CRA

I mean, if you spent the farm on Bryce Young and believed in him....Ladd makes way more sense than XL and an aging out AT shouldn't prohibit you from building a future that makes sense IMO. Ladd basically gets a year of mentoring from AT (not that he needed it)....and then you don't have to overpay AT to take up space in the slot because you got nothing else proven.

99% of my complaints generally are front office complaints. It may not appear that way always but that's where I have been for some time. It's also why I constantly talk about random parts the last several years.... to this day, if they were going to draft Bryce Young....I thought they needed to do specific things. They have literally done the opposite. In a certain world, I would LOVE an AT. A Bryce Young. An XL. All sorts of people. How they have chosen to put it all together here? Meh. I still think if Bryce Young is your QB....the easiest and obvious play for a team....would be a dynamic slot WR, a rec RB, and solid rec TE. Spread it out. Let him be the point guard. I still think this team is being built for a different type QB....one that a Jake Delhomme style QB would thrive more in. Which is in fact the heart of what Canales has been around and done. So I nitpick it all. If I had thought Bryce Young was going to rebound....I would have NEVER been all in on XL like I was. I was all in XL because I thought the BY experiment was about to over quick. Ladd would have made way more sense if you believed in BY IMO. I don't think this team did. I think Dave drafted XL because they were mentally ready to move on and did after 2 weeks. and I thought the Frank think was bologna from the jump. I just have hate the pairings and plan every since Rhule year 1. Rhule year 1 was the last time I really thought this team was in a good place to give it a go. It went horribly. But....the zoomed out plan was pretty logical all around. Rhule just was not ready and a clown on top of that. I still think the Dave, BY, XL, Tmac build 3 round pegs and a square one at the end of the day. Worst thing to happen to BY was to land in Carolina IMO. Which is often how the NFL plays out. Where you land and what the org does matters probably more than raw talent/ability often. I do not actually have a problem with Adam Thielen in a vacuum. He is overperforming in a vacuum all things considered.

parents step in for pregame meals for my kid's team for away games. I am Teddy Bridgewater!!!

like any profession, a lot of them are very greedy and balloon up bills. My buddy is a vet. When he was first starting out he had BIG issues with the vet he was employed with because he was expected to drive up bills. He now owns his own practice driven by that very reason. Good man that wants to sleep good at night....doing what he set out to do at a young age (with the same reason in mind, to help animals and people). But per him, a HUGE % of small animal vets are just gouging the f out of people. like most things, I want the most mom and pop variety I can find. The bigger practice, like most businesses, it more likely is owned and operated to make as much money as possible at the end of the day.

but...isn't that sort of highlighting WHY we are moaning about AT? Right now our primary weapon (based on offensive reps, targets, etc) is an old slow WR who we overpay that doesn't really get open nor do anything with the ball in his hands. and we are at the bottom in spending in terms of pass catchers. Maybe the front office shouldn't of arranged the roster so that it is only .....AT (debating retirement) and cast of unproven hopefuls youngsters. I mean, the AT complaint is really not about AT. It's about the front office.

if the guaranteed didn't impact the cap and thus tie our hands in to extent to roster build.....I would agree with you.

oh, 100%, it's not AT's fault. I just hate the scenario was basically.....well, a rookie didn't step up so we really have no option but to convince AT not to retire with even more money/cap. To me, we have been for some time the land of random parts being places together. Maybe Canales will stay around long enough that changes. I think it's going to hard for any coach under Tepper to survive to get a real cohesive vision to play out.

Okay in our wins he had 0, 0, 6, 6, and 6 targets last year while producing about 40 yards in games he did play in. Those games also represented games he had the least amount yards on the field on the season and was slightly under his average targets per game. AT production and games people use to talk about how good he still is.....don't translate to wins. To me, we often just get stuck in games both in 23 and 24 of over targeting him and him getting too many non-threatening yards. Those are the AT fantasy football games. Like I said, to me it's just the fit of it all. He occupies space in our cap and basically team where we need real legit O coming from that spot.. To me, he just isn't that dude. Given where we are, I'd rather be building up younger guys with the reps. I think he gets too many is all. I get why they had to keep him. But he needs to be phased down on reps on the field. It's not just targets. It's offensive snaps. But yeah, when AT is dominating snaps and then gets up to the 7 or 8 or heaven for bid 10+ targets? That's just not the football I want to see. That's losing football IMO if AT occupies that role in the O.

