Proudiddy

I have felt like there is an element of this going back a few weeks. But, even before the rash of injuries, it seems if we have the lead at the half, Rhule feels thats enough of one that we should sit on it and rely on the defense to shut down the opposing offense to preserve the win. This is also why I think he's conservative about making any adjustments for the second half as well, because if we execute what he plans, we can just chew the clock. He has to expect and want more from his offense in the 2nd half. If we have any semblance of a 3rd quarter the last two weeks, we are 5-0 right now. It is a fatal flaw that has to be addressed.

I mentioned it in another thread, but it's like he is experimenting and refuses to try anything different than what he's set on, going into the game. Either that, or it's the gameplan he had going into the game and much like our staffs that preceded this one, they are going to run it whether you stop it or not and couldn't give a damn about the outcome. And I say that because these last two games, when they are pressuring you immediately and pushing up field with no hesitation, you have to do something to make them back off - screens, smoke screens, reverses, jet sweeps, end arounds and anything else that stretches the defense from sideline to sideline. I've seen successful NFL teams run a bulk of their plays using lateral/horizontal concepts against such aggressive defenses, and eventually they have to slow down or back off... the other option is chucking it deep. It may not be successfully converted everytime, but if you come close enough, they have to respect it and back off, which would at least open up the stuff underneath. What we currently are doing is compressing the field and plays into the strengths of these teams that are super aggressive. So until Brady starts making some adjustments, we're gonna keep having the same issues.

I know how the timing routes work. My point is more to the fact Rhule is saying we can't throw it deep bc of the protection issues, but we kept running deep comeback routes. Yes, they are thrown before the receiver comes out of his break, but even Robby demanded a double move bc he knew they were jumping them... if they're being that aggressive, there isn't much of a read to make and it would likely take the same amount of time, if not quicker to get the ball out. If the receiver sees it and know it was there, it was there. And as I, and others have pointed out, the same thing was happening last week when Diggs got his second pick. Brady isn't giving them anything to think about because he's running the same plays with the same routes... regardless of the protection, if we take a shot deep the results can't be any worse than what we've gotten the last two weeks.

But we have time to wait for comeback routes?

Idk man, it's like Brady is using the games as an ongoing experiment to try specific things out in. I don't get it.

I definitely already have.

And yet the peanut gallery here wants to trade him and think he's loafing... I said the same thing last week when Diggs jumped DJ's route on his last pick - why are we not hitting them with double moves and attacking over the top? Robby is pissed because the coaches are hamstringing us. And beyond double moves, I've been asking more in general why we aren't taking more deep shots? It's starting to feel like the same watered down, bogged down garbage we saw last season.

This was exactly the what I was alluding to in my thread about Rhule... our second halves have sucked because he goes into cruise control playing overly conservative because he is relying on the defense to win the game instead of trying to score with his offense to win it.

Not really moved by it, as we got a future lockdown corner and the cheapest option at an improvement at the position at the time for what was available to us. And as a guy that had Horn and Fields on my personal board during the draft, having watched Fields so far, I don't think we missed out in a franchise QB now. He looks very iffy.

Appreciate your optimism, Verge. And I agree on all of your points, except for the record projection... not saying we won't be 7-2 when we run into AZ, as we very well might be. But, I feel yesterday's loss will do one of two things - we either get stronger from it and go on a 4 game streak, or we fold like we did yesterday and lose our way. The thing that worries me into thinking we may resort to the latter is that 5 weeks into the season, we're still having the same issues every week and they cost us the last two games. If the coaching staff can't figure out adjustments and acknowledge they keep getting outcoached every week then how can I expect the players to overcome that?

It's time to really have a serious discussion about how bad Brady is. I was watching highlights of Denver last night, and even though they lost, combined with the games I watched of theirs the first few weeks of the season, Teddy looks good. I was one of his biggest detractors here, but I acknowledge he looks really good in their offense. He is even throwing it well past 20 yards. The more I watched Teddy succeed elsewhere, and the more I watch us struggle in the scenarios and situations, it's clear, Brady is not a good OC. Even when we were winning, the fact that he can't adjust in game and keeps calling the same plays that the opponent has already seen, it is very troubling. Like I said in another thread, he did nothing to slow the pass rush yesterday outside of the run, and even then, he called way too many of those straight up the gut when it mattered and it got stuffed... he ran nothing to stretch the field laterally after they contained the bootlegs and rollouts. He ran nothing to slow down the pass rush. He kept trying to hammer it right into the strength of the defense and when we passed, he kept trying to run everything vertically when Sam had little to no time to throw. And the 3rd and short calls are still abhorrent. He just has no rhythm... When we got him, I was convinced we just hired a mastermind apprentice of the New Orleans offense that whooped our ass for years under Payton... this poo looks like Aaron Brooks' offense, not Brees. I'm already ready to move on from him because he is clearly not very good at his job, especially when it matters.

I'm not saying we won't make a move for Watson at some point, but LaCanfora's posts now reek of the football equivalent to the National Enquirer.

This. And as much as I don’t like it, winning also brings in more bandwagon fans so a lot more casuals claiming to be Panthers fans would be in those seats if we establish a winning tradition. TBH, yesterday it sounded like we were playing in Philly. Had we had that many Panther fans at a Philly game, half the stadium would be stretchered out, and the other half would be in their built-in jail.

Also, equally as bothersome was looking back in hindsight, it seems Brady did nothing to slow down the pass rush. His calls actually played into their strengths and the pressure. I remember playing teams with bad OLs in the past and their whole gameplan was lateral - smoke screens, end arounds, misdirection, jet sweeps, fake jet sweeps, hb screens, etc. By getting the ball out quick and to the flats, the defense is forced to slow down the rush because when they floor it everytime the ball is snapped against those plays, they've already overpursued and are out of the play by the time the ball comes out. Much like how Philly slowed ours down by running the read option more at the end... it put pressure on us laterally so we couldn't keep rushing straight upfield. We barely did any of that. Only maybe a handful of plays.

