Peon Awesome

I both did a bad job of explaining what I was trying to say and also being disingenuous. Truthfully I would love the Panthers to make the playoffs no matter how and no matter what ultimately happens in the playoffs. But I was trying to say, I'd like to see the Panthers make the playoffs because they put it all together, play great football and dominate the Bucs in a sweep, rather than get gifted the division because the Bucs completely implode and lose all their games. Cause in that situation, we just look like the beneficiary of a historically bad division and the outlook isn't quite as bright. But the last thing I want is the Panthers to just lose out and get a better draft pick.

It doesn't really matter what the Bucs do anyway. There'd be only fleeting satisfaction if we stumble into a playoff spot from a terrible division only to get blown out by the 5 seed. If we can't handle the Saints and sweep the Bucs to stake our claim to the division title and prove we've officially arrived, we might as well roll out the red carpet for the Bucs and look ahead to 2026.

You could do a heck of a lot worse than having a team full of Chuba Hubbards. Great work ethic, consummate teammate. It's an enviable problem to have 2 great running backs that can shoulder the load.

Yeah Bryce is not making the pro bowl with Dak, Stafford, Darnold, Goff, Jordan Love, Hurts. Safe to say, his 5th year option will be about $26-27 million, which is basically half of what 2021's class got annually on their extensions 2 years ago (Tua, Lawrence, Herbert).

As far as I'm concerned, they both have comfortably lived up to those contracts so far.

Alaric Jackson and Ronnie Stanley got extensions recently at relative bargains, which should help in negotiations. Between that, the 5th year being a relative bargain plus the option to tag puts us in reasonable negotiating position. With cap rises, it will still require roughly top 10 money, but I don't see him coming close to resetting the tackle market.

Not sure if intentional, but you left out Legette. I realize he's underwhelmed more often than not, but I'm still holding out hope he puts it together with some more consistency.

Online culture skews overwhelmingly negative. People use the internet to offload their anger and disappointment because people don't want to hear that crap in real life. That being said, there are some people on here who are more frustrated than happy when the Panthers win, especially if Bryce has a good game. They would prefer Bryce play awful, we lose out and draft or sign a new QB, than Bryce leads us with good play to a division title and we pick up his 5th year extension. Why? They will say it's because they KNOW Bryce is incapable of being a good QB and say it's better long term for the Panthers to move on sooner than later. But the reality is that they've staked their ego so strongly to that opinion that they can't stomach being wrong. And if that is more important to you than the Panthers success, you're probably not a real fan. But I think there's only a few people like that. I do think most Bryce "haters" would happily eat crow and go buy a Bryce jersey if he starts averaging 300 yards per game

It's especially impressive given his small frame. No one expected his body to hold up coming into the NFL and even after getting hit at an above average rate, he's barely missed any time. To not only shrug it off once again, but elevate his game and lead us on two clutch drives to win the game, you have to give massive props.

I think Canales is still learning and growing as a coach. I mean he was only an offensive coordinator for 1 year and now a head coach for 1.5 years here. He's still green but I do think he is genuinely learning from his mistakes and making adjustments. Last week, I think he got complacent at Dowdle's run game dominance and our presumed talent level advantage over the Saints and called a super vanilla game that got exploited. And once it was clear we'd have to throw to win, the Saints could switch to a heavy pass rushing scheme and make Bryce uncomfortable on each dropback. This time Canales played on the offensive and realized teams are going to sell out to stop the run and he let Bryce air it out. Overall was a great gameplan.

Did anyone think there was any chance that after week 11, the Panthers would have a better record than the Chiefs with a healthy Mahomes?

Yeah I thought it looked out on the push off, but was it really clear and obvious for the overturn? I'm not sure about that

The Atlanta Falcons came into the game as the #1 passing defense in the NFL. They held Josh Allen to 180 yards with 2 interceptions and an 18 QBR.

Sure if you just blindly look at stats, you can pinpoint a couple areas that look similar. But come on man that's lazy analysis. Instead of throwing lower percentage throws, Dalton held onto the ball unconscionably long, leading to several of those sacks including that unthinkable one at the end of the first half, inflating his completion percentage. Bryce for all his flaws, does a pretty good job of escaping pressure and scrambling for 5 yards or throwing it away. Dalton's pocket presence was just so incredibly bad today, which led to both of his lost fumbles. If Bryce would just hold onto the ball and get sacked every 3rd play instead of throw it away or try a contested pass, his completion percentage would be 15 points higher than Dalton's today. And Bryce only had more yardage in 3 of 7 games? You mean when we played run heavy schemes in our wins, instead of Dalton being forced to throw all game cause we're getting blown out? Look anyone is more than justified in arguing Bryce Young doesn't have the tools to lead this team to a super bowl. But he has been head and shoulders better this year than what Dalton showed today. That was just an abysmal perfomance.

