Captroop

This, I feel, is the ultimate, "I told you so" outcome. I could go back to this time last year and pull hundreds of posts from dozens of posters who were saying the exact same thing:

"We need to do everything possible to get a franchise QB. Darnold won't work. Baker won't work. No more retreads. I want to get off the 6 and 7-win roller coaster."

Well, what do y'all know. You monkey pawed that wish. We got off all right. We're looking up through 20 feet of dog poo at 6 wins, and are liable to get worse before we get better.

Mediocre is the launching pad for a good team. Pushing all your chips into the center and going bust helps no one. Embrace mediocrity, meatheads, because it can always be worse!

I'm fine with it. I'm just relieved the league didn't dock us a draft pick. A financial penalty for Tepper, no matter how small, at least doesn't set the team back further. It would be awful for the fan base to suffer (moreso) for that jackass's actions. 

29 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Our buddy Casillas had an interesting theory on that...

He thinks it's possible Fitterer gets "promoted" to a job where he continues all of his current administrative duties except making personnel decisions.

Fitterer Is said to be very well liked within the organization and is good at handling a lot of the day-to-day stuff.

This is what a lot of us used to hope would happen to Marty Hurney.

This move would make a lot of sense. As I mentioned in my other post, I think he does a fine job working the phones. I trust him to take a sixth round pick, and somehow turn it into two 5th round picks.

But he just simply Can. Not. Evaluate. Talent. Remove the personnel management responsibilities, and I think he's a valuable executive to have in the organization.

1 minute ago, Waldo said:

Wasn't SF a scout in Seattle? So he stinks at his job and his scouting department is probably trash, that department is directly under his job's management I believe. There is always the chance the scouts are not so bad and the people in charge listen to what they want but if the head scout is a GM that is a poor evalutor then his scouts are probibly bad also.

Also his trades are mostly fails so no he doesn't do it well. Bad trades and bad prospect evaluations equal total fail. Add in poor free agent aquisitions and it's a trifecta of suck. There really isn’t much positives that he brings to the table.

I'm not arguing for him to keep his job. I'm arguing for everyone to keep their expectations low if he's replaced.

15 hours ago, frankw said:

I chuckled that someone on the first page immediately took to blaming Matt Rhule and the scouts.

Fitterer sees himself as some sort of wheeling and dealing guru when in reality he is significantly worse than both Marty Hurney and Dave Gettleman.

All that being said David Tepper is and has been in his ear pushing and prodding along the way. There's a reason he's so seemingly resistant to canning the guy.

You have to blame the scouts. Fitterer is making the call on the pick, but he's doing that based on the information he's getting from the people whose job it is to evaluate the talent level of prospects, and their ability to translate to the professional game.

I'll say it: I don't have a problem with the wheeling and dealing to be in on every deal and moving picks around. I think that's what Fitterer thinks the job of a GM is, and he does it very well.

The problem is that none of the picks we've traded for have panned out. If we'd hit, the CMC trade would look better. Hell, even the trade to #1 would look a lot better if we'd taken Stroud.

The problem is we have been consistently wrong on the talent we've been drafting, while much more talented players are being taken after them. We have an enormous talent evaluation problem. And while Fitterer is rightly in the crosshairs, don't expect that issue to be resolved if continue to have the same people with boots on the ground at the pro days and combines, who are watching the footwork, analyzing the BS next-gen metrics, looking at the health reports, and still drafting duds.

2 hours ago, Shocker said:

Pick the best player there…we need great players not bodies

Erm, you do remember that the people who would be making that call thought Bryce Young was the best player in the draft, right?

Bryce will not be out QB on 2025. It's not that I don't want him to succeed. It's that I don't want to waste half a decade or more denying what is blatantly obvious. 

We missed. Badly. And way overspent in doing so. The only thing worse is falling victim to sunk cost fallacy. 

6 minutes ago, 4Corners said:

He is one of the softest NFL players I’ve ever seen. 

Never pick the sire of a former player. Daddy's set financially. He doesn't NEED this. 

It was very encouraging to see!

However I'm going to wait and see how he performs in the finale and if the confidence and swagger carries over.

Remember, Green Bay is the team that made Tommy DeVito look like a future starter and allowed Baker Mayfield to post the first perfect passer rating by a visiting QB in Packers history.

Point being, I think this was a much needed get-right game against a poor Packers D that hopefully will bolster Bryce's confidence. But looking at how that D has been performing lately, I'm not ready to say that it's an indication that Bryce has finally turned the corner...yet.

Once is an aberration. Twice is the start of a trend.

Just now, LinvilleGorge said:

He's plenty good enough. You don't need a true RB1 in today's NFL. You haven't for decades now but that hasn't stopped the Panthers from investing heavily in positions of yesteryear, namely RBs and off the ball LBs. Outside of a handful of truly elite players those are "fill the gap" positions with draft picks and/or low to mid-level FAs. We've sorely lacked at more crucial positions because we invest heavily in the wrong positions.

This.

As proven my McCaffrey on the 49ers, a game-changing back is the thing that puts your already great team into a championship quality team. We're not close.

