beo

...And? You seem hell bent on trying to derail this thread for whatever reason. Got a metagrudge with the OP or something?

Our fanbase has unrealistically low expectations for a QBs supporting cast in part due to how fuging pathetically we built around Cam. I can't think of a legit franchise QB that got a shittier hand than Cam did as far as offensive supporting casts go in recent memory. Folks do not realize just how galactically far behind we were the rest of the league when Cam was here, remember how many posters were saying our WR core was "underrated" going into the year? lol. It's held over from the Cam era IMO, the fanbase simply has no standards for supporting skill position talent and expects the QB to carry the team on his back because Cam did it. To truly "elevate" a team as a QB, you have to be flat out ELITE. And even then you won't win much come playoff time in the vast majority of cases if the surrounding team is poo. Expecting a rookie in his 5th game to be such a player is a really unfair baseline if you ask me.

Just wanna say that I appreciate the approach y'all take to moderation. I know you only ever receive complaints and calls to ban and accusations of bias and all that, but I personally love how light and relatively uncensored the moderation is here; if anything I'd call for even less lol. If this place just became another super sanitized forum like the Reddit is, i'd probably have left years ago and I feel like I'm not alone in that respect.

Oh, ew. Are we actually predominantly running a zone blocking scheme now? I only saw this pop up recently and I've only really paid attention to the first 2 games of the year, and in doing so I was not really looking at the OL. But if we are it'd explain a lot of our struggles up front and also the lack of pulls, traps and other blocks of that nature. We definitely don't have ideal personnel for it IMO, as you said most of our linemen are mauler types who aren't exactly known for their ability to get out in space and up to the second level. It could work pretty well for Brady maybe but even guys like Ickey I don't think it's a good fit honestly as he's not particularly agile. Comes off as a desperate attempt at chasing trends when we had a really good thing going last year. Sanders also has atrocious vision which further clashes with this, when you're running zone you need to be able to find cutback lanes and he simply just isn't very good at that to put it nicely. We really need to just start Chubba if this is the case; we're looking for a back that can find and hit holes, that's his forte. But they definitely need to reconsider really the entire approach to the run game over the bye if they want to find any real success on the ground, because the playcalls are also extremely predictable (take a shot every time you see inside zone out of the shotgun) and when you mix that with playing the line outside of their strengths you are usually met with really lackluster results. This team is just so strangely constructed.

It took Romulus 30 years to build Rome and become an overnight sensation, give him time.

100% agree, it's a longterm thing. We'll see. I have a feeling they'll probably find some level of loophole eventually; no way those 3 teams will still be in the ACC come 2035.

I think big east and independent in football is the most likely outcome for Duke in the event of an ACC collapse. I do think Duke is in a slightly better position than given credit for with the football program on the up, when you combine the basketball and football money Duke looks a lot better standing-wise (as does UNC and any of the other BBall blue bloods, most top tier BBall programs are roughly on par with a low to mid tier P5 fb program in terms of revenue). I'm more concerned about Wake. They are absolutely screwed.

The ACC has the grant of rights blocking the exit of the teams though. In the last negotiation cycle the ACC basically traded some payout money in exchange for longterm stability which seems to be paying off at the moment. That's why FSU, Clemson and UNC haven't already left. Teams cant just leave, it's pretty much on the lawyers of the teams that do to try and find a loophole somehow but they haven't been able to do so to any real success so far. An ACC league source last year told CBS Sports, at that time, it might have cost as much as $500 million total to exit the league, including its grant of rights, as there were then 14 years left on the deal. Other estimates have been lower but still significant. (this number is probably bullshit but it's pretty much unanimous that it'd cost far more than any school is willing to pay to leave) https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/inside-the-big-12s-ironclad-grant-of-rights-contract-that-helped-keep-the-acc-together-amid-turbulence/

And what will the tv contracts look like in 3 years? My point is that it's too early to really call anything at this stage. We are treading in completely uncharted waters, we have no real precident for this. These schools will act in their own interests ultimately, whatever is the most profitable move is what will be taken. I never denied that the ACC can't fall apart, I said in my reply to the other poster that it is "CERTAINLY POSSIBLE". I just don't see what interest it serves for any of the other programs besides those few. It will suck and be a huge blow though, absolutely. But where exactly are the other programs in the ACC going? What exactly makes ripping the conference apart more viable for other members than it just remaining without those 3 teams? State, Miami, maybe Duke, Louisville and UVA are about the only teams I could see following suit, though IMO the last 3 aren't in that great of positions themselves and Miami was one of the few that fully supported the expansion to 3 teams so they seem to be set on remaining in the ACC right now.

