BrianS

Missing the forest for the trees. Yes, Dalton threw 58 times. Don't look at the number, look at what the numbers actually boiled down to. Almost 7 air yards per attempt versus BY's 5.0. Dalton's numbers put him in the same statistical category as Jalen Hurts, Mahomes and Josh Allen this year. I'm not comparing him to those guys as a package! Just saying that's what his numbers looked like in our only exposure to him in our offense! "But the Seahawks are a terrible pass defense!" Actually, they are middle of the pack. But let's say they are bad for arguments sake. You know who's worse? The Bucs (178). The Jags (112). The Texans (235). The Lions (247). The Bears (185). The Vikings (204). Yea, Bryce has played some terrible pass defending teams too and not gotten within 100 yards of what Dalton did. In an offense that is arguably more productive with Frank Reich gone! By way of comparison, at his season average of five yards per attempt, BY would have needed to throw it 72 times to hit that same 361 yards. BY's season average puts him 33rd in the NFL this year among players with at least 6 starts. Panthers history time class! Who here remembers Teddy Two Gloves? Checkdown Teddy? Yea, well, in TB5's one season here he averaged 7.2 air yards per attempt. He threw for 3700 yards, 15 TD's and 11 INT's in 15 games going 4-11. I've seen people compare Young to Pickles. That's a little harsh. Pickles was worse. You know who a REALLY GOOD Panthers comp for BY is? Chris Weinke. Check it out: Were we too quick jumping ship on Weinke? I sure don't think so. Man, those stat lines look awfully similar and scary to me.

Hold up a sec there. The Red Rifle threw for 361 yards in that game. That's more than just a respectful day, that's a great freaking day. A whole season at that rate is over 6000 yards. A whole season at HALF that rate is 3000 yards, and our starter isn't even going to get to that mark. Dalton's season long pass this year is 47 yards. BY's is 48. Dalton's Air Yards per Attempt is 6.91, while Young's is 5.0. This team would have won 6 or so games with Dalton. It's fine that we didn't do that. We had a rookie QB we needed to learn about. We've now learned. But let's not pretend the offense would not have been significantly better with Dalton running it. Bryce will get a chance next year, but he's going to need to show improvement. My concern is how will he do that? It sucks, but it seems clearer all the time that we got dazzled by a test score instead of watching the actual full game tape on Bryce.

Fitterer is safe. If you wanted him gone, there was no reason to keep him around until now. In fact, there would have been benefit in getting rid of him earlier in the season to allow the new GM to get his staff in place to start the offseason evals. I hate that I feel that way, but I do.

Patrick Mahomes has OTHERWORLDLY arm talent, he can get away with things that BY will never be able to. And if you think that's what PM does as a course, then all you're doing is watching highlights. Watch all his snaps. He typically plays with good base and in rhythm until the structure of the play isn't working. People tend to forget how good that offense was even before Mahomes. In 2017, Alex Smith (yes, that Alex Smith) threw for 4000 yards and 26 TD's. They went to the playoffs three straight years with him at QB. He was 31 - 15 those three years. That offense was already great, and then Mahomes made it otherworldly. So, the actual statistics are all over the forums now. His pressure rate and pocket time are middle of the pack. He's not experiencing anything more or less than an average NFL QB experiences. That's the job of an NFL QB. Stand in the pocket, take the hits and make the plays. It's not about what I would do, I'm not an NFL QB. It's not about what last Sunday was, it's about what the year has been. The year has been a bad one for the team, but Bryce Young has not been exposed to anything that other NFL QB's this year haven't also experienced. You can find the threads on the forum if you care to see the actual data, but since you brought up Mahomes, he's a great example. His pressure rate is 22.7%. Bryce Young, 22.6%. Yes, I see that vet versus rookie argument coming a mile away. Will Levis pressure rate was 27.3%. I still want Bryce to succeed. It makes my team better, faster. I have serious doubts that he will, and I strongly believe that anyone who thinks otherwise is wearing blinders. I can root for the guy but still keep my eyes open to the reality of the situation.

Oh, I'm not saying I think it will happen, only that it's what he NEEDS. It's very strange that his footwork has degraded like it has. If you go back and watch in 2021, he was still super toesy (clearly his height has always been an issue) but his footwork was much quicker and more confident. He was actually getting back quickly and keeping the best base possible given his height. Watch the Florida 2021 tape for example. I'm not saying his footwork has ever been great, but it's definitely much worse now than at any point in the past.

Multiple outlets have reported that the Carolina job is considered the least desirable. No surprise. We talk about top candidates like we have a prayer. We're going to get the coach who has no other options remaining. It wouldn't surprise me if all our candidates take other jobs after the first round of interviews and we have to start over.

I would argue that experience is not BY's problem at this point. He's had all the necessary experience of a rookie season. One more game isn't going to flip a switch. What he needs is an offseason with a QB coach who will be on his (*@ about fixing his mechanical issues.

