BrianS

I think the fact that these grades are available SO QUICKLY after gameday should be an inkling of how much thought goes into them. There is no way someone watches every play, focused on one and only one player to accurately grade them, for every team in the league, by the next day. That's a MINIMUM of 11 winds of one play, and honestly, it should probably take at least two to three times that to understand what a given players assignment on any given play may have been. What's more, you may need to understand what the other players were supposed to do. Was the back supposed to chip there? Maybe the tight end? Little stuff like that could make a mountain of difference to how a tackle might set up to play a snap. I'd be a lot more interested in seeing Panthers staff grades for our players, but obviously that will never happen.

Nope, not at all, saw both. Which is why I pointed it out. DJ Moore is not mentioned in either one of them.

Urban Meyer is an idiot. Jags owner equally so. Match made in heaven. Hope they are there for years. Gives us a great chance to keep fleecing them.

The media aren't pushing a DJ vs Diggs narrative at all. They are saying Diggs played well. This is true. It's equally true that Moore played well. 8 catches, 113 yards and 2 TD's? Not sure what else he could have been asked to do. The two facts are not mutually exclusive. Ponder this Panthers fans. DJ Moore is currently on track to catch 120 balls for 1600 yards and 12 TD's. At that point, there will be no hiding from the fact that DJ is a #1, and a top notch #1 at that. Those stats are Stefon Diggs / Tyreek Hill / Justin Jefferson numbers. Yes please.

Clearly the staff don't believe they are ready. I said in another thread, I would like to see BC getting more than just five ST snaps. Give him a series or two. We saw him, and I understand why he isn't in there. Still, there is only so much he can grow sitting on the bench. I'm not saying he should start, but he should get a bit more opportunity. With Deonte, I would feel better if he were getting on the bench. But I do understand why he isn't. At best, he may get those ST snaps. His lack of positional flexibility is a problem when he isn't starting. And starting him doesn't seem like it's in the cards.

That's what I'm saying. We aren't a finished product, but we are an improved product.

I know he's not really ready yet, but I'd sure like to see Brady C get more than just five ST snaps. Even if we just give him a drive here and there, it would be encouraging.

Exactly. I get that we started well, and we look to be trending in the right direction. But somehow a portion of our fanbase got it in their heads that we were a finished product. This was just a little reminder that we're still not quite there. I'd like to remind everyone that we still have FOURTY SEVEN MILLION in dead cap this year. We were *never* going to compete that way. Think of it this way . . . what if we had invested 47 million in our OLine for this year. How much better would be be? It sucks that we can't just skip this year and go straight to next year, but we can't. As long as our team keeps playing hard and being competitive, that's ok. Needle pointing up.

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I keep wondering if that's the problem. Seems like our offense goes in at halftime and says "We're moving the ball well, points will come, keep doing what we're doing". Even if we're right, we're wrong. Even the defense seems to lag a bit. Someone on that staff needs to be thinking a step ahead. "Ok, we did well, what adjustments will the opponents make to slow us down? How will we react to that?" It's like we take a quarter or so to adjust when we should have been ready for it coming out.

Either we are good enough to beat tough teams or we aren't. If we aren't, we don't deserve to be in the playoffs because ALL the teams in the playoffs are tough. Getting to the playoffs against a weak early schedule is awful. If you get into the playoffs, but went 2-4 in your last six, chances are you're bounced out in the first round. Bottom line is that this team isn't a finished product yet. We are still relatively thin and have some glaring needs. I believe we can get there, but that this isn't our year.

This is a much bigger deal than we are giving it credit for. When your interior is collapsing like ours, tackles can't ride their guy past the QB. Stonewall the middle, and for sure Moton would look a lot better, and I suspect Erving would as well.

One thing I have noticed when Sam gets sacked / pressured is that it's rare he only has one guy in his face. He's often got a couple, which doesn't really leave him anywhere to go to either avoid the blitz or throw it away. I can't remember very many "bang bang" fast, blind side sacks. He usually sees the pressure coming, but because the line looks like a sieve he just can't do anything. Sam is a good athlete, probably a top 10 *athlete* at the position. Problem is he isn't a *transcendent* athlete like Cam was. We can't count on too many Houdini moments. I'm encouraged by what he's shown so far. Two years is exactly the right amount of time for us to decide if he's gonna figure it out. But man, we have got to fix that line this offseason. I really hope to see some of our rookies later in the year.

lol @ all the people thinking YGM is the answer. The guy has put almost nothing on tape since he arrived. Yea, the kid may have potential, yea, he's had some injuries. I'm not closing the book on him by any means. But he ain't the reason we got gashed. The simple fact is that up until today our defense has been getting handed nice leads in the second half. Enough that the other team is throwing a lot. Our defense doesn't have the size to stand up to a pounding like that. You've got to look at our defense similarly to the Colts defense back in the Manning years. It was a defense built to play from ahead, allowing their smaller but incredibly fast players to attack. That's what our defense is. You beat it the same way you beat the Indianapolis Mannings.

