BrianS

A lot of people tend to forget when talking about Kaep that he OPTED OUT of the last year of his contract. Not like, club declined it, but he opted out. "Nah, I'm good". That part always told me everything I needed to know about him. For The Golden Calf of Bristol, doesn't it really say everything when your old college coach won't even give you a roster spot? The NFL is one place where ability will almost always trump any other consideration. If you are good enough you will have a place to play. VONTAZE BURFICT stayed in the league. MICHAEL VICK got a second chance. What does Shannon Sharpe always say? "If you play good, they pay good"

PJ had one pass further than 10 yards in the air. It was intercepted. Staff tried to push the narrative that it was because the game dictated. I don't think I buy that. At the very least, you take some shots instead of showing your next opponents that you can't. Sure maybe they're all sideline shots so they are either incomplete or out of bounds. But you don't keep it all inside 10 yards unless something is very wrong.

Said it in another thread, I'll say it here. You have to ask yourself two questions: Is there anything PJ can do that Cam cannot? . . . . Is there anything PJ does better than Cam? If you answer no to both those questions you start Cam and don't look back.

We're screwed. Got it.

I think it's a little soon. Cam has brought us energy, yes. We needed it, 100%. Our defense is playoff ready, NOW. But I need to see us able to drive the ball 65+ yards and score TD's consistently before I'll be convinced we are a contender.

There was an interesting shot toward the end of the game yesterday with Cam on the sidelines hugging teammates while the clock was running down. You hear how big he is all the time, right? But he's hugging teammates and he hugs this guy who is a good 4-5 inches shorter than he was and you're thinking, that's a big man right there. Then you realize the guy he just hugged was Shaq Thompson. Now I've met Shaq. Shaq is not a small man. He's a big dude. But damn. Cam? Whew.

It changes a lot. When you say 11 rushes for 79 yards you're thinking to yourself "Oh, he gashed the! 7 yards per rush!" That's not the case at all. Minus that run, he was under 3 yards per carry. Cam is not as fast as he was. He still has power, which is great. But do you really want your only decent QB running power? I don't. I'd love to see 4 or 5 runs per game from Cam - especially read options. Enough to establish that he CAN run, but not enough to see him take hits consistently. Enough to make the defense prepare. We need to be very careful about protecting a guy who can still be "the franchise". He's been hurt before. I'd rather not see that again.

To be fair, 50 of his rushing yards were on one play. However, one thing you will notice if you watch that game is that Cam displayed a very deft touch on the ball that he NEVER showed while he was here. He tossed a really nice lofted ball for a TD that MVPCam would have tried to simply rifle in. His check downs were no longer too hot to handle. I'm hopeful.

Well, in fact, they haven't. That 18 million can't be paid until next year. We've committed to pay it, which is in fact exactly what I said. But our cost for QB's in the 2020 and 2021 seasons is NOT 60 million, which is what King said. Our cost for the three seasons starting 2020 until 2022 will be 60 million plus whatever we pay for our starter next year. The way King is stating it is the equivalent to saying that we've paid $350 million for our team this year. That's not even remotely true. Yes, we've committed to spend 169 million next year. But you can't add that to our number for this year. It's dumb, and wrong. Committed spending for next year doesn't count this year, and the only way you can come to that $60 million King wants to troll out there is by adding committed spending from next year.

CMC was excellent, but to me this was even more encouraging: He only played 60% of the snaps. That's a MUCH more sustainable level. If we can maintain that, I look forward to watching him make defenders look silly for years to come.

Also, you've got a guy with a TREMENDOUS amount of coaching experience on the defensive side of the ball as well. Phil Snow started coaching defense at the high school level in 1976. He was Boise State's DC in 1983. Think about that for a minute. Bottom line is that Snow has seen so much, that his evaluations probably mean more. We already know Rhule trusts Snow implicitly. Joe Brady? I dunno, he may be bright and a good play designer, but he just doesn't have the experience. That's all I can come up with.

I dunno man, it looked more like the Bucs beat the Bucs and the WTF's just happened to be on the field while it happened. I don't think it will be "easy", but our defense is on a different level.

You're over-thinking the Rivera angle. The questions you should be asking are these: "Is there anything PJ Walker can do that Cam cannot?" and "Is there anything PJ Walker does better than Cam?" If you answer "No" to both those questions, Cam starts. Period. IF we start Cam, it should have nothing to do with Ron Rivera being on the other sideline. Lest we forget, most of what Ron knows about Cam is based on Mike Shula's "offense". This is a Joe Brady offense. It is up to Joe Brady to call a game that works to break those trends that Rivera may or may not know or expect.

If by "sucks" you mean he was our highest graded pass blocker, you're right.

To be fair, that holding call was horsecrap. I don't think Daley played all that well, but that holding was just terrible. Letting the bad call push you to false start on the next play however is not being mentally tough.

We can't. Simple as that. Yes, we're going to have some cap room this offseason, but we need it elsewhere. DJ is gonna get 15 easily. Donte will probably get 10. Reddick will get 10-15. Gilmore will get get 10-15. Best guess at our cap space right now is around 40 million. We already can't afford all those guys, and we need to spend on our OLine. They were "better" this week, but we have to invest there going forward. AND we still don't have a starting QB on our 2022 roster.

I'm not sure how you look at our QB room and come to any conclusion other than "Cam Newton is the best QB currently on our roster". That's all you really need to know. You brought in a guy who was better than what you had.

Pass blocking was way better for Jordan.

They are baked because we haven't spent 60 million yet. We've spent 42 million. We are committed to spend 18 next year. He's trying to say we've spent 60 million over two years. We haven't. We've spent or committed to spend 60 million over three years. We're going to spend more yet since our starter for next year is not going to be Darnold. I just don't like when people say things that aren't true to generate buzz.

BC got some 4th quarter snaps at LT.

The NFL rules say: "In the event of an injury to a team captain requiring them to miss one or more games during the season, a replacement may be named." This would be the "in" for Cam. With both Paradis and Darnold injured, they could choose to name Newton a captain. The interesting question is whether his prior years would count toward his gold patch.

We can't afford to tag Reddick. We have other people we need to sign. I would love for us to sign him, but the question is does he want to stay. He'll have to take less than market value. Our biggest outlay this offseason is going to be QB. Could be Newton or Watson or someone we haven't even thought of.

King had a lot to say, but he baked those numbers to be pretty misleading. Between TB5 and Darnold, our 2020 and 2021 outlay at QB is actually 42 million, or 21 per season. If he wanted to make a point, he should have said we've already committed 18 million next year to a guy who won't start (Darnold). King isn't much of a Cam fan. That's fine. It's a legit perspective. Cam hasn't had a fully healthy season since 2015. He's not ever going to be 2015 again. He hasn't looked good in a long, long time. That doesn't in any way invalidate the fact that Cam is likely the best QB on our team right now. It doesn't mean he can't be a successful starter. If we can just coach him without being afraid of him, I think it's possible Cam can give us a few years as a good starter, but an even better motivator and leader. It all depends on his health.

Dear Panthers - Do not rush this man back. I want him right for the next four years, instead of four games at the end of this season. He looks like the real deal, and we could definitely use some of that.

Could be a number of things, but if you're expecting 2015 Cam back you're going to be sad. In looking at Cam's tape from last year, he can still get you the 40-50 yard ball if he can set and throw. But he can't make the 60 yard falling backwards pinpoint bomb. This is a different Cam physically. We need to care for him. We need to use him to his strengths and not overuse him.