woahfraze

Burns getting massively held. Wtf ref?

Have a feeling this will only result in a FG for us lol

These two teams are setting back NFL offenses decades so far today.

I mean it’s still a mix of both. I’ve long been a Bryce defender, but as the season has progressed, I’ve come around to the perspective that he’s definitely a big part of the problem. I still think he’s better than he’s shown, but that at this point, he’s shellshocked. And I do still believe the offensive line, the WRs, and scheme (route combos) really make/made it hard on him. But he’s missing too many plays when the rest of the offense does execute. Everything is such a poo show and all the deficiencies play off each other and multiply to give us the historically bad offensive production that we have. Bryce is a part of that. It remains to be seen whether the situation and he himself can improve into a workable offense over the course of the next year. But I’m off the “he can be a franchise QB train.” I see serviceable at best if everything comes together perfectly, which of course is unlikely. And living “in the middle” of the NFL hierarchy is not where we want to be long term (although god it would feel so much better than where we are now…)

This. What bearing does our past have on our present when we have a new owner and no culture to speak of? It might be different if we had continuity of culture throughout all those years set from the top down, but that’s not the case. We need to build a new identity.

I’ve sat through 1-15 and 2-14 seasons before. Why would this be any different? I know we don’t have a high first round pick to look forward to like we had in those years, and today’s situation seems super bleak—and it may be the worst we’ve experienced in franchise history—but those times also seemed pretty hopeless. I won’t stop being a fan.

Depends who is on the board and also who we were able to bring in during free agency, but giving Bryce one more year, I’d say the most glaring place to focus on is the offensive line. The WR situation is bad, but building an offensive line that can consistently pass protect and bringing in an offensive staff that can scheme up some better route combos, mix in some motion, etc to help make things easier on all the players, you can more easily manage with less talented weapons. We need better skill position players too, but they’re a less glaring issue than the line and scheme IMO.

Agreed. My take is that he showed some improvement after the first couple games, where he was by no means great but also wasn’t awful. This is not to say he didn’t miss some reads or some throws, but he did show some indications he can play at a relatively high level. Not as many as you’d like, but they were there But as the offensive line’s performance somehow deteriorated from its already very poor level, he started to feel shell shocked. And from the Colts game on, he hasn’t been flashing those positive traits much at all.

This, 100%. It would have been one thing for the offense to start clicking—the players acclimating to the scheme and things start to work better. That would have indicated Frank’s convictions were at least somewhat justified. But the lack of improvement in that regard really drives home the fact that he was asking the players to do things they are not suited to do. He was not setting them up to succeed. And it would have been another thing for us to see more consistent attempts to alter the scheme to cater to the players’ strengths. We didn’t see that. The inability to adapt what they were trying to do really was startling. But we didn’t see either. Frank showed no evidence that he was even trying to right the ship. Only startlingly few instances of adding motion presnap, mixing in more man blocking concepts, etc. The level of disfunction may very well start at the top with Tepper. And Fitterer’s roster construction would strain any coach’s abilities, but banging your head against the wall trying to produce different results with the same methodology is certainly grounds for dismissal. Now we just have to hope the remaining staff can make some tweaks and show improved results to give us some hope going into next year. And then hope further that Tepper can hire a good coach who can both command/inspire the locker room and implement a more modern and flexible offense.

I know you don’t trust the offensive line, but that call was awful.

Can’t play QB with this offensive line

Really hate to see defenders trying to grab Henry at the waist or at his arms. You have to go low on him.

Lol, Schlereth just pulled out the old JT O’Sullivan. Where do you throw it? 4 man rush and pressure gets to Bryce, and no where to go with the ball

Bryce’s arm itself isn’t strong. When he sets his feet, he can put enough zip on the ball, but when he can’t, yikes. Footwork definitely an issue. Pass protection issues don’t help that, but he does need to clean it up.

Best throw we’ve seen from Bryce in a while.

I’m not defending this mess. I’m outraged by this mess. But I’m acknowledging that pretty much any QB is going to struggle given the shitshow around him. By the time Chuba was open, Bryce was pirouetting and falling backward. Could he have hit Chuba? Maybe. But why after buying so much time did he not already have an outlet?

Seriously. During all that scrambling, how can no one break free?