I may need to make it my crusade, but this narrative that we haven't given Bryce enough time to do his thing has gotta stop. Once again, here are the actual pressure rates and pocket times: Teams who give up a pressure rate within 2.5% of our Oline are teams like: San Francisco, Houston, Detroit, Cleveland and Kansas City. How are Purdy, Stroud, Goff, Flacco and Mahomes doing? Yea, they seem fine. 23 out of 32 teams show pocket time with one tenth of a second of what we have. That's more than two thirds of the league! This isn't the issue. Our Oline isn't perfect, I won't make excuses for them. But BY has not helped them AT ALL. NFL pass games are HEAVILY based around timing, which is tied to footwork. His footwork and therefore timing have been atrocious all year. Many quality NFL QB's get the job done with pressure rates and pocket times like what we provide. Including rookies like Stroud and Levis. No more excuses. Bryce must get way better.

If I was Thomas Brown, I would definitely want Dalton to start the last game. I think it's important for his ongoing career to show that "It's not me".

Here's what Spotrac says about our upcoming free agents: I would take Burns, Brown and Luvu at those deals right now. We just don't have the cap to do it.

In complete fairness, if I were Tepper I'd have paid a lot of money to have Hurney picking our first rounders the last three years.

Yea, exactly. If Penix is there we should take Penix. The guy would be the top pick in the draft if people weren't wringing their hands about his injury history.

No. We don't. Say we choose Penix. We now have two QB's. SO WHAT! If both succeed, we can still trade one and get a first plus more. But chances are one of them fails. Odds are it's Bryce. It's all baloney anyway. Penix isn't going to fall to 33. He's the best QB in the draft, the only way he gets out of the top 5 is if people get scared of his injuries. Bearing in mind he's played two complete seasons in a row now, with none.

I'd love Penix, and if by some miracle he's there at 33 you don't walk to the podium with the card, you RUN.

Ugh. I think you're right. I know it's been said before, but can we just hire Hurney as a first round specialist?

My dude. You keep throwing this 50 sack number out like it's all on our line and the truth is it's not. Let me throw some numbers at you. Bear in mind these are team stats, not player stats, which is important since many teams have used multiple QB's this year. First, pressure rate. Our pressure rate is similar to that of the Browns, Lions and Chiefs . . . three playoff teams. The Bengals and the Texans also had similar pressure rates - two pretty good teams. Will Levis with the Titans has done pretty well (compared to Bryce) with more pressure. Despite having the lowest pressure rate in the league, how has Taysom / Jameis / Carr looked in New Orleans? Now, look at pocket time. The time from snap until either the ball is out or pressure arrives. Interesting that the two teams with the highest pocket times also have higher pressure rates than we do. BY's pocket time is within a tenth of a second of the vast majority of the league. Also interesting that Stroud shows the exact same pocket time as Bryce. Things that make you go hmmmmmm. A great deal of our problems this year has been our QB's inability to make fast decisions. Our OL certainly must shoulder it's share of the blame, but it's not the only problem. Likely it's not even the main problem. Just looking at it statistically, Stroud has been given largely the same sort of protection that Young has been given. Yet Stroud manages to make those fast decisions and get the ball out either to a receiver or out of play. Our team is bad. Our scheme is bad. Both can be true. Just like we can have a bad QB and a bad OL.

Troll skill rating: 2/10

Colts have played basically the entire season with their backup QB. Man I sure am glad we didn't hire that Steichen guy.

This is a media narrative that needs to be killed off. Purdy doesn't get significantly more YAC than any of the top 10 QB's. Here's a quick table: Purdy gets 32 fewer yards per game from YAC than Mahomes does . . . and no one is remotely saying Mahomes benefits overly from YAC. Purdy gets 18 yards per game more than the LEAST YAC - closer to the bottom than the top! The other thing that then pops off the page is that Purdy has thrown far fewer passes per game than the rest of this crew. So with fewer attempts and YAC differences largely irrelevant Purdy has put up top 10 yardage numbers. The only remaining answer is that Purdy throws it farther downfield than these other guys. Yep, Air Yards per completion checks out. The only guy who throws it farther is Stroud. The truth is that Purdy is a top QB this year. Maybe it doesn't last. Maybe the situation in SF changes. Anything can happen. But credit where credit is due. The guy has played exceptional football this year as a whole. Bonus round, because we're the cursed fan base of the Carolina Panthers: If Stroud had played 16 games this year, his line would be - 4393 yards on 342 completions out of 541 attempts. Yes, CJ Stroud would be the second leading yardage QB in the league.

This is not Mingo's problem. At all. His stats are very comparable with most rookie WR's taken in the first three rounds with one exception: Catch Percentage. His is 50%. He has the same problem another of our round 2 flops had: Devin Funchess. I know nobody wants to hear it, but there it is. He's a big receiver who plays small. He needs to spend time learning to body people up and use his hands. You can't teach 6'2", 220lbs. Hopefully someone can teach him to catch 70% of his targets and impose himself on DB's.

Stop. Thinking. Like. This. What he gets for sacks is irrelevant. Completely. He is there to take up two blockers on every play and allow our LB's to actually play the game. He needs to push the pocket so the QB cannot step up. If he does these things he's worth top DT money.

Jeremy Chinn is still employed? Who knew!

DJ Moore - having his best year as a pro. Christian McCaffrey - having his best year as a pro. It's us. No doubt. I hate to think we'd be better off with Hurney as our GM . . . but I think we might be.

It's deserved. He's done an awful job of steering this franchise since he took over, and now he is seemingly pissed that his poor leadership has created the worst team in the league.