This is certainly possible, but I think it's worth considering that the TV deal isn't up until 2036 which is quite a ways out. I just don't really see many of the other ACC teams jumping ship. State maybe to whatever conference UNC doesn't go to so that they can have a stake in the NC football market? Other than that, I see little incentive for any other members. It's true the ACC will be much worse off without FSU and Clemson, but the big 12 lost Texas and OU and seems to be doing fine. I just think there's a bit of fearmongering due to recent events, this isn't really the same situation as the PAC which dug its own grave playing hard ball in negotiations when it had no leverage to do so and had far less longterm security in its tv contract.

Also calling Duke's basketball program merely "above average" when we both have the same number of non stone-age rings is pretty hilarious but in the interest of not derailing the thread I'll let it slide.

See above post. UNC leaving is probably the least important departure of the three. Basketball doesn't mean anything in realignment, Football money completely dominates. Why would the ACC fold? It's not in the interest of any members besides 3 for it to.

I mean yeah but my point is that State and Duke will both do fine in what's left of the ACC. UNC leaving doesn't really matter that much, the main reason UNC even has a parachute out is because of their large national brand; football is the main moneymaker and UNCs football program is incredibly middling. Clemson and FSU's departure will probably be the real sting in the ACC's finances. Even if the ACC somehow imploded, and it'd really take some heavy mismanagement for it to happen IMO, State could probably get a spot in whatever conference UNC doesn't go to just as a way to tap into the local market. I'm personally not completely doomer over the state of college sports; TV is a rapidly dying business and I just feel that as TV continues to decline in relevance this giant TV deal contract bubble which has caused all of this is going to burst along with it. We've already sadly suffered permanent damage to the landscape though regardless of what happens longterm.

Lol Duke and State aint gonna be begging y'all for poo. I know that UNC fans suffer from a severe case of delusions of grandeur but jesus christ. State just finished giving you the finger in alignment talks after your BoR tried to exert it's influence over them while Duke had being doing so all along, the ACC already has its contingency plan in place for when FSU, Clemson, and UNC snake the conference via the new additions. Obviously it isn't ideal but the ACC will probably just be like how the current big 12 is whenever it happens, and there's good reason to believe it'll be a while until it does given that FSU has tried very publicly to find loopholes against the grant of rights yet can't. Have fun with your conference games against Minnesota while the rest of us keep our regional rivalries and history when it does come to pass though.

You know, this post highlights some things that I hadn't considered previously. Has Ron ever ran a 3-4 alignment with the Redskins? Like on ANY plays? I don't follow other teams, so I'm not sure. But on football reference, every year he's been there it has their alignment marked as 4-3 (FWIW, the 2019 panthers are marked as 4-3 too). And I realize that base defenses don't really matter too much at the end of the day, but it's still really curious. Tepper was a Steelers minority owner, who have pretty much always ran a 3-4 base. Was that a byproduct of Tepper overreach? And now we have this situation where the team's roster just feels like it conflicts with itself, at least on O. We have road graders on the OL. This is a team built to shove it down your throat and keep running lanes open by threatening defenses vertically, at least in the trenches. It can't be denied that missing Corbett and Brady hurts a fug ton, we have no interior push. Not helped by the most vanilla playcalling imaginable; there's just no creativity on our run plays. It's like an 8 year old on Madden just spamming HB Dive and Inside Zone over and over. No traps, no pulling guards, nothing. But the line still shouldn't look this bad. To top that off, we have no deep threats other than Chark (who we rarely send downfield), and decided to draft Young who clearly won't be throwing bombs all day against NFL defenses. I was a fan of Young, he was my favorite QB coming out; but it's just a strange fit when you get down to it. And seeing as our owner's wife hugged him at the combine, something I can't recall any other team doing... again, it's just really fuging weird. On top of that, it seems as if Reich just flat out refuses to open up the playbook for him; which makes me wonder if he was the QB Reich wanted or not. It feels as if Tepper is sticking his nose in places he has no business sticking it. We always hear every off-season and during the season about what Tepper is feeling. About who Tepper likes, and what Tepper wants. I can't recall seeing so many insider reports with Richardson's name in them in the past. Even now we're hearing the team is trying to find a WR via trade and that Tepper is unhappy and wants changes. Tepper this, Tepper that, every season, every off-season his name just swirls around all over the place. It's just not normal. And what's fuged is that if he really is meddling to this extent, which seems increasingly likely with the "IT WAS ALL RHULE!!!" cope mostly all but undefendable now, we will probably be in a state of suck until he learns. Frankly, there's a very high chance that he never does. Because no matter how bad the team is, he will always turn a profit on it. It's why the same teams and ownership groups stay bad. The Fords and Bidwells are ROLLING in money no matter what new depths their team sinks to. Seems we might just be a new resident of that group of teams. One or two years of making the playoffs a decade, rinse and repeat. Especially in a transplant city like Charlotte; if we don't buy tickets, the legions of opposing team's fans will. This team was 7TH IN ATTENDANCE LAST YEAR. No matter what happens, Tepper is getting his bag. It's even more screwy here since the NFL seemingly pushed Navarro out of the race despite him reportedly offering more.. But I can't really think of any other case like this. We basically had the rug pulled out from under all of us. As a Lions or Cards fan, you knew what you were signing up for the day you became a fan. The Panthers? We used to be a respectable franchise until Tepper bought the team. Very inconsistent, up and down, but we had our moments and in general it just never felt this hopeless. Now? We've been rebuilding for 4 years, and are still the worst team in the league. All seemingly at the NFL's will.

