has done. Both here and at previous stops. You can plop Steve Spangnolo or Saleh or Brian Flores in Carolina and the improvement would be marginal. I would be shocked if it wasn't still a bottom 10 unit because it has #32 talent. There are plenty of feel good stories in the college ranks about putting together a band of misfit toys to be great but this is professional sports. Those stories don't happen often, of ever at the scale you are talking about. Again, I am largely ambivalent about Evero. On the one hand, he isn't the worst DC we have ever had but he also doesn't do anything that I view as exceptional, either. And ultimately he probably is getting a little less out of this hodgepodge assortment of UFL players and NFL JAGs than he probably should. Ultimately the fault I would personally assign for this quite historic defensive effort is about 80% Front Office and 20% Evero.

And that's cool but the biggest overall difference between them(it was at the time and it is now) is that one is a productive and effective NFL caliber WR and the other is not. Largely, the goal of an NFL draft is to get a guy that can play. Certainly scheme and fit play heavily into that but ultimately you need an NFL caliber guy. Ladd is/was that and XL is/was not.

This is said as if you forget how poor our draft evaluations have been over the last 7-8 years. Position hasn't mattered in that. Literally from 1 to 32.