BrianS

For Tepper, it's never been about the money. The money is absolutely irrelevant.

Davis Mills put up respectable numbers for a 3rd round rookie on an awful team.

It's not "controversial" so much as it is just plain stupid. He's simply doubling down on the same stupid things he's been saying all season long regarding his evaluations of players.

The Texans accomplished more in their season than we did in ours and it wasn't even remotely close. Deshaun fiasco? Tyrod Taylor goes down in week 2? Starting a 3rd round rookie QB all year? That team never gave up. And neither did their fans. The team was generally really competitive at home, which is a tribute to the support they got.

Dear OP: lol "Trade CMC" - Trade value has never been lower on him. "Josh McDaniels is top of the HC list" - What? There are few head coaches who can be said to be less connected than Rhule. McDaniels is one of them. He is clueless.

Potential doesn't make him a big / splash signing at the time of signing. I agree, in terms of what each has brought to the Panthers in their careers here thus far, Olsen was BY FAR the bigger signing. Few Panthers have matched Greg's level of excellence here. Maybe Gilmore sticks around, maybe not. Maybe he has a few more All Pro years. Probably not. Who can say what the future holds.

Anyone who suggests moving Christiansen to guard loses credibility pretty quickly. The guy had questions about his functional strength coming out. That's the last trait you want in a guard. Christiansen is a tackle. It remains to be seen if he's a good tackle. Limited exposure seems to indicate he may be at least average, which is a damn sight better than we've had since Gross retired an Oher had his brain knocked out. You are also trying to fix it all in one offseason, which is unlikely. It forces you to take stupid risks. If you have a competent staff, your steps are: 1. Evaluate the draft class. If you think there is a franchise QB in the draft, you draft him. FULL STOP. If you don't see a QB, you look to trade back if possible. I think that's going to be unbelievably hard. But no matter what happens with trading back, you draft an IOL in the first round. Whoever is high on your board. 2. In the fourth, you draft another IOL if one is available with an appropriate grade. You gotta come out of the draft with two IOL. Period. 3. In free agency you're gonna have money to sign one of: Reddick ($14 mil valuation) or Gilmore ($13 mil) 4. Consider signing DJax if A) You do NOT sign Gilmore and B) he accepts something reasonable (around $5 mil) Otherwise, roll with what you have at CB. 5. Try to sign Laken Tomlinson around $8 - $9 per season. 6. If you don't draft a QB, sign someone like Mariota or Brissett and don't expect him to be the answer. He's just there so you don't have to start Sam Darnold. Or PJ Walker. God. That's it. That's all you can realistically expect in one offseason.

Dear Mr Tepper - This is what an NFL OWNER looks like. Perhaps you're too busy being an NFL investor to see the difference. Irsay may be a little cray cray, but he clearly cares about his team and gives them everything he can to help them win. They've had four losing seasons since 2000. I could stand a little of that in BoA.

Can we PLEASE just fire Rhule and immediately hire Flores. We'd probably win 10 games next year.

I agree Olsen was excellent. However, at the time we made each respective trade, Gilmore was by far the bigger signing. Olsen wasn't anything special in Chicago. Yes, he was good. More importantly, he was young with potential to be better. Gilmore on the other hand has a history of excellence before he ever set foot in BoA. Olsen will go in the ring and rightfully so. But Gilmore was the bigger signing.

I hate the term "program". It just doesn't mean anything. That's a college thing. In the NFL, what you want and need is a system. Look at the Patriots. They have a system. Both for players and coaches. Plug in a guy and the system keeps working. Steelers. Same thing. Just keep plugging in guys. Chiefs. They have a system. In all those examples, you have a strong HC who makes it all tick. You don't need years to develop a system. Either you have one or you don't. Sure, you may need years to develop consistency. It may take time to become seen around the league as successful. That's culture. But it comes after winning. After you have a system that people can see is working. RESULTS.

Defensive: Offensive: Any questions gang?

I'm genuinely curious here, not sure anyone knows . . . has an NFL ref *ever* been fired? Honest question.

