Peon Awesome

Our receiving corps is pretty bare bones at this point but he's definitely not worth $22 million. He's either a candidate for a contract restructuring or a cap casualty. The problem is replacing his production. TMJ showing anything would really help make the decision easier. Ultimately I think maybe you add a year, cut his base salary down and turn it into a 2 year $22 million deal. That way you have a neglible effect on your cap compared to cutting him outright and we don't have to be desperate to replace him. If he refuses, then cut him.

That's fair. I just disagree on the shutdown aspect. There's a clear difference between this year and last year. No one could get open on Horn last year. He had them smothered and QBs just ignored his side because there was nowhere to throw. Meanwhile this year, his stats are certainly aided by the fact that the qb on the opposing team wasn't talented enough to take advantage of his lapses in coverage and when they did, he had a tendency to commit a penalty to stop it. If you are arguing the same thing was the case last year, I definitely didn't see that and I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree which is fine. I'm attributing the difference to rust and recovery from his injury. I don't know if you are saying he was every bit as shaky last year but the offenses were so terrible it didn't matter. If so, that's where we would definitely disagree.

I think that's oversimplifying it. He was considered someone who could take young moldable athletes and help them overachieve. As a young rebuilding team, it made sense on paper. He didn't even have to be the coach to take us to the Super Bowl, just someone to get us on the right path and build the nucleus of the future. The thing that is so disappointing is how awful he has been at coaching up players. Seems like a lot of the young guys either regressed or at least never made any meaningful strides. I understand that not everyone is going to make it even with excellent coaching but his hit rate has been dreadful.

What do you want from him? He can't change his competition. You still have NFL offenses who were scared to throw his way last year. In a league where Carson Wentz and Joe Flacco are throwing 300+ yards per week this year, you can't just say he's no good because he shutdown mediocre opposition. Especially when he did it as a rookie. I'm not sitting here anointing him as the 2nd coming of Darrell Revis; I'm willing to acknowledge that the book is still unwritten on him. That's all I'm asking the haters to do as well.

Yeah I don't think Horn merits the hate at all. He was a shutdown corner right out of the gate as a rookie. Then he gets a massive injury and plays his first meaningful football in almost a year and people are pissed because he's committed a few penalties? It's OK to be upset but use some simple context before you actually write him off. If he's doing this all year that's one thing but give him a few games to shake off the rust and get used to real life NFL speed. Hell it's not even like he's playing awful. He's basically playing like an average starting cb which is pretty good for a guy who has only played a handful of games and had a major injury.

Yikes.. I mean Burns is athletic enough to be decent in coverage but he's an elite edge rusher. Why did we invest so much in the secondary only to rely so much on our pass rushers to help out? You draft Horn in the 1st, Chinn in the 2nd, resign Donte, trade a 3rd for Henderson, but you need Burns to help them out? I've also noticed that they keep McCaffrey in the backfield to help with blocking the majority of the time. Why have the best receiving rb in the NFL and rarely use him as a receiver? Especially after putting so much effort on rebuilding the O line and hiring a new O line coach. I realize the line is still shaky, but hell put Foreman in the backfield to help block and kick McCaffrey out wide a few times if you have to. We have only a handful of stars and we're not maximizing their talents.

I hate when refs don't just own up to their mistakes. It would be so easy to say on the Burns roughing call "At our angle, it looked like he made forceable contact to the head or neck area. Of course on replay, we realized we made a mistake. Unfortunately we are human and we regret that mistake happened at such a critical juncture of the game."

Yeah and that makes sense but you could easily craft a narrative to argue the opposite. Let's say we do a run heavy scheme against Cleveland. So you have injury prone McCaffrey, who has only played in 10 games the past 2 years, and you decide to run him 20+ times in his first action in a year and a half? Let's say he dings himself up. What the hell were we thinking? We didn't learn a thing from the last 2 years? Especially when you have Baker playing his old team with a gigantic chip on his shoulder ready for the ultimate revenge game and you decide to neuter him so you can run McCaffrey ragged? What a complete idiot Rhule. Refusing to budge on his failing run heavy mindset when all the successful franchises have moved to a pass oriented offense.

Yeah but I blame Tepper for that more than Rhule. Rhule is obviously way over his head and not cut out to be an NFL head coach. It's on Tepper to acknowledge that and fire him. If he's not going to do that, Rhule trying something different, failing, trying something different, and so on until he either lucks into a winning strategy or gets fired is better than sticking to his guns on a failing strategy. Would I rather have a coach that knows what he's doing in the first place? Of course. But that's not an option until Tepper accepts it.

His press conferences are pretty consistently awful. I don't really care what he says as much as what he does. Do I think he had an epiphany since December? Not really. Do I think he made a bigger effort to hire coaching staff with actual experience who at least approach competency compared to the crap we had and maybe allow them to influence the gameplan? Hopefully

Yeah I appreciate the context. I was hoping someone would actually post the interview Overall it seems a little strange how much hate this engenders. Almost everyone agreed that we ran McCaffrey to the ground and most people thought it was stupid that Rhule wanted to utilize a run heavy offense in a league that is shifting heavily towards the pass. Now that he's correcting his ineptitude, people find that outrageous? I don't get it. I'd much rather Rhule walk back pretty much everything he said and did the last 2 years since it was pretty abysmal rather than stick to his guns for the sake of being consistent.

