kungfoodude

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.

It's not solely production, it's about fit in the NFL. That takes into account college production, underwear Olympics measurables and also makeup of the player. It's hyperfocusing on any individual element(like RAS) of a player evaluation that creates so many dud picks.

Put them wherever you want. What is the benefit of a Mingo/TMJ/XL when they don't get open often enough nor catch the ball consistently when they do? I will take someone having to play out of their ideal position but will still be able to get open or make plays at a higher rate than the utterly unproductive player that they are replacing. I get that it's great to have the classic, stereotypical WR molds in their classic, stereotypical spots but the NFL also doesn't often work that way anymore. There are ample examples of players not fitting into these classic molds but are on the field because they make plays. That's what I am after, players that have the capabilities to actually impact games. Not theoretical abilities in classic molds that largely stay theoretical. This is literally a big reason why we have failed so incredibly miserably in the last few years in these drafts. We chase RAS types that have high ceilings and abysmally low floors. It's the equivalent of investing in scratch off tickets rather than putting money in a solid investment fund.

I prefer players that are capable of their jobs, hence why AT & Ladd made(and still make) far more sense than AT & XL or just XL alone.

Tremble is just Ian Thomas+, IMO. Classic JAG Sanders could be a dude. He looked the part for a chunk of the season, that is for sure.

The elite class at QB is always pretty small. The second group is usually bigger, with the Goff/Cousins/Matt Ryan/Dak tier.

I would amend that to which of the players on our roster would start for the majority of the teams in the NFL? That is definitely only Brown and Horn. We have a small group that would start for some teams(Jewell, Woods, Clowney, Jackson, etc). That is less about them as players as it is that there are a few other dumpster fire rosters in the NFL too. It's largely rotational guys and PS players.

Luvu left because he wanted to play for Dan Quinn and Burns was traded because we weren't(rightfully so) going to pay him $30 mil/yr. Other teams have injuries but they are rarely trotting out 2nd and 3rd string players as starters that are then having to be replaced with PS players. We set up Evero to fail and he did so. Now, that said, I think Evero has a ceiling and I am not sure it's that high. I am all for paying someone like Saleh an absurd amount of money, I am a lot less sure that someone like that is interested.

Yeah, maybe a guy like, IDK.....Ladd McConkey?

100% against that. You basically cripple the offense without AT No player on this team should be taking anyone off the board. That's on the FO.

Hard to say this early. I just can't envision a big turnaround, I will say that.

I mean who in their right mind is taking a DC job here looking at this roster? It ain't gonna be any elite candidates, that is for sure.