Sgt Schultz

The OL could be anywhere from better than last year to bordering on mean and nasty (in a good way). We won't know until they show it on the field and even then, it may take a while to mature. The OL has to develop as a unit. I'm just happy somebody yielded to sanity and drafted a LT with our #6 pick. "Better than last year" should happen when they first step on the field. Five rose bushes planted next to each other should achieve that. As far as why the board in general is so skeptical about the unit being lights out, well, we've been down this path before. Bruce Springsteen summed it up quite nicely, "You end up like a dog that's been beat too much, 'til you spend half your life just coverin' up." What was the name of that song, "Sitting in BofA?" Somebody with a lot more wit and musical talent than I could come up with one helluva parody.

Particularly when the season is lost. I can write some of this stuff off in September, October, and early November. Once the chances of going to the post season fly out the window, what is there to lose? I can tolerate losing. I've seen enough of it over the year both since I became a Panthers fan and long before. But, in most cases that is buffered by learning something positive about somebody along the way. Every now and then more gets learned from how players push forward (or not) when they are losing than when everything is clicking. Last year, we learned nothing and in fact lost part of what we thought we knew from the year before. But, I can still hear a past coach talking about "Lipshitz gives us the best chance to win"...even though he is awful and we don't.

When you put it that way, I see a lot of IF's. I have more faith in the 2020 class, but that may be misplaced. This has been said ad nauseam, but the fact that young players didn't get time even when those in front of them were short of the mark is one of my major frustrations and really a turning point with me on Rhule. IMO, the worst case of knowing some large number of them are busts is better than not knowing. If nothing else, the task at hand is known and we aren't trying to move forward with nearly the entire list being a question mark.

The problems that stick out in my mind from the Hurney era was not as much drafting the wrong second and third rounders, but drafting guys in those rounds who were not second or third rounders on anybody's board. It was like the guy thought he was some oracle of seeing talent nobody else could recognize, results not withstanding. My jury on the last two drafts is still far from a verdict. When I see almost an entire class regress, and I see the following class frustratingly not be put in positions to succeed or fail, that results in a concern about the guys deciding how to use the tools, not the quality of the tools themselves. But, back to the original point, I agree. It is said the number one cause of disappointment is unrealistic expectations, and when you get beyond the third round (or even deep into it), expecting the guy you drafted has just started his march to the HoF is setting him up for failure and yourself up for disappointment. Sometimes they work out, but the odds are steep enough that the expectations should be tempered.

Combine that with the Nike's desire to make uniforms look like something from a bad high school movie. Their best work comes when the team tells them to make them look like their classic uniforms before the last redesign (or seven). "Update them but don't turn them into cartoon characters" seems to be beyond their comprehension. When they release their masterpiece and the team's fans immediately start watching the countdown of the five-year clock before the next major change, and five years later they are still watching the days, minutes, and seconds count down, you kinda get the idea that maybe you missed. But, I'm sure the designers convince themselves that they are just too advanced for the team's fans. Moral of the story: be careful what you wish for. Case and point: the Atlanta Falcons, who went from dated to awful. Now add Rhule and company, who are 0 for 1 in rebranding efforts and the 1 was a rout.

By looks, D'Onofrio probably has it. Who could best adapt to the part? Well, you'd have to dig him up, but the guy in the middle:

Would that be "Matt the Destroyer?"

I don't know....he beat OSU last year, so they are finishing the bronze statue of him as we speak. Of course, if they lose to OSU this year, that statue will be toppled and melted down. Or next year, or the year after. Harbaugh has a shelf life. San Francisco jettisoned him too soon and for the wrong reasons, which were largely because they had an idiot for a GM (this decision or not) and owners who were still thinking people paid to see them own the team. But, he would have had to move on in probably 2 or 3 more years, anyway, unless they tore down the roster and brought in almost entirely new faces. College is different because the entire roster is turned over every 3-4 years. I've always thought there were four classes of HCes in the NFL. The builders, who can take a team from rock bottom and build it to being a contender. Once they get it to that point, most have trouble handling it from there. The maximizes, who can take a decent to good team and get them to the next level. They can squeeze every drop of performance a team has to give, but they can't necessarily build the team from ground zero. The maintainers, who can take a team and maintain its success over a period of time. They generally can't build it, they might be able to maximize some of it, but their real talent is keeping them there once they make it. In a sense they can build just enough to maintain success over time, and maximize just enough to never stagnate. The destroyers. They have the reverse Midas touch. Everything they touch turns to dung. They can even show some short-term success, but it is at great cost. Harbaugh in the NFL is probably a maximizer, based on my Richter Scale.