If anything what we need is our bruiser. Our Foreman. Our Tolbert. The goal-line, 4th and 1 freight train. Especially since our QB is clearly not the guy you can count on once you get inside the 2 yard line.

He'd probably be among the league's leading rushers if a) we hadn't wasted so much time starting Sanders, and b) we weren't forcing the pass so much early in the season. The later part of this year has proven we actually have a pretty solid run-blocking line, and a quality rushing attack. And next year, Chuba could be a solid fantasy football RB2. He's that reliable.

Hubbard has been one of the bright spots this dismal season. He's not only proven himself to be our future every down back, but I've been really impressed by his pass blocking.

Ugh. Well add Washington to the list of Head Coaching vacancies that are FAR more attractive than Carolina. Herbert in LA. Howell in DC. Honestly the only job that may be worse if you're a HC candidate is New England. How do you follow that act?

1 minute ago, Selltheteamtepper said:

No NFL team beside us would be dumb enough to draft a 5’8 170 pound QB. During pre-draft I was listening to QB room w/ Jordan Palmer and they were surprised Bryce was mocked as high as he was. They said they spoke an NFL GM who didn’t believe the mocks, and said 90% of teams won’t consider a QB Bryce’s size. He doesn’t have a single trait teams normally look for in a QB, let alone a #1 QB. We were the only team who fell for the smoke screen. The quicker people realize this the quicker we can move on.

It's a good thing I didn't suggest he would be taken #1 overall, or even in the first round then, huh?

3 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

I keep hearing about all his talent and yet..........

Put Max Verstappen in an AlphaTauri and he'd be a mediocre driver.

Actually that's too generous for us.

Put Max Verstappen in a 1998 Taurus.

Meanwhile, a pass blocking line and Davante Adams made this guy look like Tom Brady on the 2007 Patriots

14 hours ago, Selltheteamtepper said:

He wouldn’t be drafted at all.

I don't think that's true. He has too much talent and had too much success at the college level to go undrafted. He has glaring physical limitations, but someone would take a chance on him; I think in the late second or early third. The range where interesting, talented, but somehow less than ideal players SHOULD be drafted.  And there he would be going to a team that:

• A) was more complete already, presumably had skill position players and a stronger line, and he wasn't counted on to be the franchise savior on his own
• B) would let him earn his starting job either by winning in camp, or riding the bench a few years and learning the ropes behind a vet. In contrast, because we took him #1 overall, we simply HAD TO name him our week 1 started. That was a given, and probably the worst thing that could have ever happened to Bryce Young

I don't have a lot of faith in him to be our franchise star, much less starting QB in a year's time. But I must concede that a competent program would have taken a shot on him before day 3 of the draft, and he'd have been much better off for it.

Likewise, it was the first season I paid attention to football. I can't believe that back then, the only way I could keep up with games was to log onto the NFL website and watch the live drive charts. That's right! I'd spend 3 hours every Sunday staring at a chart on a chunky monitor feverishly refreshing the page, and then leaping in the air like I was in the stadium when I saw they'd scored a touchdown. I'd have the local broadcast on in the background in case they cut away to a big Panthers play. And if I was lucky enough, on NFL Primetime, the Panthers would make Chris Berman's highlight reel, and I'd get to hear him chant, "Daylight come, and you got a Delhomme!" I think I got to actually watch maybe 3 regular season games that year when they were broadcast in the DC area or on primetime. But I watched every post-season game, and I don't know if I ever felt higher highs than riding the edge of my seat the entire Rams OT, followed by the double OT X-Clown.

2015 was special, but my fandom has never matched, nor do I think it could ever match 2003. It's my Red Ryder BB gun. It was the combination of team, my age, the way we'd win games in spectacularly down-to-the-wire fashion, and the complete lack of cynicism I had. I hadn't been beaten down by life and the crushing disappointment of being a long-term Panthers fan.

It'll never be the same.

22 hours ago, BY9Franchise said:

Honestly who cares the garbage players currently on this team 

It matters when you're trying to attract not-garbage free agents.

I watched Godzilla: Minus One instead of watching the game. And it was 100% the right call. I got out of the show, turned on the phone, and looked at how my fantasy team was doing. Then I played a mobile game. Checking to see what our score was on a game-day Sunday was maybe the forth or fifth thing on my mind. That says a lot. And when I saw we'd lost 6 to 28, I wasn't even bothered, much less surprised. I've never been so disinterested in Panthers football, and that's really something the eggheads and bean-counters in our FO should be worried about, because I'm sure I'm not alone.

Sidenote: Go see Godzilla Minus One. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say I think it's the best movie of the year.

Honestly, to save this franchise, we start the process of replacing Bryce right now.

Step 1. Bring in Veteran Starting QB. Open up "QB competition."

Will it look bad that we're going into year 2 with our #1 overall in a competition for the starting job? Maybe. On paper possibly, but at this point, I think everyone around the league acknowledges that Bryce isn't going to be our future starter. It might be bad optics for a couple of weeks, but really, we're such a joke at this point, would it even make headlines? It doesn't matter, though. The competition is the farce; it's just to get Bryce out of the driver's seat so we can slowly start to get him to fade into the background, and when we ultimately cut him (or hopefully trade him to a competent franchise for a sixth rounder), it barely makes waves.

