d-dave

After the Senior Bowl, Willis has become a hot name. I mean, he looks like he can game. Then in the actual game, he showed off his running, less than his arm. He carried Liberty in college. When he played against top competition, he didn't look great. Is that because Liberty was so outmatched? There are a lot of questions, and it comes down to the projections. Can Willis read a NFL defense? Can he make plays? He's got a good arm, great athleticism, seems to be a good dude who has matured over his college journey. Those are all good traits. Can the Panthers be successful with a great athlete, who does a similar one read then run? Or do they cut the field in half to make it easier for him? Personally, I'd rather trade down, acquire more picks, trot Sam out next year and tell Rhule "He's your QB you wanted, coach him." Set him up to do SOMETHING.

Yep, been playing regularly...forever?? I've been usually doing my weekly bounties for a few of the main NPCs to gather Bright Dust. I dabble in the new dungeon, Grasp of Avarice, which is really fun. A dude in my clan and I went through with very limited understanding of wtf to do. We made it to the boss room, but I had MASSIVE wife agro for spending four-ish hours bumbling around in there. It's easy with three and someone with some knowledge, but for two morons, it was a lot of work. God knows how folks solo flawless it...Way better than me!

Yeah, KB was on the road to being a dominate NFL player until his knee was destroyed, his mother died, and he had a hard time dealing with it. It sucks. As a bigger person, I understand the stress it puts on your knees, no matter the shape you're in. His entitled attitude didn't help him at all. It would have been nice if he could have had a Chris Carter type mentor who really knew all the details that could help him have a 12 year career. What really got me was seeing Cam with time... Holy poo, how long has it been since we saw that kind of OL work...and it wasn't even that great at the time.

It will be interesting to see where he does finally get drafted, but let's also remember we are so far away from the draft. There's the combine, free agency and prodays along the way while national pundits tear every prospect down. I also fully expect a team to go crazy and move into the top five for weird pick. I mean, it's the draft, right? Wouldn't be a fun draft without a bunch of WTF moves!

Yep, QBs are a different animal. You either have your franchise QB or you don't. If you don't, you got and get them. If the team believes Pickett can be the guy, then they have to pick him. You can't screw this up. Now if you do, you get fired. But if you don't take your risks, you never benefit if you win.

Don't they all want to go to winning teams? Good luck with that. I'm pretty sure the 49ers will trade Jimmy where ever they can get the most value!

I'm kind of surprised the rest of the board hasn't made a bigger deal about the NFL. It's a corrupt league. Great sport, great players and personalities, but the business aspect is so freaking dirty.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-01-31-sony-buying-bungie-for-usd3-6-billion But it's not to be exclusive.. Bungie maintains almost all of it's independence. I think this is much more about Sony helping Bungie develop other other media for Destiny (TV, Movies, Books, etc)while Bungie helps Sony develop more than "walking simulators" (ok, I thought that was funny, but those PS only single player games like Last of Us, God of War, Horizion Zero Dawn are great!) in their eco system. Some folks think that this is part of the larger "reset" of the publishing system where Sony and MS buy a bunch of stuff, folks leave and start new studios and develop new ideas. I'd like that for sure. Looking at the various reports and press releases, it seems like Sony is going to play ball with being multi platform. It's kind of what I think Xbox will do with the Activision catalogue. Keep them multiplatform, and collect your 30% on each sale. At the end of the day, both MS and Sony want to sell software and collect their piece of the pie. Game Pass is still a great value, and I think those subscription models are going to be key moving forward. The issue for Sony is that they are just a MUCH smaller company than MS and don't have near enough cash to spend like Windows-Daddy can provide for MS. I'm not sure how their service will compare. But if there's a PC plan for it....oh boy I might have to think really hard about it so I can go back and play all of those fantastic games...

Well, his history suggests he's done a good job. Maybe he can help clean things up on the OL front. While I do really feel the straight up desire to fire Rhule and toss 2022 down the drain, I also want to see my team succeed. The fan part of me just wants to see us get better.

Look, I'm not a scout - I just summarized several things I read online. The general consensus is that Pickett has above average athleticism compared to Burrow's sneaky athleticism. Pickett has a stronger arm, and Burrow knows how to work with all of his tools. I'm just trying to make sense of the desire to copy the Bengals, considering that Pickett is not the same level of prospect Burrow was coming out due to the intangibles.

While everyone wants to comp Burrow to Pickett because of their size, age, and internet buzz; there is a MAJOR difference between the two: Burrow is a straight up baller. Burrow has the professional arrogance and processing ability to make great plays. Pickett has better physical tools, but he's not on Burrow's level of confidence and decision making. Pickett is interesting. And someone we should strongly consider at 6, but on the flip side, he's not going to be a Joe Burrow for us. He's going to be Kenny Pickett. A guy who can make all the throws, is a good athlete, but who isn't as cerebral as Burrow. It's going to depend on the coaches if they can develop him. Now if people start trading up for QBs in the top 5, let's try to get on that trade down energy. We need more than a rookie QB. We have legit needs a long the lines. We could use talent everywhere. This draft doesn't have the quality of QB that we're looking for. So to me, let's look at him, but let's also make good choices for the rest of the team.