Yeah I think calling Mike Jackson's contract a miss isn't fair. $5 million for your starting outside corner is a bargain. You can't expect that kind of value signing to be a shutdown corner, especially when you've got Horn locking down the other side, basically forcing the opposing QB to preferentially pick on Jackson's side. I think the biggest question mark is Wharton, and admittedly he's been injured a lot so it's more of a TBD. But as solid as Bobby Brown and Ashawn Robinson have been filling in, it feels more like money that could've been better spent elsewhere.

That's a good point, but maybe a silver lining in this case of the Rams offer is that it was supposedly 1st rounders 2 and 3 years later. So hopefully we would've fired Fitterer before at least one of those

I watched a segment showing the top 10 plays in the NFL this week and Horn's first INT was number 1. That would have been a hell of a catch for a wide receiver. Out-stretched, 1 handed, running at near full speed with momentum carrying him towards the back of the end zone. An unbelievable play.

Yeah he was absolutely unstoppable against the Jets and has been a complete beast this year. Definitely should get heavy all pro consideration. I mean, just consider we went from the worst rushing defense in NFL history to a top 10 unit with him healthy.

I watched the Giants game this week and Burns was a beast. 2 more sacks, currently leading the NFL with 9 for the year. We got a 2nd and 5th round pick, which essentially became Jonathon Brooks and Chau Smith Wade. Burns is getting paid about $28 million per year, while Micah Parsons just signed for $47 million per year. Our pass rush seems to be our biggest weakness right now, although our rookies are looking good and perhaps when all is said and done, we won't miss Burns too bad. But at the very least on paper, this definitely looks like a miss for us.

Yeah the Jets are definitely better than their record suggests and the Panthers seem to play so much worse on the road than at home. I'm definitely not going into the game overconfident. Hopefully with the way our run defense has been, we can clamp down their offense and put ourselves in good position for the win. I think it'll boil down to whether we beat ourselves. < 2 turnovers = Panthers win

It was an overtime kick against their biggest competition in the division; for a regular season kick, how much bigger does it get?

I'm super happy with our kicker, but you actually have to give Pineiro credit this year. He's having a hell of a year so far. Hasn't missed a fg and made a 59 yard game winner last week to beat the Rams in overtime

I would say most of Bryce's throws were catchable at least. He had very few that were just completely off the mark. Add back a couple of those that hit McMillian in the hands and his stat line would have looked more respectable.

Great list. I was also impressed with Moehrig. Great tackling techique. Had the near sack/pressure on Penix, a tackle for loss, and got a 3rd down stop in the open field.

I think this is a bit disingenuous. Sure, they missed a 49 yard field goal to start, although I'd say that wouldn't have dramatically affected the game being up 3-0 especially since we played aggressive on the first drive regardless and marched up the field for a TD. Plus a 49 yarder isn't exactly a chip shot. The 2nd missed fg, I give 99% of the credit to the Panthers. They have a demoralizing turnover that gifts the Falcons the ball around the Panthers 30 yard line and then proceed to play unbelievably good defense to actually force negative yardage in 3 plays, setting up a much more challenging 55 yard field goal that is essentially a 50/50 prospect for all but the top few kickers in the league. That's not the Falcons bungling it; that's the Panthers asserting their dominance. The int td by Smith-Wade was an incredible break on the ball. It's not like Penix overthrew the receiver by 10 yards and it hit Smith-Wade in the chest. That was a hell of a play. The 2nd interception, it wasn't a good throw, but the receiver slipped and we were already up 20-0 at that point. So even if he just throws an incompletion, it doesn't dramatically change the game's complexion. And when you win 30-0, you think that happens when the opponent plays flawlessly? Of course you can point to Falcons mistakes. But it still takes a great performance to capitalize. To your later points about not letting Bryce air it out when the game was in hand, when would you suggest they had done that? Cause it was still a 3 score game into the early 4th quarter. You really think Canales should have assumed there was zero possibility a team can make 3 TDs in a full quarter with 3 TOs and the 2 minute warning? Yeah I think its fair to say it was over when we went up 27-0 with about 10 minutes left. But by the time we got the ball back, there was 8 minutes left in a 27-0 game. Every team in the NFL is playing safe run out the clock there. And even if Bryce gets a couple deep throws in against a demoralized Falcons defense that's not playing for anything but maybe pride at that point, you think you've learned a lot about Bryce's potential? I wouldn't.