Icege

Doing fairly well tyty Studying for certifications, son just finished up his first season of soccer, wife is on the other side of a mental health episode that had her down and out the last few weeks, and I'll be heading out of town to an event next week (that I was just added to the staff for!). I've had to cut down tremendously on getting my Panthers fix here, unfortunately. It is not worth attempting to research and create discussion threads anymore (which was what originally brought me to the Huddle). Now, threads are dominated by toxic regulars who go out of their way to repeat the same tired rhetoric in every thread without ever actually contributing to the discussion. It wouldn't be so bad if mods weren't also discouraging discussion by doing the same thing. Hopefully the team finds a way to start winning and we can go back to hating the mainstream sports media instead of ourselves + each other.

Yo, Jimmy G mentoring Corral for a year? Yes pls

Ioannidis is an upgrade from Jones. YGM is coming into his 3rd year and looks to be more than a competent replacement for Fox. Burns and Brown are solid. LB-wise, Littleton is better than what was rolled out last year at MLB. Shaq is that dude. Luvu backed up Reddick well. The loss of Reddick sucks, but there are upgrades everywhere else. Woods will also allow Chinn to play down in the box more.

In before, "this coaching staff can't win with any amount of talent" EDIT: Damn, just missed it.

Already expensive enough to have to travel to Charlotte to see the team play

I think Mays makes the roster, though he might not be a part of the starting group (my prediction there is Ekwonu, Christensen, Bozeman, Corbett, and Moton). Now pick 3 to 4 players from below and we've got our OL group: Deonte Brown Dennis Daley Michael Jordan Pat Elflein Cameron Erving Mike Horton Sam Tecklenburg Austen Pleasants tbh I'd be okay with just taking Brown and two traffic cones at this point

I would hope that a game 7 playoff game was more electric than a regular season game during a losing season.

Cue the douchenozzles with their, "iF He GeTS PaiD MiLLioNs He CaN TaKe THe CRiTiCiSM," responses Tarik's tenacity is remarkable. I hope things turn around for him and his family sooner rather than later.

Got curious about the QB coaching he's had since HS and took a quick peek: Marques Tuiasosopo - Former Univ of Washington QB, 2001 Rose Bowl MVP. Currently at Rice. Was Sam's QB coach his first season at USC. Tyson Helton - Passing game coordinator + QB coach at USC for Sam's final two seasons. Current head coach for Western Kentucky where his OC is Tee Martin, who was also Sam's OC at USC. Western Kentucky was where 2022 QB prospect Bailey Zappe played. Jeremy Bates - Sam's first NFL OC. Hasn't had any work since then. Dowell Loggains - Current TE coach for Arkansas, was Sam's QB coach & OC during Adam Gase's tenure. Apparently was the QB coach for CLE and campaigned for them to draft Johnny Manziel. Sean Ryan - QB coach with the Panthers. While Dowell Loggains and Jeremy Bates are probably not the best way to welcome rookies to the league, he had some decent coaching during the 2017 + 2018 USC football seasons. From what we have seen from QBs under Sean Ryan's watch, I'm not exactly impressed. Sam definitely got dealt a poo hand in the NFL, but he also hasn't really shown much aside from when everything falls apart he seems to have a horseshoe lodged somewhere.

I can understand that perspective. He definitely had the physical tools, but I don't think he sees the game as a QB (nor does he love it enough to learn how to). I expect him to show flashes (a.k.a. the "magic" in his game), but ultimately I expect him to not be able to maintain it. That's unfortunately been a constant throughout his career.

Sam Darnold is what happens when teams insist on swinging on a QB in the top 5 simply because it's a position of need. Thank goodness the Panthers didn't follow that train of thought.

While I'm excited about the offense this upcoming season, the better word for how I feel about the defense is interested. I'm very interested to see if YGM has developed into a starting DE for the defense as well as just how much of a drop-off we're going to have from the SLB position with Reddick being replaced by Luvu + Smith. Horn coming back makes the loss of Gilmore insignificant, and Ioannidis is also an upgrade over Jones. Wilson/Littleton are definite upgrades over Carter as well. Plus we'll have Woods + Chinn at the safety positions (and Jeremy in his natural SS position).

I'm still in utter shock that just about two months ago we were teased with the possibility of this starting OL after Corbett + Bozeman signed in the offseason. It still doesn't feel real. If Bozeman is retained, this very well could be the starting OL for the next 3 years... We've come a long way from a different starting offensive line combination every week where our starters then are at best back-ups now.