Yup, and again, the embarrassing thing is, and Rhule even said it himself, they generated all that pressure by mostly only rushing 4 and at most 5. Our OL couldn't block 1 on 1s, at all. They weren't overloaded, they were just getting beat by the man in front of them every play.

They also did it by mostly rushing 4 and playing man behind it. The blueprint is out. This OL fuging sucks cheese dick.

I agree. I'm not saying he is a finished product as a coach, but this is where we're at right now.

But his coaching and staff led to all of those things happening. If you play scared, it's going to come back to bite you, and it has for us, two weeks in a row.

This overly optimistic, "there's always next year" approach from a large portion of our fanbase is what has us hovering around .500 as a franchise after 25+ years of existence. I understand growing pains and such, but Rhule decided to stamp his brand on this franchise, and whiffed on one QB and is now not looking too hot on the other. He (and Fitterer as well) also largely neglected the OL in the offseason despite the obvious need. This defense is good enough to make a deep run in the playoffs if it had any inkling of complementary football from its offense and special teams units. Yes, building a winning franchise takes time, but it doesn't have to take three years. Sometimes it can take as little as one... but our fanbase is so used to accepting mediocrity we make excuses for it.

Yup, agreed. And thats with understanding bad throws and pressure go hand-in-hand, but some throws just shouldn't be made, and the ones he's made the last two weeks are all of that variety. In contrast, Hurts accuracy is extremely suspect, but look at how many balls he just threw away today after rolling out, despite being an elite athlete. I think back to guys like Brees and Brady, who would/still annoyingly always find a receiver to throw it down at their feet, even when in the pocket... or just flat out throw it out of bounds, even from the pocket, rather than risk a turnover. I had hope for Sam after the first few games, but he's still locking in on certain guys, ignoring others, and throwing passes that just shouldn't be thrown. Listening to him in his presser today, I'm beginning to believe it's just something he isn't going to outgrow because it's the same issue, attributed to the same reasons ("trying to do too much") that he's been explaining since his last year of college. It is certainly frustrating.

Let me know when you run into a book.

I agree, and perhaps the old-school, run-heavy philosophy Rhule is preaching now is more about limiting Sam than actual belief that it leads to wins.

I appreciate his ownership of our shortcomings, but as I've watched the last two weeks, after believing we may have had a master tactician at the them after some of the calls he made last season, I am not encouraged at all. The Belichick-like calls on 4th downs, crafty ways of time management, and the obvious halftime adjustments from last season are long gone. Instead, we have Fox and Rivera redux. No aggression, no attacking, no proactive measures... just us curled up in the corner of the squared circle, taking hook, after hook, after uppercut with no way to defend ourselves. I have been a believer in Rhule. I have kept quiet when others criticized him for his collegial leanings. Again, I was encouraged by what we saw last season - but this guy, perhaps more entrenched and comfortable as his system is further cemented in year two, is not the coach from last season. I couldn't help but be troubled by the continued flat affect our team displayed, yet again, in the 3rd quarter today, and pretty much the entire second half as well. It continues the troubling trend of us clearly getting hit with halftime adjustments from our opponent's coaching staff, while our staff flails around haplessly unprepared, leaving our players to wander aimlessly with no sense of what direction is up or forward. I was really bothered for a couple of reasons. The first being that Rhule has already acknowledged each game that we struggled in the second half it was because the other team made adjustments and implemented things we hadn't seen yet or prepared for. So he acknowledges we were both outcoached and unprepared on multiple occasions now, with no backup plan in place. Number two, the overwhelming tone of the decisions made in these second halves, particularly today, was among the most conservative approaches I've ever seen in professional coaching. The aggression and attacking style he displayed last season with numerous conversion attempts on 4th down, including fake punts are nowhere to be found. But, John Fox-like-calls, electing to punt with his place kicker for a punt netting 20 yards are here, and so is electing to punt on 4th and 2 near midfield with the league's worst punter, who also nets about 30-35 yards on his attempt. And lastly, I'm brought back to opponents summarizing our team under Rivera as one that doesn't adjust, doesn't make changes, doesn't evolve, but is going to caveman it out on the field and do exactly what you saw on tape and hope you don't stop it. For all that I thought was different about Rhule, he is illustrating it is all very much the same. Even more troubling than seeing all of this, was Rhule stating in his presser that winning football is about running the ball and controlling the line of scrimmage. I, and anyone knowledgeable of football whatsoever, would agree that controlling the line is an absolute must for winning football. But the overall tone, and the emphasis on running the ball - it just reeked of Fox and Rivera in retrospect of what took place on the tried today in the second half, as well as the games that preceded it in the same fashion. What it tells me, is yes, our staff is being outcoached and not able to counter adjustments made by the opponents; but, it also tells me that some of that is by design due to our staff's antiquated views on modern winning football. A running game helps, but getting a small lead and believing you can just old-school your way into a win for an entire half by pounding the opponent into submission with a smashmouth running game, with a porous offensive line no less, is absolutely mind-blowing. He is telling on himself both in what he says and how he is managing these games - he thinks he can win the game by bogging the game down and hanging onto a marginal lead before our grip gives way. It is troubling, because again, for all of the shiny new things we saw last season that led us to believe, we may finally have a cutting-edge, analytics-heavy, forward-thinking coach and staff... we don't. We have a guy cut from the same cloth as his predecessors who believes a punt is a good play and we can ride a defense until the wheels fall off. Sigh.