Captroop

I think it's why we're doing well. Chuba, Franklin, Tremble, Mays. It's addition by subtraction

Please continue to prove me wrong. I'll eat an entire damn crow raw if this is for real. Beak feet and all

What the fug is going on?

As much as I hate to give up more draft capital... I really wouldn't hate that deal. Make it our 2026 2nd and I like it.

FTFY

I want to believe we can win this one. Because it's exactly the kind of stupid thing we would do; manage to beat a genuine world-beater team, and get my hopes up a little just to it makes it more painful when we go back to sucking. If we can establish the run, and they can't just send the house after Bryce every play, that might be just the random element that turns this into a trap game. I want to believe it, but really it reminds me of a time back in '04 when I asked my boss if the Panthers had a chance against the Eagles, and he said, "One. The Eagles don't show up."

I'd like to see us trade for some talent to surround Bryce with. Positive Spin: If he's our QB, I'd like to bolster his confidence by giving him a reliable target. Pragmatic Spin: I want to know how much his receivers not getting open/not getting separation has to do with how poorly he's performing. Again, I want to get to "bust" as fast as possible so we can move on, and consequently, I want to get out of this season with as few question marks as possible. If he's not him, we need to know so we can move on rather than sinking more into propping him up.

All this... ...but also Micah Parsons.

These cats clearly haven't seen another McDaniel presser. "What am I supposed to say in this situation?" has literally never crossed that man's mind.

Yeah, the faces in the background are the stuff of nightmares. It's like the Going Under music video back there.

Skye Moore and Tutu Atwell are likely to start tumbling down their depth charts, and both would be huge improvements to our WR corps.

Yup. Mostert owners seeing CAR on the schedule this week are like:

Bryce damn well better show out against Houston.

Not pointing fingers but someone's angry drunk posting, lol!

What a difference a week makes: Granted, I asked about in the NFL ever, vs. Panthers all time, but this thread has a very different tone.

You know, I meant to make that a sub-paragraph under the post, but totally spaced on it: I believe the reason that we're not seeing the leadership out of Bryce is a result of the coaches trying to cover their asses. I look at Bryce, and I see a teacher's pet who's getting special treatment, and I think the rest of the team sees that and resents Bryce for it. I see them holding Bryce out for a phantom injury, and it was pretty damning footage when you saw Bryce coming into practice, lock step with Josh McCown, and none of the players seemed glad to see him. I see Reich taking the blame publicly for "calling a play for Thielen when Thielen wasn't on the field," and everyone questioning, why the hell would he admit to that? To me, it looks like a coach taking the fall to cover for a rookie clock management mistake. I know I've seen that in the workplace where a manager took the fall for their pet, and it sure looked like that to me. And all that goes back to the post above. The coaches feel like they HAVE to shelter Bryce and HAVE to cover for him, because investing the world in him was their call, and they need to save face rather than let Bryce take the lumps. As a result, I don't think we're seeing the leadership, because right now, the players don't see a leader. They see a teacher's pet. Bryce needs to make mistakes, and take the blame in order to earn the respect of the locker room. The coaches coddling him only makes that process harder.

I don't feel bad for him. He'll cry himself to sleep on a bed of money the rest of his life regardless of which trajectory his NFL career takes. We shat the bed, now we need to sleep in it. And that means rolling back and forth over this pant-leg excretion for the rest of the year. The absolute worst case scenario is him being shell-shocked into mediocrity if there was any hope of him being our future starter.

If anything is likely to "David Carr" Bryce, it's the amount of pressure that's put on him in terms of our expectations to succeed based on his performance alone. Being the #1 overall pick already comes with with an enormous amount of pressure. Now imagine the weight Bryce must be feeling every day knowing: The Panthers made me their #1 overall selection The Panthers traded up to make me their #1 overall selection The Panthers traded next year's 1st round selection to make me their #1 overall selection The Panthers traded their best offensive weapon to make me their #1 overall selection Multiple people put their careers and livelihoods on the line, vouching for me that I was worth trading all that for An entire coaching and ownership regime is betting their future on me being the centerpiece of their offense and the star of the franchise The Panthers gave up so much they can only surround me with mediocre talent, and they count on ME to be the reason the team is successful The coaches are starting me over a more qualified veteran because everyone needs ME to prove THEY were right If I don't pan out, the investment the Panthers made in me will be what sets this franchise back a decade And now imagine all of that going through your head and not only not being immediately successful, but being the center of attention of a team that looks like it may be historically bad. Frankly, the amount of expectation that our FO, coaching and fanbase has piled on Bryce is unreal, unprecedented, and unfair. Because at the end of the day, all that we gave up for him, was our team's bad decision. So if anything has the likelihood to "ruin" Bryce Young, it's the stress of knowing that because of the amount we gave up for him, which is not something he ever asked for us to do, and in spite of the weak team we surrounded him with, he doesn't get the benefit of a rookie learning curve. Every mistake is exponentially worse, because the amount we gave up for him can only be justifiable if he is great NFL QB. I still don't know if Bryce has the physical tools to be a great QB in this league. But if Bryce mentally survives this season, I'll actually have a lot more hope for him in the future.

I believe in the Sales principle of "Get to No as quickly as possible." In the NFL it's get to "Bust" as quickly as possible. If Bryce can be "ruined" then we don't need to invest in him any further. The league isn't ideal, so we don't need a QB who need a perfect situation in order to be successful.

Start Andy for what reason? To try to compete? At 0-5 the season is lost and we don't have the talent or guts to rattle of a string of wins and try to make a post-season run. Start Bryce the rest of the way and let's see if he's got any fight in him. The absolute worst thing we can come away from a crappy season with is uncertainty. By the end of this god-awful, forgettable, and hopefully uncharacteristically bad year, I want to know if Bryce is the future, or if he was a misstep, and we need to start over again. Starting Andy, and just leaving us with questions as to whether or not Bryce "has it" leads to just another wasted off-season and sets us up for another lost year. It's tough, and we've definitely thrown Bryce in the deep end with weights on his ankles. But that's the situation. Now it's time to sink or swim.

So our QB we mortgaged the future and drafted #1 overall can succeed in an ideal situation with perfect coaching, exceptional skill position talent, and an offense that's built from the ground up up to cater to him specifically? Hmm. You know what out #1 overall QB sounds like? Any other QB in the league.

So the fans literally know better than our FO. That's not encouraging.

Finally something Bryce is good at! He's so tiny you have to go for his head to tackle him

Me too, bud. Me too...

I hate to say I told you so. We never should have traded up. We certainly never should have traded up to 1 giving up as much as we did. And we definitely shouldn't have drafted Bryce. Teddy, Sam, and Baker were never the problem and we should have rolled with them, and either groomed a future QB, or earned #1 overall. This team it literally a decade away from being relevant again. I'd say we should blow it all up. But we've irreparable hamstrung ourselves.