blood and guts

Exact same dude, I just check the score and browse the huddle a bit after games for the most part these days. I missed 1 game from the day I first became a fan up to 2018, I'd have never even considered missing games up till recent years.

100%. And honestly, I sort of dislike the "RB" moniker when being used in relation to CMC. Yeah he's a RB on the depth chart, but he isn't just some pure north and south runner that has bricks for hands. Those are the types that you can find anywhere. CMC ain't that. CMC could be the #1 WR on a lot of teams, he is an absolute gamechanger who will be getting more touches than any player on the field besides the C and the QB. He can create seperation at WR and in general is fantastic at getting open short and finding holes in zones, especially the generally soft zone a lot of the NFL runs these days to prevent deep shots. Look at him ripping the league to shreds in SF, that's what could've been here had we built around him correctly. I'll always wonder what prime CMC and Cam could've looked like. But yeah, the Gilmore deal was great; too bad we let him walk for nothing after and extended Donte which is gradually starting to look more and more like another bad contract.

I struggle to even call this husk of a team the "Panthers". It's really not the same team, everything feels so detached and foreign. I never thought I'd miss Richardson but damn, i'd rather be owned by a local Southern figure that cares about the area and that actually does things with and appreciates the fanbase instead of blatantly meddling in football ops 100x over than this travesty currently. I propose we call them the Carolina Teppers moving forward, I think it's more fitting at this point than the Panthers moniker. The Teppers are a complete affront to everything the Carolina Panthers used to stand for, the antithesis of Keep Pounding. It makes me sick to see something I used to care about so dearly bought out and relegated to cellar dwellar status. One final assfuging from the good old NFL, I suppose. Add it to the pile, doubt we'll ever be recovering from this one though.

It is genuinely mindboggling that posters around here were praising Fitt to high heavens when that move first happened and anyone who called it out got poo'ed into oblivion. Absolute lunacy to trade him at all especially if you knew you were going up for a young QB, I can't think of a better player to have around a young QB than CMC. The perfect security blanket. But nah, we trade him for a half eaten bag of potato chips and then also Moore in the trade up giving our QB the single worst group of receiving threats in the NFL. Just further shows that this team is aimless IMO, there is no plan or longterm vision.

Yet another rousing victory for the cancerous method of ownership that dominates North American sports. Hope y'all aren't expecting any kind of winning or even tangential traces of the actual Carolina Panthers team and it's history from now on. It's water under the bridge. We're owned by a northern con man who will treat us as a dollar printing machine and occasionally hype up a cute new marketing gimmick here or there to suck money out of the few poor souls that still root for this husk to come out to games. The only thing we can hope for is that he relocates and we get a new expansion team here but that doesn't seem very likely; there really aren't any other vacant markets that are good enough to be worth moving to especially when you account for all the headaches that come with relocation and plenty of opposing fans will come out to games regardless of what we do. This team was 7th in attendance last year, guarantee about 30-40% of it were transplant fans.

We got bought out by a Yankee hedgefund manager that doesn't give two solitary poos about the region. The Panthers are merely an investment toy now, just about every last trace of our previous culture and history has been destroyed under him. Even bad teams make money, look at how long the Bidwells and Fords have owned their teams for. He's never going anywhere. I miss JR, flawed as an owner as he could be he at least cared deeply about the team, us, and the area. Tepper doesn't. And now we're doomed to this unless some dirt gets dug up on him, though even if that did happen the NFL would likely push it under the rug. I'm at the point of just treating the team like an expansion team that I loosely follow rather than the Panthers, at this point the 1995-2018 Panthers are about as related to the current iteration as the old browns are to the 1999 expansion Browns.