Lawdy, I hope we get to that point. And not just with the second and third Matt in that statement, but with Jeremy, Brady, and several others. I felt like we spent a lot of last year trying to prove 1x4's could be used for floor joists. Both are very useful, but they are not interchangeable.

I agree across the board. Honestly, there was not a QB in this draft that I think should be starting in September or maybe even October. Maybe that could be said of last year's class, too, but only because of the situations they were drafted into. The exception would be Jones. The others went to varying degrees of major suck or, in Lance's case, a situation that was designed to give him time to adjust. My hope that we don't bollix up Corral's timeline/development/adjustment hinges on having more experienced coaches that are hopefully allowed to make that call. But, if the HC's seat is hot, theirs will be warm, too. Nothing can ruin a young QB like panic.

Well, now let's no overdo it! Remember, it was me that posted that, so consider the source I have hopes for Corral. Right now, I don't want him to start right away. That has more to do with nightmares of watching QBs get pounded by our OL than any commentary on him. My concern about giving him PTSD before his third start is complete go away quickly if our improved OL really performs like an improved OL. I think it will be improved, but I have thought that before and been sorely disappointed. I want to see it. Corral could be anywhere between out of the league in five years to good starter, but I have more hopes for him than I have had for any of our QBs in a long time. We'd probably have to go back to Cam's first game or two. I'm not saying Corral can be Cam, but we have not had a QB on the roster since....or several years before that was worth a lot of hope.

Not saying we won't. The entire sentence plays in: I don't expect to see him in preseason (or the regular season) and say to myself "geez, he looks like Steve Young or John Elway."

onmyown summed it up earlier quite well. Warner does not say anything terrible. He likes Corral's mechanics and compact deliver, he thinks he's good on the short throws, but "thought he struggled with accuracy" on mid-level throws and pointed out the importance of them in the NFL. Then he said "they didn't ask him to do certain things," not implying he couldn't, but the offense did not ask that of him. I don't see the huge show of disrespect. He said a guy selected in the third round has something he needs to work on or improve on. He didn't say he couldn't do it, he didn't laugh at him, he didn't say he would have been a good pick in the fifth round. But then again, I do not expect to see Corral in preseason or when the games count and immediately see mental images of Steve Young or John Elway. Like every other QB coming into the NFL, he will be a mixture of things he does well and things he needs to work on. Darnold is that, too, it's just the thing he does well is throw interceptions.

Now the problem is I will have that lilt stuck in my head for a while......and I did it to myself.

That could rival supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Maybe it is the fact I grew up in Missouri, which is the "Show Me" state, or the fact my wife works in public relations, or the fact that I am older than dirt and have heard more idle words than I care to recall, but I agree with you. The words mean nothing, the actions are what counts. I feel that way about the Panthers, the NFL, all other sports leagues, all organizations who make statements, politicians and pretty much anybody else in the Washington DC area, and virtually everybody else, so I am not picking on Fitts or Rhule.

Back to the original question, whether Rhule thinks he has five years. I don't have his house bugged to know, but he probably does since that is what Tepper told him and his statements since are consistent with that. Things change. My best guess is if he looks as lost this year as he did last, Jerry Glanville's quote may well apply: "This isn't college, you're not at a homecoming. This is N-F-L, which stands for 'not for long' when you make them f*#!in' calls."

You can't be talking about me. I have an ex-wife and a current wife. My motto is "I exist therefore I am wrong."

