KSpan

As unimpressed (at best) as I am with Tepper's handling of the Panthers, it's tough to cast judgment on a team in its literal first season of existence. Pass issued for that one at least until next year, more likely year 3.

Biased toward what exactly? Not my fault the stats you and others cite don't support your point and that you have nothing to refute mine. I'm not even saying he was bad at safety, just that he was more impactful in his 2020 role. Hell, there's not even a 2021 Jeremy Chinn highlight video - there are tons of them for 2020. Definitive/scientific? In no way, shape, or form. But interesting that arguably Carolina's second-best defender doesn't warrant the same attention this year, not even in the team's annual defensive recap video. Compare to 2020, when the team highlighted him exclusively. Here's 4 defensive plays alone (one was his ST fake run). Call it whatever position they want, but keep the man near the LOS.

Seriously? Teams also attempted the second fewest pass plays against Carolina (515) in the entire league because they didn't need to; 585 were attempted against them in 2020 and that was with 1 less game played. The team also gave up 26 passing TDs (middle of the pack) and had a rate in the bottom third. With regards to rush defense Carolina was 28th in the league in 'explosive run plays' on defense, giving them up 12% of the time. Yet again, your stat doesn't tell the actual story.

For the fourth time now, the point is that he didn't make anywhere near the impact this year spending half his time roaming the deep third. The stats alone don't tell the story, but since you keep citing them he also only played 15 games his rookie year vs 16 this year.

His rookie year was full of stops at/around the LOS and he had some pretty athletic PBUs. For me, it comes down to the question of how easy is it to replace what someone does; no one made a similar impact at the LOS last year, but his lack of standout play in the secondary may be easier to replace. In the end it just comes down to usage. Whether they call him a safety, LB, whatever, the dude just needs to be around the LOS instead of playing center field.

No, I'm not, which I noted in the follow-up post. Not all stats are created equal and Chinn was pretty much invisible last year, which was a stark contrast to his impactful rookie year regardless of stats being similar. That's the reality.

Right. I'm not saying that he should be scoring TDs all the time but more that he was around the ball and made things happen. That just wasn't the case last year in the role he was in, even if the stats appear about equal. The way I look at it is this - how easy would it be to find a player that puts the kind of production out there that he did? I feel like it's much easier to find a full-time safety that just mans the position vs finding a dynamic playmaker around the ball. Luke and Beason were both above average MLBs, but putting them at MLB unlocked those natural instincts and abilities. I feel like it's that type of situation with Chinn.

Can you name one impact play he made off the top of your head from last year? As compared to his rookie year, where he had 2 TDs vs Minnesota by being right around the ball and LOS along with consistently getting stops at that level? Not all stats are created equal, and that's the role people want to see him in instead of being way downfield. Maybe that's what they mean by safety, but as they used him last year he seemed basically invisible.

He had 107 tackles last year but the only time I remember seeing him was his interception (only one of the year) vs Buffalo. Big change from his rookie year where he was frequently in the middle of things.

As a long-distance fan... less than none.

And he looked amazing doing it. 'Guessing' coming from a player that young is another word for natural instinct, and they neutered his play by putting him at safety in the role he was in. They wasted one year hoping he gets that magic in another position and are probably wasting more upcoming. Just dumb. Maybe he shifts back to something more like the Joker role he was in his rookie year and gets back to excelling. At the moment though his talent appears to be somewhat wasted.

So we get the coordinators on and official press conference before Rhule or Tepper... lolz.

In terms if peak effectiveness and ignoring availability, probably Otah (tackle in general) and then Brockermeyer.

That's not accurate. Donte's contract is 3 years, 35MM, just under 12 MM a year with $16MM guaranteed. It's the same contract as Gilmore with only one add'l year, and that year has a dead cap of only 3.3MM - it's structured to get out of at that point. Again, this is all assuming that Gilmore would have come back on a similar deal as the Colts gave him. If he would though and the team is so sold on Jackson for longer due to age, maturity, whatever, then add more years. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/donte-jackson-25154/

They only got Donte for 3 years though, and I doubt he sees the third year of that deal one way or another. The age/timespan is a wash at best for that reason alone, and he's missed 10 games to Gilmore's 13 during the same timespan, and that's with Gilmore missing 8 last year when he probably could have played sooner if the team felt it necessary. With respect to being a ballhawk, Jackson has 4, 3, 3, and 2 picks during his years. While it is a higher per-game average than Gilmore, it's hardly lighting it up. For a team as young as Carolina is, particularly in the secondary, I just don't see Jackson and, as importantly, the contract they locked him into as a better option to Gilmore. Now, the assumption is being made that Gilmore would have come back to Carolina at all. Perhaps he wasn't willing or it was going to take a lot more money to do it, we'll never know.

Matured or nor, Donte got exposed as the year went on and was absolutely abysmal his final 2 games against Miami and Washington before missing the final 5 games. He is not near Gilmore's level even at this stage in his career. Again, age would factor in if Carolina signed him for more than 3 years, but they didn't, so his effective life is the same as Gilmore's. As far as Rhule goes he has earned zero credibility. Nothing he says carries any merit until he appears able to compete at an actual NFL level and not be outstrategized week in and week out. It has been a steady slide into the basement under his watch and I still can't figure out how he kept his job. The fact that we haven't seen or heard a peep from him or Tepper this entire offseason while Fitterer has done all the talking says a lot about where things currently stand.

Donte got absolutely roasted as the year went on and it was plain to see. If that was his 'best year' then that's unfortunate, because Carolina only locked him up for 3 years vs the 2 that Gilmore got. For that reason I'm not seeing the age advantage at all. You're also the poster who spent last offseason telling everyone the team wasn't 'our daddy's Panthers' anymore (you may not be wrong though, as they're quite arguably worse from top to bottom) and yet it was plain to see that abysmal season coming a mile off as well. It has nothing to do with looking for the worst, and rose-colored optimism achieves nothing. This offseason has had some actual competent moves made, but assuming Gilmore was willing to come back for similar money the signing of Jackson over Gilmore in context of the 2 contracts isn't up there on that list.

The flaw in your premise is that they chose a 'kid' who is notably worse than the 'vet' for the same money. It makes little sense from an on-field perspective.

This all day. Dude has infinitely better coaching and a much better roster in SF, and yet they've decided he's not good enough. Seems blindingly obvious, and yet here we are seeing all this nonsense about trades and fit.

What was the tweet?

My god, is just gets better every day. The descent into pure pooshow didn't take long.

Given Garoppolo's injury history I'm inclined to lean Mayfield. Plus, his was the non-throwing shoulder while Garoppolo's was his throwing shoulder. I feel like that often gets lost in this comparison.

What's with the 'experience' nonsense? Baker has started 12 more regular season games than Garoppolo, still like half a season more counting the playoffs, and attempted 500 more regular season passes. I'm not stumping for either one of them but Jimmy is the less experienced of the two in the traditional meaning of the word, and at most it seems a wash. I'll give that Kimmy has been with better coaching, but that's not equivalent to 'experience'.

Jimmy Bridgewater (slightly exaggerated since he did have a one-hit wonder 27 TD season a couple of years ago) won't be the guy to get the team over that hurdle though. Of these two I'll take Mayfield, but it's one of the many less-than-ideal scenarios facing Carolina at the QB position right now. They really screwed the pooch with this stuff these past years.