I applaud the OP for playing devils advocate. I'm sure Tepper has reasons we don't see. The problem is his reasoning is flawed, and none of them outweigh the negatives. I honestly think he's been weighted down by his experiences with the Steelers. The fact of the matter is that the Steelers have been RIDICULOUSLY lucky in choosing their coaches over the last 40 years. Now Tepper is trying to emulate that "stick with your guy" philosophy. Unfortunately, Rhule is not Mike Tomlin. He is not Bill Cowher. He's certainly not Chuck Noll. As candidates, Noll and Cowher both played in the league. Meaning they had been around NFL coaching to see what it looked like first hand. All three of them had 8+ years of NFL coaching experience prior to taking over in Steel City. Once those guys took over, they won. Like, just WON. The Steelers haven't had a losing season since 2003. Our organization isn't comparable, nor is the situation. Instead of looking at the surface and saying that the Steelers stand by their coach, look deeper. The truth is that UNTIL they found Chuck Noll, the Steelers coaching history looks like any other NFL team. The Steelers didn't stick by Noll through thick and thin. Nor did they do it with any other coach. With Noll, he had a CLEAR, UPWARDS trajectory. 1-13, 5-9, 6-8, 11-3. They stuck by Noll because he won. They were somewhat tolerant at the end of his career because he had history of UNPRECEDENTED success there. Tepper is putting the cart before the horse. You become an organization that sticks by it's coach because you identify and hire a winner.

Third quarters are all about coaching. Halftime is your best opportunity to make adjustments that will improve your outcome. Halftime in your best opportunity to motivate players who may not be getting the job done. Our staff is the worst in the league at it, by a wide margin. For a team who has received a directive to become more analytics based, it sure seems like we have a blind spot to watching our own coaching performances.

Yes, that's a very, very valid concern. Working under the assumption Rhule is here next year, at the bare minimum he needs to be stripped of roster control. The GM reports to the owner, and only the owner. The owner needs to let the GM know that he is being judged based on a completely different set of criteria than Rhule. Fitts: "There's me doing my job, you doing yours. Your job is to coach the team I give you." If Rhule really truly believes "1000%" that it's working, then next year will be the year, regardless of what assets we spend or don't spend on the roster. Is he building a culture? Great. It should be in place now. Show us.

This is not unusual. You know the previous punter that Rhule brought in? Charlton? Yea, he never place kicked either . . . even in high school. Just a punter. If you've never kicked before, I really understand. It's the same thing right? Man, it could not be more different. Like, Deonte Brown under center different. Finally, a backup plan? Really? Neither of these kickers was even on our roster in week 1. Blackburn had his hands full getting two bottom of the barrel specialists to perform at an acceptable NFL level. WHICH HE DID. Where was the time to get either ready to do the other job? They were NOT GOOD when they arrived here, otherwise they would have been on a roster. This just reeks of "same old Rhule" looking for anyone to blame other than himself. He needs a "win" to make himself look good. That's all this was.

Can't help but notice no mention of Rhule. This is the guy who took Zane Gonzalez, who prior to joining the Panthers had a career field goal percentage of 78% . . . JOEY SLYE numbers . . . and turned him into a guy who made 90% of his kicks for us. He took a guy who had a career touchback percentage of 56% and helped him increase it to 63% without the benefit of an offseason to work on strength. But Blackburn was part of the problem. Ok.

Brady spent most of the day making sure Gronk got his bonus, which should have been falling on our LB's / Safeties for coverage. Jury still out on Henderson for me. Didn't hate the trade, but I'd like to see more consistency before I can get on board with saying it was a win for us.

Bear in mind with Christiansen that an unfortunately large percentage of his grades are based on games he was playing grossly out of position on the interior. I'd be curious to see his "tackle" grade if that were available.

Trouble is, it's not the greatest QB year. What's worse is that one of the top QB's in the draft has ties to Rhule already. What's even worse? I've watched Pickett and tried to hate him . . . but dammit he's actually a pretty good prospect.

How do you feel about Adam Gase as a coach? Just curious. Because in order for Matt Rhule to equal Gase's accomplishments in Miami, Rhule will need to go 15-2 next year. If our bar for success is that our coach is the equal to Adam Gase, we need to seriously raise our standards.

That's our coach.

Half a season. Before he was lost Luck was on course for his worst season as a pro. Luck was a far, far better player in 16 and 18 after Hamilton was elsewhere.