Not trying to single you in particular out or anything but in general I am so, so tired of seeing remarks like this because they just aren't true and in a way it's sort of excusing what David Tepper has done to this team since he has bought it. We absolutely didn't suck. For an expansion team we have done quite well for ourselves if anything. Let's take a look at other expansion teams in the NFL and also other North American sports leagues since 1995... Carolina Panthers all-time win loss record prior to being bought out by David Tepper- this was our lifetime win-loss record up until the 2019 season: 185-194 (.488). Our record since? 27-45 (.375) and our worst stretch in franchise history. At one point before Cam's shoulder fell off we were actually in the positives, but we all know how that season ended. 4 NFC Championship game appearances (what i'd characterize as deep runs). 2 Super Bowl Appearances. Is this world beating? No. But for a new franchise it's far from the worst you could do. For comparison, lets look at some other expansion teams from 1995 onwards: Houston Texans: 142-197 (.419) 0 CCG or SB appearances Jacksonville Jaguars: 190-262 (.420) 3 CCG appearances, 0 SB appearances Cleveland Browns (yes they are an expansion team, the Ravens kept their players and more importantly their executives): 127-258-1 (.330). 0 CCG or SB appearances In other sports... NBA: Memphis/Vancouver Grizzlies: 971-1258 (.436). 1 appearance in the WCF Toronto Raptors: 1071-1157 (.481). 2 appearances in the ECF, 1 Finals App. and championship Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets (2004 onwards): lol, lmao. 0-0. NHL: Nashville Predators: 1 conf finals app. , 1 cup app. Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers: 1 conf finals app. Columbus Blue Jackets: 0-0 Minnesota Wild: 1 conf finals app. Vegas Golden Knights: 2 conf finals app., stanley cup win Seattle Kraken: Too early to say but they seem to be on a good track I don't care enough about the MLB to know how their playoff system works but they've only added two teams since 1995. Diamondbacks won a title in 2001. Rays made a run fairly recently but haven't gotten a chip yet. Among these teams the only ones i'd say that clearly have a step on us are Toronto, Vegas and perhaps the DBacks. If you go further back, the Ducks (1993), other Panthers (1993), Marlins (1993) and Heat (1988) have done well for themselves. But historically we're pretty easily top half among other newer franchises in NA Sports Leagues. Tepper didn't inherit suck. He inherited a team that had flashes of greatness in the past which weren't fully realized due to ineptitude from our higher ups. We were hoping these would finally be fixed with JR gone, yet they've merely been exacerbated. From 1995-2018 we were the most volatile team in NFL history by a mile if you go by yearly win fluctuation. Chaotic mediocrity. Since, we haven't even had a winning season. We weren't the best but it was a far cry from the joke we've turned into now. We're the sort of team people groan about when they're on primetime, an absolute laughing stock to the general NFL fan and our fans should be unhappy with the atrocious product that has been on the field ever since we ruined Cam.

It's starting to feel like the team we were actually fans of died in 2018 when Tepper bought it. The organization as a whole just doesn't feel the same, like a skinwalker wearing the old team's skin and nothing more. Everything's so closed off from the fans compared to how it used to be. Not only are we ran like just another soulless corporation, but we don't even win or even so much as match the level of success we've had in the past either.

We really have to stop comparing Bryce to Cam, it just isn't fair to Bryce OR Cam and they share next to no similarities other than both being QBs the Panthers picked #1 especially when you compare them as rookies. Cam had arguably the greatest college season by a QB of all time coming into the NFL. if Bryce ever ends up as good a passer as Prime Cam was we'll be in good hands. But even with that being said, they both have/had very different skillsets as passers coming into the NFL. Bryce is all about going through his progressions quickly and getting the ball out to an open man. He has great ball placement but his arm, while not bad, isn't the best. Cam had an absolute rocket launcher for an arm but when he was first coming into the league he could sail passes and get too antsy in the pocket alongside some pretty questionable touch. IE, he just missiled it in there when he really need to put more touch on it to make it easier on his receivers to catch it. There are lots more differences of course that I just don't think are necessary to list to convey my point. They're very different players. And all of these flaws, Cam greatly improved later in his career. Bryce will hopefully clean up the mistakes we saw last week, either this year or in the longterm. That first game was admittedly a shock for me, Bryce didn't look good. But he's a rookie. And as said earlier, Cam was a fuging unicorn. There will never be another Cam Newton. Expecting Bryce to come out and look like a worldbeater in game 1 just because Cam did is the definition of unfair to Bryce. We just need to hope Bryce will continue to improve throughout the year. Week 1 wasn't encouraging but plenty of good QBs have struggled in their debut; that being said, I do want to see more from him next week even if it's a tougher opponent.