Captroop

3 minutes ago, Carolina Disaster said:

He is a professional Athlete getting paid millions.  He needs to do his job and lead this team, whoever they are, to the best of his ability.  We drafted BY because what we thought he was... cerebral, a leader, etc.... BY in addition to poor play has not shown real leadership or any trait we thought was worth the 1st pick in the draft.  Where is the fire in his belly??  Where has he showed real emotion in the huddle, on the side lines, in press conference???  Haven't seen it.  I hated the pick but the love the panthers, so I do want him to succeed but damn people tired of the excuses.  Just show us something....anything.  Or lets give him a participation trophy cause he shows up cause that's what we do nowadays.

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.

2 minutes ago, Proudiddy said:

He might not have asked for it, but if he didn't feel he was capable of living up to the expectations then he should've let them know and gracefully bowed out of the runnin for #1.  But he didn't.  So is he gonna return his salary?  No.  So it's hard to feel bad for the guy.

At the same time, the staff and FO believed in him and went all in on him, confident that he was worthy of the #1 overall pick and of being a franchise QB.

So in terms of whether to feel bad for him or not, or considering if expectations were unrealistic or too high - I'm sorry, brother, but this is the modern day NFL.  If we take a player at #1, we expect you to change the direction of our franchise for the better.  We expect you to set the tone and team culture.  For better or worse, that's what comes with being the #1 overall pick now, so it wasn't unfair or unrealistic.  And again, if he didn't feel he could live up to that, he should've let them know in the pre-draft process.

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.

6 minutes ago, Frank9999 said:

The only thing I wonder is if this team is bad enough to ruin Bryce. 

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.

2 minutes ago, ForJimmy said:

I’m pretty sure a majority of the Huddle wanted Stroud. There was a poll and he was the leader by a good margin. 

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

1 minute ago, KillerKat said:

I didnt want to trade up so high, but since we did, I wanted Stroud.

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.

1 minute ago, SZ James (banned) said:

Chores it is 

Yup. I had to miss this game because I gotta drive my wife to the airport. 

I think I'm literally going to have more fun doing that. 

The Panthers actually made watching the Panthers painful. 

I'll say this on the subject:

I want Bryce to spend an entire game going for chunk plays. I don't care if he leads the league in interceptions after this weekend. I want to see him throw the ball downfield. What I cannot stand is this rinky-dink 5-yard pass and screen nonsense. We suck, I get it. I'm not expecting miracles. I just want to see him stretch the field. I want to see if he can actually succeed in time and with better playcalling.

And that's it. I'm checked out this week and am going to do something better with my time than watch, fully expecting when I see the box score it'll be more of the same. But if I see the stat line Sunday night, and Bryce goes for 350 yards, 0TD, 3 INT, I guarantee I'll watch next weekend.

6 hours ago, Beast_3000 said:

And not drafting Puka Nucua the Rams rookie breakout. We need some scouting department changes too. 

This this this all day. The scouting staff needs to wear a LOT of what is going wrong with this team. Fitt gets the blame for making the pick, but this scouting staff are the ones with boots on the ground evaluating the talent and making the recommendations.

How can people who do this for a living be so consistently wrong when guys who explode are taken later in the draft?

So, looking like we're giving the Bears #1 overall. 

Do we really want to call it a return? It's more of a pre-departure.

I approve. I'm firmly in fug it mode. I can't be more disappointed in the team than I am now. So let's roll the dice.

I'll watch the Panthers if I've got nothing better to do. But I'm not setting aside time for this team anymore. The weather is too damn nice right now to squander another afternoon on cheap gameday "specials" on draft domestics and this quality of football. I'm gonna go play 18 holes.

24 minutes ago, CarolinaNut said:

bro why are there four routes running right into the middle of the field..christ Reich

Seriously. I think he called the Hail Mary play where everyone is just in a scrum in the endzone.

One thing that really stands out - and it sounds like a size bro complaint because it is - is Cam was so big, that defenders had to try to wrap him up around the midsection to get him down. That gave Cam the opportunity to try to make a play while being contacted. In the play at 1:22 in that video, Cam ends up making a throw with a defender wrapped around his waist like a tutu. I just don't see how Bryce will ever be able to make a throw with a defender hanging off him. Hell, I don't presently see how he can take a hit without fumbling.

I have to say, I'm really pleasantly surprised by how well some members of secondary have really stepped up. And there's a reason Chinn is the only jersey I've bought in recent memory. Guy is just a lunch pail playmaker.

1 minute ago, austin1227 said:

Lol na worst trade is def the herschel walker trade or russell wilson trade

The Herschel Walker one is genuinely fascinating. I want to read a book on how that went down.

Just now, SetfreexX said:

A pick swap means we only gave up one first since we got their first. I dunno why this is lost on so many people unless it's just an exercise in hyperbole. 

Trey Lance is the most recent in regards to a bad trade up, it's simply masked due to what we lack...competent offensive play-calling...

I am not convinced Brock Purdy is ''that'' guy -- Tent Williams, Deebo, Aiyuk, CMC, Kittle are all number one options on the same team. 

Add in a competent run scheme that existed BEFORE they inserted CMC with guys like Mostert, Tevin Coleman, etc. 

Our issue right now is the insistence on running this basic, outdated, flat offense. 

 

I highlighted why I don't think it's as high in terms of being a bad trade, because the stakes were lower. They have a team brimming with talent. They could afford to take a swing on trying to hit on a franchise-changing QB.

We have had a dearth of talent for years, traded away one of the few playmakers we had, and gave ourselves less capital to try to build with. We DEPENDED on Bryce hitting, where I don't think the '9ers did with Lance.

I think the state of the team also needs to be factored in on a trade.

2 minutes ago, Jay Roosevelt said:

not even close.

The Saints trading an entire draft + a 1st & 3rd the next year to draft a RB is FAR worse.

But they got multiple 1,000 yard seasons, a playoff run AND they got 2 first round picks BACK for Ricky Williams. I don't see how that trade can even be in the conversations for worst of all time.

13 minutes ago, d-dave said:

Trey Lance

Herschel Walker

Ricky Williams

Sean Gilbert (good job Panthers)

I'd argue Ricky Williams was worse. New Orleans got multiple 1,000 yard seasons out of him, and ended up getting a 1st rounder back in a trade.

2 minutes ago, pantherj said:

No. Cowboys - Vikings Herschel Walker.

I'll admit I didn't know about this one. Yeah, that's a disaster.