I really like our pass offense v their pass defense.

I don't disagree, but the "take" we were responding to was Burleson saying that ZEKE was getting 100+ yards and 3 TD's on our defense.

I'd be real careful with that sort of prediction. Our line is second worst in the league in yards before contact in the run game. That's not great for a back like Chuba who is looking to pick a hole, make one cut and hit it. I agree, Chuba has homerun potential. I am just not convinced our current OLine can get him the holes he needs to maximize his potential. I'd feel a lot better about our run game (in the absence of CMC) with a back like Mike Davis who can get yards after contact.

What's even more absurd is the player. Zeke has exactly two 100+ yard games in his last 19 - one of which was in a blowout over Philly last December. Sorry Nate, Zeke looks washed to me. He's good on blitz pickup, so I expect to see a lot of him this weekend. But I'm not bullish on his chances of being great in the run game. I guess that's why it's a "bold" prediction?

Athletically, Tremble is a better prospect than Gronk was. He's faster and stronger. Obviously, that doesn't make him translate to the All Pro level, it just means that athletically there is no reason he can't get there. In fact, Tremble compares very favorably in the measurable department to Travis Kelce. Again, Tremble ain't Kelce. As with pretty much every position and player in the NFL, the success of Tommy Tremble will come from things that happen off the field and between the ears.

We're actually top 10 in pocket time. Looking at it under this lens, I'm not sure pocket time is a very good measurement for an OLine. Looking at that list, there is a mix of great and crap OLines in that top 10. While our pocket time numbers look good, I'm not sure it's really telling us anything. What doesn't look good is hurries, pressures and hits. Basically, what the stats seem to be saying - to me at least - is that Sam is doing a good job of understanding his line isn't as strong as it should be. He knows, and he's getting rid of the ball quickly. We're also seeing a pretty high blitz rate, which certainly impacts pocket time, pressures, hurries, etc. I think that makes sense. You have a questionable OLine and a QB who until recently was known to make poor decisions under duress. Sam just needs to keep making good decisions and beating the blitz. I think a better set of stats to look at for OLine is rushing. For example: That is sorted by Yards before Contact, per attempt. We are second from bottom. When you flip that sort the other direction, you see something that looks a lot more like what you'd expect. Imagine what CMC would look like if he were 3 yards downfield before he was touched. Don't let a single stat fool you into thinking our OLine is "ok" / "average".

It appears that field position doesn't hold up very well as an excuse / reason for the poor performance. This season, he's punted 10 times when the line of scrimmage has been on the Carolina side of the 50. Those 10 punts average 40.6 yards. Which *still* ranks him last in the NFL in punting average. As an interesting aside, that dude we got rid of a few years back, Andy Lee? Still punting. Averaging 51.5 per kick this year.

I think it's a fair assessment for the moment. If we beat Dalls this week, I would be very disappointed if we didn't get to the edge of the top 10 next week. Yes, the Jets were bad . . but the Saints are not that bad, the Texans aren't the train wreck everyone thought and apparently the Cowgirls are still the media darlings.

For the TL;DR crowd: Dak is great, Sam is questionable, Cowboys win.

I did see the Texans game, that wasn't adversity. Adversity is starting the game with your best player in street clothes and your shutdown corner at home and (likely) out for the season. In game is being behind and showing the stones to turn it around. We've done none of that.

I'm actually baffled at either set of fans who think this game will not be close. I think we have a better team, but Dallas has a more experienced team. In close games, that can matter. And they are at home. This is likely to be the first time our team will face some adversity this year. Both in terms of injuries and in game. We'll learn a lot.

At their current rate, Burns finishes the season with 17 sacks, Reddick finishes the season with 23.5. The NFL hires a therapist for the QB's on our schedule. Except for Matt Ryan, who retires mid-game week 8.