It’s not an insult. But if someone what’s to bitch about how Stroud was the right pick over Bryce to the degree that they’d rather watch Stroud, then they shouldn’t be fans of our team. You can acknowledge Stroud was the right pick and be frustrated with how garbage we are without abandoning the team.

Where do you want him to throw the ball? No one was open before the offensive line gave uP the pressure. And then no one got open as Bryce was scrambling.

What does the past Panthers’ offensive schemes have anything to do with the present iteration? Frank Reich and company are not running an Air Coryell, so it’s asinine to point out that Bryce isn’t suited to operating they scheme.

Not really. Bryce is reading Mingo first before Tremble. Mingo is open so Bryce throws the ball. There is no reason for Bryce to progress to Tremble because Mingo is open. If Mingo doesn’t drift up field on the crosser, it’s a completion. Nothing wrong with Bryce’s process here. And nothing really wrong with the throw either. I’m a Bryce believer, I will admit that. But I will also be realistic and recognize he needs to play better. He’s not blameless in our offensive woes. But this play isn’t his fault. It was good quarterbacking process combined with poor route running combined with a great play by the DB.

Well, part of the issue is that it seems like 75% of our plays have routes specifically designed for the receiver to stop. We have to diversify and get rid of this heavy reliance on hook routes. They’re static routes that defense knows are coming and can just sit on them. I’m not giving the receivers a pass. They are not good. But the coaches aren’t catering to their strengths or putting them in a position to succeed. We need more crossers, slants, and mesh concepts where the natural actions of the routes help the receivers create separation. We’ll be limited in the depth we can throw them because we can’t trust the offensive line to hold up and that will mean things are still difficult, but better route combinations would go a long way toward boosting the offense.

Multiple things can be true; these aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. We can both have made a mistake in taking Young instead of Stroud, Young can still have the potential to be a good NFL QB, and our roster/personnel and coaching staff/schemes can be failing in providing Young an environment in which to flourish. Bryce needs to play better. His mechanics are inconsistent and he has missed reads. But some of this is the constant duress he is under due to consistently poor pass protection. And with a scheme with routes that don’t stress the defense and rely on a set of talent poor WRs to generate separation on their own, he often doesn’t have a place to go with ball. He has shown some positive traits. He’s shown the ability to take off and pick up a first down on a scramble. He’s shown good accuracy over the middle of the field at intermediate set when the play call actually does call crossing routes instead of static stick/curl/hooks and he gets relatively better protection. And most of all, he has shown some really good anticipation. I understand the frustration from the “Bryce sucks” crowd. He hasn’t been good. But those takes are too harsh on him in my opinion. Most of the pro-Bryce crowd isn’t sitting here saying he’s awesome. We’re just recognizing the positives he’s shown and the context of the suit show situation he’s in.

The roster is talent deficient, and that’s on the front office. But that’s not the biggest issue here. It’s the coaching. There are other shitty rosters in the league that are much more functional than our team because their coaches aren’t stuck in 1995 trying to implement a dinosaur offense.

I mean lordy, WTF is the offensive coaching staff trying to do? They breakdown the same film as JT. It’s all right there in the open. I understand that during the season, it’s difficult to make major changes to scheme and add new plays, and the players would need reps to get all that installed, but how on earth after seeing 8 games of this filth have we not tried to change up the routes combinations we are running and done something to fix to the pass protection issues? I know the coaches can’t make the players execute, and it’s on the offensive line to win their matchups. But whatever blocking scheme they’ve installed isn’t sticking. While some of it is a continuity and collective mesh issue with injuries to the line breeding a lack of familiarity and ability to communicate across the line, it’s clear what they are asking this group to do doesn’t suit their skill set. These guys were relatively effective last year. Players don’t fall off a cliff this drastically and this quickly from an individual ability performance. The coaches aren’t responsible for Bryce making three really bad throws, but holy hell this is some damning tape. They need to make changes or be fired. Bryce has flashed some really good traits when given the opportunity, but he’s playing on hard mode. Our issues are far and away mostly on the coaching. The front office hasn’t done a good job with resource management and roster construction, but there are other talent deficient teams in the league that are getting better results because their coaches aren’t stuck in 1995.