Proudiddy

Yeah, but you don't know what his idea of "4 quarters of football" is, because he also immediately defended the offense after the game on Sunday and said we moved the ball well and scored a FG in the second half. That tells me his mindset isn't to go down and score a TD every time we possess the ball in the 2nd half. There is a clear shift in mentality from the first and second half, offensively and it is because he relies heavily on the defense. Notice how different the offense looked when Dallas went up 22 points? Yeah. I wouldn't read too much into what he says to the media.

No doubt the offense is different with CMC in there, and I know it opens up things for all the other guys out there when he's healthy. That being said, I can't agree with this, Scot. DJ and Robby each had 1k yards last season with no CMC. TMJ was flashing all through camp and preseason. Tremble has shown a ton to like early with the more snaps he's gotten. To me, the issue is the ball distribution. For all of his shortcomings and his penchant for checking the ball down, Teddy spread the ball around well. Yes, he also missed a ton of deep throws to DJ last season, in particular, buy he was spreading the ball around relatively efficiently. I dont know if Brady has shifted his scheme and philosophy, if he's trying to show a different dimension to help himself in his next HC interview, if Darnold is just hitting his first couple of progressions, or if it all lies at the feet of the OL... or it could be a combination of all of that. The line wasn't very good last year either, so I just don't know. But, something is different. The players are just as skilled and talented, but the ball isn't getting to them. And despite the issues with the OL, I'm really thinking it is Darnold's decisions. Even this week, on a down early in the first half, they showed a replay where Darnold looked to his first read, which was Ian Thomas running to the flat to his left, he was wide open. For some reason, Darnold came all the way back across the field to his right side, and threw it over there. The play wasn't hugely consequential, but I remember Olsen saying he didn't know what "spooked" Darnold off of his first read. What I'm getting at is, while Teddy's obsession with getting it out quick regardless of down or distance was detrimental because it robbed us of big plays when they were there, Darnold's seeming indecision is just as detrimental because the ball sometime isn't even getting out of his hand at all... 5 yards is better than -5 yards or a pick or incompletion because everything is covered up. Darnold has said himself that some of the sacks are on him because he's holding onto it too long.

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.