I didn't mind the call. We made them use their timeouts, which forced them to abandon the run that was killing us. Brissett had done nothing pretty much all game and we came an atrocious roughing the passer call and a rookie kicker knocking in a 58 yard fg from winning the game. Plus we gave up a sack/botched snap the one time we possibly tried to throw it in the red zone. Imagine we give up a sack on 3rd down and make it an even tougher kick for Pineiro whom I wouldn't trust past 40 yards. You could certainly argue for going for the end zone but I don't think that was a clearly flawed decision at all.

Here's the thing, what makes more sense? A) Baker and the team as a whole were still acclimating to so many new pieces and a new offensive scheme and needed time to adjust to a real NFL defense and then finally got in a groove to end the game Or B) Baker played how we expect him to play all year in the 1st half and through luck, sudden lapse in defense, the will of the gods or some combination of the above, he played way beyond his potential in the 4th quarter. Call me an optimist but I am going to let myself believe A until I see evidence to the contrary. Guess we'll find out against the Giants which half was the fluke.

Bill Simmons picks the Panthers to make the playoffs. His points include Baker being a big upgrade, McCaffrey is a top rb if healthy, Matt Rhule teams tend to have a big jump in year 3, we have a talented core on defense, McAdoo should be an upgrade over Brady and we have an exploitable schedule (Cleveland with Jacoby, Arizona without Hopkins). The guy on the other end of the debate is skeptical mainly cause Matt Rhule hasn't shown he is an NFL caliber coach, which is fair to say the least. Nice debate though. Hope you enjoy.

An overriding issue is that laypeople way overvalue day 3 draft picks. The truth is, once you get to the 5th round and later, the difference between a draft pick and an undrafted free agent is usually eye of the beholder. You need to have enough cheap talent to build a complete team and afford your stars, but whether that comes from your 5th rounder (Nixon) or 7th/UDFA (McCall/Hoskins), it's really irrelevant. It's stupid to hold onto a player just cause you invested late draft capital over a better performing player on an even cheaper contract.

I'm a little surprised Nixon was the odd man out but the bottom line is we signed a player at a position lacking depth to play a role that needs shoring up (run defense), while cutting a player at a position where there was already something of a logjam. Maybe it's a little early to give up on a draft pick but at the same time, if you're getting outplayed by players drafted later than you, I don't think you're entitled to a roster spot. Practice squad makes sense, where they can still see if his career can be salvaged without wasting a premier spot on the 53. You'd like to hit on your 5th rounders but the truth of the matter is they rarely get 2nd contracts.

Also incredible that we actually got picks for Daley and Little and they couldn't get a single taker for Leatherwood. Not even a 7th??

Yikes... Hard to imagine a worse 3 year stretch of 1st round picks. He has a couple fantastic selections in the later rounds with Crosby in the 4th and Renfrow in the 5th, plus some good depth with starters at G, LB, and CB using day 3 picks. But all in all, it's no surprise he got fired.

Some of you are embarrassing yourselves. Our starters playing 1 quarter against the Patriots would have no bearing on the success of our season. Hell if we trotted out our developing O line against Belichick's 1st team defense and Baker gets pummeled and ends up as the one with the season ending Lisfranc injury, there'd be no end to the posts about how much of an idiot Rhule was for risking our starters for a meaningless preseason game. It might end up working out better to play the Bill's backups as a nice warmup for the regular season, but regardless, we should be happy we're getting any time to see the starting line work together. I mean would you rather they not play at all or you just want to have another opportunity to complain? Don't worry, that was a rhetorical question.

This doesn't make sense unless the qb1 competition is truly over. They kept saying the starter would be announced after this game. How are you using this game to decide if neither Sam nor Baker are playing? And if you have already made up your mind, why not make an official announcement?

You know who else is making the exact same amount? Baker Mayfield. You know, the guy who made such a huge stink about his team trying to replace him that they ended up trading him for pennies even though a massive suspension was inevitably coming for Watson. How much better off would Cleveland be with Baker starting the first 11 games instead of Jacoby Brissett? Instead they save about $7 million and get a day 3 pick but most likely throw their 2022 season down the drain. This isn't a criticism of Baker so much as a defense of Darnold. Honestly, I've been impressed at how maturely he's handled the whole situation. You can hate him as a qb and at least acknowledge that.

The 2015 playoffs are obviously amazing outside of the super bowl but the regular season had a bunch of gems too. Nailbiter in Seattle, ending Romo and destroying the Cowboys on Thanksgiving, Norman clinching the Saints game with an interception in the end zone, long game winning fg against Indy, shutting out the Falcons at home 38-0 I think. @MasterAwesomeand I had season tickets that year and you couldn't have asked for a more incredible home slate.

We do 0.5 PPR. Would you still pick McCaffrey?

In his defense, center is probably Elflein's most competent position, although definitely worthy of upgrading. I was more worried seeing Michael Jordan as the LG starter in the 1st game but now that Icky is the starting LT, I'm assuming BC will take over that spot.

I won the last place match for my fantasy football league last year and my consolation prize is the #1 pick in the draft this year. So I'm torn. Do I go with... A) Jonathan Taylor - #1 running back last year and consensus first pick in mocks. Consistent, no injury baggage, a great offensive line in Indy or B) Christian McCaffrey - the most dominant fantasy football weapon when healthy, Panthers star, and now with hopefully improved qb and offensive line play that should only make him shine brighter. My heart says CMC. My brain says Taylor. I want to go with my heart. Am I being stupid? Is this why I always lose? Also do you draft DJ Moore a round early or take a later round flier on Robbie Anderson anticipating Baker takes them to the next level? I really need a win this year. I think I'm almost $300 in the hole.