BrianS

MC's physical tools were never in question.  It was all down to him putting it together above the shoulders, and while with us, he didn't.  Wish him nothing but the best, his situation while with us was far from ideal.

I think Canales is being over optimistic if he thinks any vet worth having is going to want to come CAROLINA to be the THIRD guy in the room.

It's revisionist history that's say Bryce Young was the "consensus" number one.  He was absolutely not.  People were split between the two.  I do think that there was a lot of media hype for Bryce, but league sources were very guarded.

That catch may be better than the OBJ catch.  Serious.

Just now, Buckets said:

i mean for the cost.... would almost rather have him than burns 

Somewhere, Billy Beane is smiling.

Hope it works, but he was unhappy with a QB who couldn't get the ball downfield . . . and we don't exactly have an Elway / Farve / Stroud arm as our starting QB.  We shall see.

The actual separation stats, no cherry picking.

18 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

I think someone posted a rumor the Chinn didn't want to play LB. If that's true I can why he didn't play much.

That seems . . . unwise of him.  He was never very good in space, but man he was great in the box.  Oh well, not our problem any more.  I liked the guy, seemed like a good kid.

Last couple years he's been a tackling machine in Denver.

It's a shame we kept trying to make him a position-less player instead of telling him his rookie year "Hey man, we need you to put on weight and play LB".  

1 hour ago, Mage said:

The truth that very few people want to accept is that the defense wasn't good last year.  It just wasn't more obvious because teams had no incentive to go all out and score against us.  We were the least-thrown against defense in the NFL, and it ain't because we have lockdown corners.

There is a reason why in the 4 games we scored 20+ points in, we gave up 37, 42, 42, and 33 points respectively.  When teams wanted to score, they did.  

Been trying to say this for months now.  Our defense was among the worst in the league last year in the one stat that actually matters:  scoring.  Know what we were dead last at?  Taking the ball away.  We had 11 all year.

Sure, we had big injuries on that side.  Yes, it was Evero's first year here.  I accept all that and am willing to watch and see how we do this year.

But bottom line, our defense was not good last year.  We are simply the victims of a narrative people want to run with that it was good.

2 hours ago, CRA said:

. . . when Evero agreed to stay . . . 

 

This is where your thinking goes off the rails.  Evero didn't have a choice.  He was under contract.  Each coach has a contract with the team.  Unless the team releases him from that contract, he can't go anywhere except to a higher job.  For Evero, that meant getting a head coaching gig.

The Panthers were the ones who made the choice to keep Evero.  Not the other way around.

This was the right move, letting him go.  9 million per year is too much to give a guy with a career 142 tackles and only one year where he was available for every game.

35 minutes ago, WhoKnows said:

I understand your thoughts about a 2025 first. I might have preferred that but I will say that you shouldn’t forget that this is a loaded draft. A late first in 2025 might actually not be as good a player as pick 39. That said, it would have been nice to have extra picks (like the Rams first) and our #1 overall.

That's true, the problem is the team tells us they think Bryce is the answer.  If they were saying he's not, then by all means, pick 39 this year looks fine.  But yea, next year looks pretty bad for QB.  So, it's BY this year, and barring a historic turnaround, a bridge next year.

18 hours ago, top dawg said:

Why would they say anything remotely positive at all if they didn't actually believe it? . . .  Context does matter; never forget that 

Well, yes, context does matter.  Of course it does.  And you may have not looked carefully enough at it, even though you posited the question right off the bat.

Why would other execs pump Bryce up?  It's simple:  If the Panthers stay bad, it's good for them.  It's competition, nothing more. 

Hopefully the Panthers org isn't listening to the outside noise.  Hopefully they don't make more excuses after this year.  BY had a rookie season on par with Zach Wilson.  Yes, that ZW.  If he turns it around this year, great, let's go.  If not, cut bait.

He does seem like a good mid-round prospect.

He looks like he's got his dad's deceptive speed.  The guy didn't really run fast on the watch, but man did he catch a lot of deep balls.

We do need a deep threat, but at the same time I question whether we have a QB who can throw those routes.

Didn't see this posted, so here you go.  Nicole Tepper, Dave Canales and Luke Kuechly guest appearances.

This is the same issue I have with a lot of players, and not just in football.  "Player X is great!  He just needs A, B & C to unlock him."

Bull(*@%.

Great players don't need other players around them to play great.  Did Peppers need someone else before he could be who he was?  No, of course not.  Even Rucker, who was that other DE for a lot of Peppers time, he had 9 sacks the year *before* Peppers arrived.  He was always REALLY GOOD.

Yes, having a lot of good players on the team makes everyone look good - probably better than they really are.  But great players just find a way.  That's what they do.

Burns has shown us he's good.  Not great.  And he's asking for great money.  That's the rub here.

This is all about leverage, nothing more.

Possibility 1:  OF COURSE if you're the Panthers you say all the right things about wanting a long term deal.  That's the only way to maintain his value if you actually want to trade him.  If you say to the league "No, we just want to trade him" his value instantly plummets.

Possibility 2:  If you really do want to sign him, but you also want it to be a more friendly deal, you non-exclusive him.  Which we did.  This allows him to go talk to other teams and find out what THEY might pay him.

No matter what happens, this is the right move.  

The topic name would be considered cruel and unusual punishment in some countries.  I was coming in ready to declare Dan Morgan the greatest GM in our history.

2 hours ago, CRA said:

they had some CB the other day telling folks he was a flat Earther and didn't think anything existed and space wasn't real.   Dude needs better people around him.  Like, listen guy, even if you believe that stuff just lie or I'll give you a line of how to not actually say anything.   Dude was going into detail about fake planets.  Teams thinking you are batpoo crazy ain't going to help you in the draft.   

You know what's worse?  These are college students.  You can't make this stuff up.

On 2/24/2024 at 5:57 PM, ForJimmy said:

I kind of like Jordan Travis. I think he could develop into a solid backup and be drafted in a late round. Rattler has arm talent but he probably goes higher than I’d like, plus you can run a similar offense with Travis and Young IMO. 

If Rattler is there in the 3rd, I would be really hard pressed not to turn in the card.  Difference in arm talent between Young and Rattler is night and day.

9 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

It's a helluva WR class. Honestly on paper it's probably the best WR class I can recall since the legendary 1996 WR draft class. Not saying this class will produce multiple HOFers like that one but it's stacked both wil elite talent at the top of the board and good depth throughout. If you need WR help at all you're really doing your team a disservice not to come out of this draft with one.

"Oh, hi Dan!  Didn't see you come in!  We were just discussing some of the roster problems the Panthers have."

The biggest problem we have is a lack of talent across the roster.  We're old and bad.  This is what happens when you draft exceptionally poorly.  Also, this is what happens when you give away too many picks.

We need to simply draft BPA for a few years - with the exception of round 1 - and see where we end up.  If we draft well, we should end up with a much deeper and more talented team.  All of this assuming we can stop convincing ourselves in the summer that we're a playoff team.

I don't see any team looking at Justin Fields body of work in the NFL and going "Yep, that's $40 million worth of QB".

I liked Fields coming out.  I'm not sure how much of his lack of production is the fault of the Bears.  What I do know is that he's not done enough to warrant a payday yet.

You don't pay the 29th most accurate passer $40 million per season.  You just don't.