BrianS

As a team last year, our pass rush win rate was pretty good at 12th overall. Where we struggled was with run stop win rate, where we were 28th. Yikes! We have GOT to learn how to stop the run. Offensively, also probably what you would expect. We were 23rd in pass block win rate, but 7th in run block win rate. Looking at that run block win rate, it occurs to me that Mike Davis may not have been as good as we thought. We were actually setting him up pretty well. If we can figure out how to pass block, we're going to be dangerous.

Exactly. While I don't know the woman at all, I can speculate and remember other situations where athletes were taken advantage of in similar ways. Again, I don't know her, however it is possible her entire motive here was to get him so drunk he had no idea what was going on, provoke him into retaliating and taking him to the cleaners. It would certainly not be the first example of behavior along those lines. He may well remember exactly what happened but is keeping it close to the vest at the advice of his attorney. We don't know. What appears to be true is that he handled himself well in a tough situation. Whether he figures the NFL out or not, that is a good trait to take into life.

All I see here is (apparently) a professional athlete exercising commendable restraint in difficult circumstances.

There are rivers of regret to be cried over with regards to the way Cam was handled here in Carolina. No doubt. We likely ruined the most talented QB of the past 10 years through both our handling of him and our coaching of him. All that said, if anyone is buying the story that his shoulder was "fully healed" for last season, I invite you to go put on some 2015 tape, beside some 2020 tape and tell me his shoulder is now "healed". He may feel healed, and I hope that at least he doesn't hurt every day. It doesn't change the facts however. He's a shadow of the player who once was.

Too simplistic a take. Luke enabled us to reach a SB. You cannot look at "just" his stats - and those are impressive enough. You also have to look at how many times Luke put the players around him in position to win. It was all the freaking time. You cannot compare Luke to other MLB's. He's just different sauce altogether. This isn't to say Horn wasn't the correct pick. Our need at CB was immense. I suspect Horn will make a greater impact for us than a Micah Parsons would have. Parsons is a great talent, and he'll make a ton of plays. I just think that when you look at our needs and the relative talent you're taking and the positions . . . Horn was probably the better pick.

For a player, winning isn't everything. Archie Manning never had a winning season, yet he was widely considered one of the greatest QB's of his generation. Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl, but is there anyone you'd want on your team more in that era? Barry Sanders, never won anything of note, but the dude was just ELECTRIC with the ball in his hands. Calvin Johnson, likewise. The list goes on. When you speak of a franchise as a whole, becoming a winning team is important. But when you're talking about players, greatness is separate. CMC is a great player, regardless of our success as a franchise.

We don't need YGM to be great. We need him to be Mike Rucker. That's more than enough to call him a success.

Honestly, I don't look at the Panthers as currently having anyone in the HoF. I know, Green, White and Polian spent time with the Panthers, but they aren't really "our" HoFers. We just had short term rentals. I think Smith and Peppers will be the first HoFers we can really claim as "ours".

Darnold may well fail, but there isn't a universe where PJ Walker is a better QB. Rest assured, if PJ starts more than half our games next year, that's a sure sign we are "Sucking for Sam".

Even having a NT who demands a double team every down is a straight up win for your defense. If you double Brown, are you saying you're going to single block Burns? That seems . . . suicidal. You're single blocking Reddick? What happens if we blitz just one guy? If Brown plays up to his potential, he's going to unlock our line to maximize every other player on it. I know there was a section of the fanbase that didn't like taking Brown where we did, but he really could be all that. I'm hoping we see it this year.

We ran plenty of go routes last year, we just didn't have a QB who could throw them. Defenses realized this after a few games and just stopped covering it. In some cases literally.

Obviously, as a team you want to be above average, but what this does say is that our drafts haven't been the dumpster fire we sometimes make them out to be. Our drafts have been perfectly average. I'd be curious to see the year by year breakdown. I suspect last years draft may have covered up some below average performances prior.

Toward what? Sure if your division is trash you've got an easy road to the playoffs. I said that was definitely the case. What I don't buy is that being in a trash division makes you successful. The successful teams aren't successful because they beat the dregs. They are successful because they beat whoever is on their schedule every year. Remember, teams that win their division play 25% of their schedule against other teams that won their division last year.