It comes down to tools and coaching. We've seen coaches who have maximized limited QBs to be successful in the NFL. While there are guys like Rodgers who can do what he wants because of his success, there are so many more who need to be propped up by a system. Would Mahomes be as successful on the Raiders? Or Josh Allen in Jacksonville? Much less anyone in Detroit? You have to have a good coach who creates an environment for the player to be successful.

Daniel Jeremiah was saying that he used to fear the hate from fans. Now he just embraces it (because it drives clicks and helps him keep his job). Mock drafts are an intellectual exercise at best. Entertainment. Just something to pass the time before the real decision makers fug it all up

Well, as we say about Tepper "not my billions." lol It remains to be seen. Can MS clean up the culture and improve morale the greater Activision environment? Can they take a franchise like COD, which sells millions of units each year and tons of microtransactions no matter the quality of the game, and keep it profitable on game pass without sales to Sony? That's why I think that MS is going to continue to push for Game Pass on Sony, while still allowing the sales of CoD and other activision/blizzard games on Sony products. Just add a Microsoft Game Studio in front of each loading screen. I'm very curious to see how it all works out. I've been an Xbox guy since the 360 (even though I had the PS1, PS2, and eventually the PS3 for the blu ray drive) so putting my not very rabid fanboi-ness aside, I really do want gaming to get better for everyone. The world sucks enough as is, I think we should all be able to escape into some gaming, regardless of platform.

There is no pitch for Rodgers. Matt Rhule has the ultimate ego, and he won't allow someone else to come in and interfere with his "process." So aside from all the other reasons Rodgers would never come to Carolina, Rhule and his ego would be one for sure.

https://news.microsoft.com/2022/01/18/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/ So this is kind of a major development. I've heard a lot of people talking about this, and some people think that Microsoft is going to make all of new games from Activision only on game pass. No future Call of Duty after 2023 on Playstation. I think that's a little short sighted. I think that MS is going to, at a minimum, still sell games to PS - but they will all have a Microsoft Games Studio logo and adds for Game Pass. I think the real thing that MS wants is to put game pass on the Playstation. I know MS wants a gaming future where you play their content wherever, and I think they are still going to move toward that. Also, how funny would it be for Sony to have to pay royalties to MS on games from their store? It's like MS could never really get a game identity. Like Nintendo has games that are authentically Nintendo. Sony has the market on 3rd person, epic and cinematic games. MS just wants to be the place for games. I really don't think they care about where you play because Game Pass is the end game for them.

Here's a good little pod about Kirk - http://tun.in/piBO0 Take it for what it's worth, but the takes on Kirk are pretty damning. I would hate to see the Panthers trade even more assets for a QB who won't take us over the top.

Read up on Cousins from Vikings fans. Not a pretty picture. On the surface, he looks good stat wise, but his teams have never gotten over the hump. Cousins is good for 7-9 wins a year, no more, and that's assuming everything is perfect. Look at what happens to the receivers where he was? In Washington, in Minny, great were chased off by Cousins and his crazy contract demands and his erratic play. He would absolutely be an upgrade, but he's not enough to see us to the playoffs and build sustained success no matter how good his stats look. we'd have to eat his $35 million cap hit, which would require us to off load Darnold. How is that going to happen? If he's cut, you know he's not playing for a "prove it" deal. He's going to extract every red cent he can.

Interesting 3rd hand rumor for sure! As far as Kubiak, I've read a lot that he's overrated and not much of an upgrade for us. Definitely a name, but not so much of a rock star. I'm much more interested in the Rams guy.

This made my laugh really hard. Thank you

I think this speaks more to the vibe in the building: Rhule is God. He has unlimited carte blanche to do what he wants, cut who he wants, and no one wants to get on his bad side and lose their paychecks.

In with the meme: "Don't know you all the players will be picked top 5!" nonsense! It's still a QB driven league, and there are still a lot of teams looking for their QB1. And there are two amazing pass rushers who could go top three. I have no idea what will happen, lol.

I have no idea what the future holds for Cam. Will he retire? Is he willing to be a QB2/Short Yardage back? He still runs very well. I did see him hyping up Sam and looks to be a great guy even on the sideline. Some of y'all have been super eloquent about what Cam has meant, and I appreciate it and agree! This team though, good lord what a poo show. I wish nothing but the best for Cam, either on or off the field for all the joy and excitement he's brought me.

Here's a thought, in the stream of "safe/unsafe" stories, one thing that stuck out was Rhule has to hire a real OC. What if he doesn't? What if Rhule isn't able to get anyone soon, and gets canned? I'm grasping for straws

I know. My parents were OG PSL owners. It sucks. Just sell your tickets if you don't want to go. That's what they ended up doing until they have to just give them up.