Step 2. Stop making moves.

Clearly every move we've made has just dug ourselves in deeper. Our moves to horde draft picks have yielded duds. And the talent we've traded away has not been replaced. So we need to take a break from hording picks, being in on every deal, and selling off our talented players. Because here is where you end up: talentless.

Here's my controversial take; I still don't disagree with passing on 2 firsts for Burns. He's a moderately good DE, who is not worth the money he's demanding. He's not a lynch-pin you built a defense around. But the good news is that was on full display this year, so he's in much worse bargaining position this year. Everyone saw he's not worth Bosa money, so no one is going to offer it to him. And frankly, he's a guy we should hold onto, because when we start to right the ship, and we're winning games, his mood is going to improve, and he's the kind of player you are glad you have on your team when you're a contender.

Step 3. Build the F***ING O-LINE.

I feel like I've been a broken record on this since the Gettleman era. Everything starts with the O-Line. It keeps your QB healthy. It gives your WRs time to get open. It keeps drives alive. It gives your defense a rest. If you don't have an O-Line, you do not have an NFL football team. Period. The end. Use our remaining draft picks. Use our FA dollars. Build a stout line of actual NFL caliber linemen.

Step 4. Take a flyer on a late round or UDFA QB.

We don't have the capital to draft a marquis name QB for the next several years. Nor should we. And going back to Step 2, we shouldn't try to. Because rolling the dice on an early round QB again is just another year neglecting glaring holes in the O-Line and skill positions. And the emergence of no-names like Purdy, Browning and DeVito as starting-caliber QBs with next to no investment made in them should show that there is talent to be mined later in the draft. And if they have the tools around them to be successful they can be. So, if you're going to roll the dice on a rookie QB, in my book, it makes a lot more sense to spend less. Because look what our #1 overall, consensus best QB in the draft is doing for us. If nothing comes from him? We didn't give up much. And if we strike gold, people will forget the name Bryce Young as easily as they did Trey Lance.

TL;DR - We need to start putting ourselves in a position to build a more talent-rich team, and rid ourselves of Bryce in a way that allows the egomaniacal idiots involved to save face.

4 hours ago, Jay Roosevelt said:

The question is do you grade the trade and the pick together or separately?

I maintain that the trade itself wasn't bad at all. Compared to what other teams have given up to move up in similar deals we got a pretty fair deal. You can argue whether we should have traded up to begin with, but in terms of the actual trade itself the value wasn't horrible by historical standards.

Now, the pick... certainly it's not looking good right now. But even if Bryce does end up a total bust I still don't think it's the worst trade in NFL history. You gotta realize how much ground that actually covers.

I don't see how you can evaluate a trade except by taking the outcome into account. Evaluating the hypothetical value is pointless.

That's like rationalizing spending $100k on lottery tickets because you COULD have won the Powerball that's worth billions. That logic didn't work on my wife, and it doesn't work here.

The time to debate the value of the trade up to #1 should taken place before the pick was made. Now it's made, so the trade should be evaluated based on what Bryce cost us, what Bryce has produced, and the icing on this shitcake is witnessing the opportunity cost in the form of Stroud.

12 minutes ago, Ornias said:

Sad thing is the schedule we had this year is one of the easiest I can remember. 

6-7 is good enough to get you #1 in this division. With Darnold and DJ we'd be running the South. Reich could have gotten us to the playoffs. 

So, what are we thinking now? 

Climbing the list to #1 overall like our pick for the Bears?

It's really funny in my work fantasy league watching the teams get into a waiver wire bidding war every week to pick up the Def that's playing the Panthers that week.

Our bed was made once we traded for #1 overall. That was a potentially franchise-killing trade.

I was, and stand by advocating for staying with the guy in my avatar. We should have let him be our Rodney Peete. We should have rolled with mediocrity for one more year. Because of exactly the reasons we're seeing. Regardless of how much the board wouldn't shut up about it, a franchise QB wasn't our missing piece. We've had 7 starting QBs look terrible in a row. Eventually you'd start to think that QB wasn't the issue. The best QB in the draft was never going to, and indeed isn't going to save us. As much as I was, and still am convinced Stroud was the better pick, I must admit Stroud would have looked terrible here. And we'd be saying we fugged up by not paying attention to the S2 scores while Bryce lit it up in Houston. Fugging prime Tom Brady would look terrible here.

We are a bad team with no talent. Our solution for that was trading away our talent and our ability to add new talent.

We shoulda stayed at 9, and started to build the OL that has made every QB since 2015 Cam Newton look like garbage. Do you honestly think Dalton with DJ, Thielen and a shiny new #9 overall lineman would have a 1-10 record?

And here's the kicker, even if he was worse, we'd still have #1 overall in the 2024 draft. And we'd still have DJ, a better line, and a better landing spot for Dalton's eventual replacement.

7 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Add CJ Beathard to the long list of QBs who look better than Bryce this year.

Goes to show that WRs like Ridley and Chase are what are needed to succeed in the game right now. You can literally pluck a homeless guy from the bus station and he can lead a game winning drive as a QB.