Peon Awesome

This signing has no bearing on whether we can get a WR. 1st year cap hits are always Iow; Sanders is probably going to account for $2 million in 2023. That's not the difference between us affording a good receiver vs not. The bigger issue is there aren't really any WR1s available in free agency. Probably our best bet is getting an ok #2 like Parris Campbell and drafting one with pick 39. Or we could consider trading a day 3 pick for Hopkins. But all of those are still very feasible after this signing.

Maybe he'll be this team's Greg Olsen, former 1st round pick that didn't live up to his 1st round status until arriving in Carolina and suddenly becoming a top TE. One can only hope. As far as the contract goes, what did you realistically expect? He's getting about $1.5 million more per year than Ian Thomas with an inflated cap. He's getting almost the same amount as Josh Oliver who had 14 catches for 149 yards for the entire year. That's definitely fair market value, if not a decent bargain for today's going rate.

I really like Williams as a team leader and positive locker room presence; I'm a big fan and would be happy to have him as a Panther. But he's not a game changer as a running back and we certainly shouldn't break the bank for him. Hopefully the market dictates he and/or Foreman getting a very modest deal

Jury's out but our most dominant team in franchise history had Ted Ginn as its #1.

This trade was probably realistically our best outcome. 1. We kept our high 2nd round pick - I don't think all the pundits panning the trade realized that. ESPN on the trade grade said this trade left the Panthers without a 2nd round pick this year. 2. Not giving away a 2025 1st gives us the chance for a quick reset. Let's say our rookie QB bombs. Well we're not going to trade this much and give up on him after 1 year. But if he's not showing any improvement after year 2 and our team sucks, we can draft his replacement in 2025. 3. The competition to draft a rookie was so high that it inflated the value of all the top picks. Moving up to 3 probably wouldn't have been a huge discount and we'd be stuck with the 3rd QB. Look at what San Francisco gave up in a year with less teams angling for a rookie qb. 4. While losing Moore is sad, we took advantage of Chicago's desperation to improve their receivers and got probably the most value out of him. Realistically, I have to think Chicago would've wanted our 2025 1st and the higher 2nd round pick this year. Adding Moore increased our leverage significantly and gave us the heads up over the other teams trying to trade up.

Keep him and coach him up. We could take Bryce Young and he gets injured for the year in week 3 and Corral plays admirably in his stead. He's got a dirt cheap contract and his value is horribly depressed. What do we benefit by trading him for peanuts? There's precedent; think Robert Griffin and Kirk Cousins in Washington.

I'm not ready to quit on Tremble. Almost all of his tenure has been under the stink of Rhule. And the little time he got away from Rhule, we became a super run heavy team with Darnold as our starting qb, so how much production can you expect from your TE 2 in that scenario? In the limited touches he gets, he seems to make the most of it. And keep in mind, he was drafted for his blocking prowess and is playing a position which routinely takes a few years to translate to higher production in the NFL. I don't mind going for someone like Gesicki if the price is right but I also would love to see the new offensive staff give Tremble a chance to succeed.

I was hearing he has a $60 million cap hit that the trading team would absorb. It would take some impressive gymnastics to fit that and have enough to fill out the rest of the team. For that reason and more I don't think so

I started to have my suspicions we were consciously factoring it in after we hired Adrian Wilson too. Whether we truly are or not, can't say. All of them seem to be excellent and deserving. It's obviously not the main reason. But as a conscientious tiebreaker? Plausible. And honestly the league must have partly hoped for that by instituting the rule. I've always thought it was a smart rule. Give minorities a chance to shine in higher profile assistant positions. If they flounder, you set your team back and get no compensation. If they earn a promotion elsewhere, you get valuable picks to compensate for losing an important member of your team.

For those saying Stroud at QB, probably more realistic to not have half of our receiving corps and our rb picked with 2nd and 3rd rounders this year since at least a couple of those will go towards the trade up

I think the options are too open ended. If any of the following happened, I'd be happy, roughly in order: 1. Trade 2 1sts and change for Stroud or Bryce Young 2. Stay at 9 and take Richardson 3. Sign Carr to a deal of no more than $30 million per year with 90% of the guarantees accounted for in his 1st year. 4. Combination of 2 + 3 is fine as well So what do I not want? 1. Trading 3 1sts for anyone 2. Trading up for Levis or Richardson 3. Not drafting any qb and having only Corral and someone like Darnold or Brissett 4. Giving Carr a big multiyear deal with guarantees that tie him to us for at least 3 years.

The guy tries to argue us giving up more yards is because the team was more competitive. I don't buy it. We were a ball control, run heavy, turnover minimizing offense under Wilks. If anything that could have skewed our defensive numbers favorably because the opposing offense had less chances to score and fewer short fields. And being the victim of a blow out doesn't mean less yardage given up necessarily as the Bengals game proved.

Agreed. I don't know why anyone would worry about fit for guys barely deserving a roster spot like YGM. You can't possibly be satisfied with YGM as our starting 4-3 DE so if we have to sign or draft someone to upgrade him there, why not a 3-4 DE instead? Then throw in a NT and we're better off across the board than we were this past year, with our stars in a more natural fit to boot.