Anyone crapping on DJ hasn't been paying attention the last two years as he has continued to get better despite the downward trajectory of the QB position. Dude is a baller.

Then how do you explain the Ravens and Steelers - teams in the same division mind you - who have 15 winning seasons each out of the last 20? Yes, the Bengals and Browns have been bad. But that's only 25% of the schedule for the Ravens and Steelers. The strength of your division isn't really all that crucial to winning seasons overall. Two thirds of your schedule is outside your division. I do agree that playing in a weak division does make it easier to get to the playoffs. But that's not the case with the Packers. The Packers division has had two teams reach the playoffs 11 of the last 20 years. Successful organizations succeed regardless of the teams around them.

Our record over the last 20 years ranks us 18th out of 32 teams. Given only 6 winning seasons in those 20 years, that doesn't scream successful to me. By way of comparison, the Steelers have had 16 winning seasons out of the last 20. The Ravens have had 15. The Packers have 15. The Seahawks have 15. These are the sorts of things that represent the accomplishments of a SUCCESSFUL franchise. This is what I, as a Panthers fan, hope that my team aspires to be. Losing seasons are an anomaly. Something that we look at and go "Oh, that was kinda crap. We need to be better next year". And then we are.

Forget WR's . . . even RB's are gonna take note of him coming downhill from deep to fit the run. That dude could be our next Kuechly if he gets his mentals right, just playing deeper. I've always thought that safety was the ideal spot for your defensive QB, since you can see everything in front of you.

He doesn't fit the profile of the players we've brought in since Matt Rhule has been our coach. Gilmore is a very Rivera signing.

So . . . do the refs in (American) football immediately blow the whistle during a play when someone gets hurt? No. They allow play to continue until the ball is down, out of play, etc. They finish the play. It could be five to ten seconds. How is this any different? The guy got help pretty much immediately, all things considered. Using something of this nature as an "example" of why a given sport is bad is uneducated at best and idiotic at worst. I'm glad Erikson got the help he needed and that the outcome was positive. That is all.

I am cautiously optimistic for our offense this year. It all rides on Darnold. We have weapons all over the field, we just need to put the ball in their hands and let them do their thing.

I'm shocked that we as Panthers fans haven't yet realized that our head coach is NOT an open book any longer. Rhule is far, far better at coach speak than any of our prior HC's. He will absolutely tell you with a straight face how excited he is about _______________ only to cut / trade him two days later. He'll reveal literally nothing of consequence. Thank goodness. We've need a guy who can actually play the coach game for a long time. We simply need to learn that he's doing it, so we can believe only what we see.

In favor of the Peyton Manning retirement party.

We were 18th in POINTS surrendered.

I disagree. Bradberry shut down Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Michael Thomas, etc more than often enough to earn the tag "shut down". Gamble certainly had the best PANTHERS career (as a whole career) of any CB who has ever played here. Some folks might want to argue for Eric Davis, and he's another good shout but I think Gamble's body of work with the Panthers was better. All that said, Josh Norman's 2015 dwarfed any season Gamble ever played. In that year, anyone who tries to argue that JNo was anything less than a shutdown corner has an agenda. He was amazing. Not every corner can be Deion Sanders, Champ Bailey or Richard Sherman with many years of outstanding play. That doesn't mean that in a given time and space they cannot be a shut down corner. JNo certainly was for a brief period. I believe James Bradberry did it for a year or two as well.

I definitely began last season as a Snow doubter. He did more than enough to earn my support. Our defense went from 31st to 18th in an offseason where he began not having met any of his players, COVID hits and he doesn't get to have a real offseason with them. Our HoF MLB retires leaving the defense without it's QB. Our shutdown corner leaves via FA. Basically, our best two players from the 31st ranked defense walked out the door. And we still improved to 18th? Not only that, we were in 8 games decided by one score, in which our offense had the ball at the end with a chance to tie or win. Yes, the offense completely failed to produce, but that isn't on Snow. Snow worked miracles with that defense. The bottom line is that he doesn't look at things in the same way as most "old school" NFL coordinators. Frankly, that's a good thing. NFL offenses today look a LOT more like college offenses if we're being honest. Maybe an exceptional college DC is what is really needed.