I'm not so sure Rhule didn't approach last year to married to a mindset of his "program/system." One would hope the results (or lack thereof) would have opened his mind a bit, but the jury is still out on that, too. I'm not looking for or expecting a run to the NFCC this year. I think 2021's regression killed any realistic expectations of a deep playoff run. My own expectation is we show respectability. I'm not putting a hard number of wins on that, but more than 5. We have to show we can get to the next level, which is somewhere around .500 and not causing laughter when somebody points out we are mathematically in the playoff picture around Thanksgiving. Last year we were 5-6 at Thanksgiving, and technically in the playoff hunt. But the ER's probably treated more people for swallowing bones when that was said as they did people making "strategic errors" trying to deep fry their turkey. Hopefully we don't send people to the ER choking this year until Christmas. In other words, my bar for this year is we achieve what we should have achieved last year. If Rhule can't do that, then I think the NFL is just not his gig.

One would think that would make him less married to his own system and schemes than the elite college coaches that tried their hand at the NFL. The jury is still out on that, but the deliberations are not going well. I hope the coaching changes can turn that tide. From my perch, Rhule did inherit a worse situation than Rivera, for the simple reason that JR’s stubbornness in firing Fox caused the team to hit rock bottom in Fox’s last. Rivera started from rock bottom and had to build from there. Due to purging Hurney's salary cap misadventure, this team should have bottomed out in Rhule’s first year. I say should have because they may have hit rock bottom in his second, even though they arguably had more talent on the roster. None of us thought 2020 was going to be anything good. Even winning 5 games surpassed expectations. But, we looked worse in year two than year one. Not simply worse, but lost. Rhule looked like 6 feet of man in 13 feet of water. That put us a year behind. IF the OL gels, the defense continues on its upward trend, our players entering their third year realize the promise they showed in their first, and Horn recovered from his injury and can stay on the field, this can be a decent team. My concern about Rhule leading that improvement is that his biggest sin last year was that he did not put players into positions to succeed. He looked exactly like a college coach who believes his system was going to magically provide results, despite the fact that much of his thinking is contrary to what successful NFL coaches have done. Guys like Hoodie find ways to alter their schemes to get the most out of the players they have. Failed college coaches consistently try to shoe-horn players into their schemes, whether they fit or not. We'll see what Rhule is this year. If he shows the improvement this year that we think should have happened last year, he survives to year four. But, if he looks lost again, maybe the NFL just isn’t his game. There is no shame in that, Saban, Petrino, Kelly, Butch Davis, Erickson, Spurrier, and years ago, Holtz all came to that same conclusion, among others.

As I post on a lot of Juan's threads........Superb Owl.

Before we feed Corral to the wolves, I actually want to see this OL in games. Darnold has shown no improvement, but in all honesty, even if he had it would be hard to tell behind what we saw from the OL last year. I have hopes for the OL talent we have, provided the coaching staff plays the A-team in their best positions. If they are even average as a group, then let the best QB play. If not, we have an $18.5M tackling dummy for opposing defenses to chase. Based on that and the fact Corral has never taken an NFL snap, much less actually read a defense or worked through progressions in the NFL, I think Darnold is the week 1 starter unless they bring in somebody else with NFL time under their belt.

I'm glad you brought this up. My immediate questions when I read the associated post were how many of those snaps were in their "native" position, and of those, how many were they actually in the play (like targets)? The entire focus on flexibility/versatility thing drives me over the edge with Rhule. I'm hoping the coaches with more experience drill into him that those things are nice to haves, especially in the depth players, but mastery of a position is much more important.

People forget that pretty easily. They get viewed as some almost cyborg-type being because of what they do every week during the season. Yet, they have the same problems as everybody else and maybe more. Money and fame bring "friends" (or fiends) out of the woodwork they didn't even know they had. I just hope he finds the balance in his life he needs. Whether football is part of that or not is pretty irrelevant. But I hear these stories and it causes me to root for them. Life can be a tough animal.

He made $8M last season on what was more or less a "one year, show us what you've got" deal. So the rumors about what Cleveland has on the table are not unreasonable, especially since the Browns are not oozing DL talent, other than Garrett. Whether he and his agent think it is reasonable is another question. I could see it coming down to who is willing to guarantee him the most over the longest term, which given some of his injuries would be a gamble. There is also speculation that the only teams that would be a threat to the Browns resigning him are closer to home, so us, the Falcons, Jags, or Titans. I'm not sure who out of that group would be interested enough to aggressively pursue him and vice-versa.