There are 3 centers on the list, none named Bozeman. They estimate $6.5-7.5 million per year for those 3 so if you believe their evaluations, that means something like 3 years, $20 million for Bozeman would be the high end for him. I do think we probably value him more than his perception around the league. ESPN also had a top free agent list and he wasn't on that either. I definitely want us to resign him. But you do wonder whether other teams will see a guy who spent half of the year as our backup and played on a meager one year contract and not feel inclined to break the bank for him. Could bode well for us as long as we don't bid against ourselves.

I guess Shane Steichen must not have impressed too much in interviews. On paper rolling the dice with Steichen (or Kafka) and keeping your 1st round pick seems better than having Sean Payton but I guess I can't totally blame them for not wanting to take another chance on an offensive coordinator with no head coaching experience.

That sounds great but I don't think it's realistic for us to get both Stroud and Harrison. Being in position to get Stroud will likely require at least a 2024 1st and I'd be shocked if Harrison doesn't go in the 1st in 2024.

Isn't this argument akin to the "Well if you think cops killing unarmed people/politicians making 10 year olds give birth/school shootings happening every month/etc is so bad, why don't you move to another country"? Pretty sure people are allowed to be upset about things even if they otherwise love that thing. Kind of like if your spouse does something you don't like, the choices are either divorce or just sit quiet and suck it up? Like to have the audacity to say "Hey I love you but it hurts when you do this. Is it cool if you could stop?" Just overall one of the laziest arguments out there.

I think it's extraordinarily unlikely to almost impossible that the game was "rigged" by means of some coordinated NFL conspiracy from top-down. But it would be naive to say it's unthinkable that 1 or more of the refs could have been influenced by personal biases or even as far as gambling influences to favor Kansas City over Cincinnati. If you watch the Donaghy documentaries, part of the reason he got away with it was that he wasn't engaging in blatant tactics with made up calls. He would do things like call fouls on a star player when there was only minor contact for the team he needed to lose. On replays, you could see there was clear contact, albeit not egregious, and on deeper dive, it was rare for him to call fouls on players on the other team for similar contact. In the Kansas City game, it did feel like the vast majority of 50/50 calls went against the Bengals. Maybe just one of the refs deep down really favored Kansas City and let it perhaps even unintentionally influence his calls. Or with the wider spread legalization of sports gambling, it's not exactly embracing conspiracy theories to say it's possible someone could have bribed one of the refs to shift things in one direction. All it takes is 1 or 2 big calls in key moments to dramatically influence the game.

I have no problem with trying for a rookie qb this year. Hell, I'll be absolutely ecstatic if we get Stroud. My only worry is having to give up a future 1st (or 2 1sts) for him or Bryce Young. If it doesn't work out, we're set back for years. If we give up our 2 2nds and #9 for Stroud, or we stay at 9 and take Richardson, or even something like package 9 plus Brian Burns for Stroud/Young and suck completely in any of those scenarios, at least we have our 1st in 2024 to try again.

It's a fair question but I don't see how you can assume success with a rookie qb and new coach. Hell, I'm sure that thinking went into play when Denver traded two 1sts and 2nds for Russell Wilson. They were taking a strong core with a great defense with the one missing piece being a qb and competent coaching; fair assumption they should have been in instant playoff contention. Well fast forward a year later, and Denver is giving up the 5th and 36th pick in the draft this year. And that's with what was thought to be a known commodity with Russell Wilson. Now take a rookie qb instead who is never a sure thing, and I think you can see where I'm going with this. We could crash and burn and then end up giving away a top 3 pick that could've been Drake Maye or Caleb Williams or whoever separates themselves next year.

TEs are almost universally poor value in the 1st for multiple reasons. A) Positionally undervalued. A top 10 TE isn't going to cost the big money that most other positions will so you lose surplus value on your rookie contract. B) They generally take a few years to fully develop. There's a reason Chicago gave up Olsen for a 3rd. He was averaging about 500 yards per year his 4 years in Chicago. His 1st 1000 yard year was in season 8. You have to expect their best years are going to be after their rookie contract is up unless you hit a generational talent which you can never count on.

Yes and no. They wouldn't have needed an epic comeback if their franchise qb didn't throw 4 1st half interceptions. Chargers ran up the score with tons of great field position the entire 1st half. Their offense wasn't doing that much. Honestly a game manager who didn't turn the ball over probably would have had the game comfortably in hand for the Jaguars the entire time.

Weird, I thought we handily beat them in Seattle? Guess I dreamed that one

I wish someone would go to the Seattle message boards and tell their fans to stop being so stupid and being happy their team snuck in as the 7th seed. Think about how much draft position they just lost! And all to get to play a clearly superior 49ers team on the road. Us Panthers fans know better. We would much rather get an earlier draft pick than get to watch our team play a downtrending Dallas team at home. Clearly a way tougher game than the one the Seahawks team we handily beat on the road has playing against a juggernaut 49ers team in San Francisco.

This new overtime rules will be an interesting rule change. Seems like it would be advantageous to defer in overtime now. You know you're guaranteed a possession no matter what, so you'll know after the other team's first possession if you need to go for every 4th down if they get a td, or can plan a 2 point conversion to win. Or of course if the other team doesn't score, you know a fg will win it as opposed to starting first and worrying if a fg will be enough. Curious to see how they play it.