Nothing is ever that simplistic. But he doesn't really get open. He can do anything with the ball in this hands really. He is a small TE at this stage and we tend to often make him too be of a focal point on Sunday which I have argued always makes life too easy on defenses and keep the ceiling of the O very low. Which is why "great" O play for us (our curve) only generates about 200 yards of O. I'd love AT if I was the Eagles or something. Where I trot him out randomly on a 3rd down and getting very limited work. Ricky Prohel.

you post it shows 44, 43, 40, DNP, DNP in our wins on the season. 2023, he had 40 in a win. That's 6 of the 7. Math seems to be mathing. We have no wins with AT having "great" games. Outlier is the Hou game w/ 70 in 23 I just think AT is a double edged sword given where we are.

which you can argue, has been actually a problem/flaw for Carolina. Generally speaking, if AT has a good game and we force production to him.......we haven't won. In the random games we have won, AT generally had 40 yards or didn't play. Which is true of 6 of our 7 wins. I still contend AT has taken up too much oxygen in this O. Too many reps and targets.

He doesn't get open. But he does have hands. Next Gen had him #3 with hands and #92 in getting open. Which feels about right.

I mean, Funchess, LaFell, etc would all be our best WR on the roster too going into this season if you could teleport them from the past. coming off an injured year, debating retirement, already being ideally a rotation piece in a legit scenario......that price tag is still tough to swallow but on paper we 100% need him. In reality, for those that can see the future......we all know Hunter Renfrow is about to be America's favorite comeback story.

AT had 6 million reasons to play as many of the 17 games as he can. our 2025 Ricky Prohel is a bit expensive.

so.....the entire second round is essentially holding out for guaranteed contracts. Seems like it is stuck w/ Judkins and Emmanowori being the 3rd and 4th picks of that round and whatever slow trickle down does or doesn't produce from them.

overwhelming majority of kids in travel ball aren't getting scholarships though because most teams are rec caliber (and not watched by scouts) and parents/leagues sort of helped create this system and narrative IMO where travel ball is now oversaturated and most of it is simply expensive rec ball. is travel beneficial for some athletes to get more exposure? Sure. The ones travel actually existed for. I still think travel has expanded entirely too broad at this stage......where they will now have 5 teams per year in your backyard area pending they can get parents to write those checks. Ain't no scout ever laying eyes on 90%+ of the kids in travel ball at this stage of where it has morphed into.

yeah, sports at all levels is screwed. Agree w/ all you said. really wish rec leagues could break travel up and make a comeback. 99% of travel ball is just rec ball but with an insane price tag.

yeah, Panther PR has done the Tepper is taking a backseat PR tour before. It wasn't true at all the first time we saw them attempt that. All the stuff you are referencing is stuff produced and put out by the Panthers. I'm not acting like owners aren't in the war room. I'm just saying Tepper is a proven commodity. He is what he is. And his tenure with BOTH his professional sports teams tell the exact same story about him. He is not patient. He didn't show patience last year. He moved on from an absurd investment 2 games into the season.....and a frankly unimaginable turnaround by Bryce that was only allowed by injury reset some things. I'm sure a billion times Raiders or Dallas or whatever fans convinced themselves their owners turned a new leaf too. I'm not buying that. There just isn't anything supporting Tepper isn't Tepper IMO.

how can you not see him. Not sure, how he is more behind the scenes here. He is placed between the GM and HC for a reason. Tepper literally was ready to light the Bryce Young experiment on fire after 2 weeks this past season and people are calling him turning over a new patient leaf lol. Tepper isn't going to change. That's not what old billionaires do.

given this is the NIL era (open bags of cash to play)......this is completely stupid.

When we drafted Bryce....no one was arguing that was his game. It is Dave's. And he has drafted a roster post Bryce that fits it. I still think Bryce is sort of the misplaced character in the present day build of the Panthers. Think he naturally fits a spread them out game and nickel and dime them. Not the chunk play vertical game on the perimeter game that is the Dave tree. I still think Morgan is building something more along the lines of his 2003 era team.....and the best fit at QB is a downfield gambler (which is also what Dave Canales did at Tampa and Pete did at Seattle).

He has Morgan on sort of an island with a lot of Fitterer's baggage. He can dump Morgan and give DC one final hail mary attempt. That's why I don't like the current setup. Because that new GM won't be all in with Dave in that.

There are zero indications that Tepper has learned patience. He is running 2 professional sports teams and patience is not a trademark of anything he does. Tepper was ready to move on from Bryce Young last season after 2 games. Injury altered that. the least shocking thing ever would be for Tepper to fire Dean Smith at the conclusion of this year w/ FC if this miss the postseason and Dan Morgan at the conclusion of this year if the WRs don't pan out this year.

I’m saying I get why national folks would rank the Panthers skill position players rank low present day. Which is all this is. Using a big 3 was just simplifying the reasoning for the discussion. It s not my list but I totally get a national list playing out that way

A rookie that has never played a snap and a proven 1000K NFL WR are not going to be viewed the same in these type rankings. And calling draft picks, lotto picks, isn't some new quip I just invented. take the big 3 Hubbard, AT, insert whatever 3rd Panther you want vs Kamara, Hill, Olave. Most football folks outside of Carolina are picking the Saints there IMO.