Icege

We've been getting excellent production out of the front 4 while the back-ups have been doing well also. Nixon was said early on to be the steal of the draft (though Trey Smith might be the guy on that one), Roy as mentioned earlier basically stuffed the Aints by himself on a drive, YGM is a young guy with a high ceiling that flashes at least once a game, and Haynes has developed into a great rotational pass rusher. Best part for me? All but two of those guys (Jones, Fox) are draft picks and we have two young guys that we've invested draft picks in to potentially replace them with (Hoskins, Johnson). Fingers are crossed we can build an OL in a similar fashion!

OH IT'S TIME BAY BAY

I thought we would see more of Christensen and Brown on the field with the starting unit.

Mitchell Schwartz is going to be an interesting guy to look at should he decide to play next year. He'll have had extra time to recover from back surgery and was playing well up until going down. Wouldn't mind bringing him in to compete if we can get a fair deal put together for both parties.

Can't help but wonder if Matt Rhule sold Phil Snow as a Dick Lebeau-esque type of guy to Tepper to appeal to the Steelers background.

Keep in mind the rule of 10: If something goes well, 1 person hears about it. If something goes poorly, 10 people hear about it. That's what we're seeing here. The position with the most questions is the OL. While some still want a long term LT, for the most part a lot of the early criticism leveled at Erving has not seemed as warranted as that leveled at Elflein. Erving has given up a couple of plays, yes, but has otherwise done very well. Elflein, on the other hand, has been noticeably bad. He loses more than he wins, and is at his best when being asked to combo block. Hopefully Elflein heals quickly from the hammy. I'm eager to see if Daley or Christensen can earn the starting position, especially should the injury look to be nagging.

Smart move. Hammies are super tricky and with the 2021 IR rules that allow unlimited player returns so long as they miss games, Elflein can be given time to get healthy without being forced to play thru it or take up a spot when he needs to rest. Also a great opportunity for Daley to show whether or not he can start or if Christensen is able to be a quick study.

Going to be fun to see how the team travels. If the defense can continue to suffocate the run and force the rookie to deal with our pass rush + coverage then the offense is going to get their chances with the ball to put points up. If the Texans defense is as sus as the stats show, we should be in for a good night.

Looking at the first play now and Ramczyk isn't even on the field because he's their starting RT, not starting DT. #70 is the DT lined up over Elflein who makes the tackle. That defender is Ryngo. Ryngo, as you stated, made the tackle according to the gamebook. Don't let your sympathy for scapegoats get your goat on this one. The dude is bad and has scored as the weakest player on the OL two weeks in a row now. Is he everything that was wrong? No, but he is at best a quality back-up interior lineman. The man had 23 snaps and nearly a third of those snaps he lost (and lost bad). If he's on the field, that means you're going to be having him get blown up at least once every set of downs. The turnover you're referencing was also a missed chip block by Terrace Marshall Jr. Look at the play design: the DE is covering the TE to Moton's outside shoulder. Further outside is the blitzing DB. Moton takes the DE since the TE free releases. TMJ came in motion and barely gets a shoulder on the DB as he's releasing to the flat. It's one thing to blame last year's record exclusively on Teddy, Shaq for the contract Hurney gave him, etc etc... but Elflein has been bad. Is he losing us games? No, but he is losing drives for the team. I hope he succeeds too, but he hasn't shown much to make me believe that he'll be a consistent presence on the OL.

Very interested to see this as my eyes/gut tells me that Terrace Marshall Jr is getting a bulk of his usage on 3rd downs. Watch it be CMC tho

Some key things missing from your recollection: That season's OL was Oher-Norwell-Kalil-Turner-Williams/Remmers. Remmers was a sieve, but the OL itself was super solid. Oher was also due to start at LT the following season after a Super Bowl bound 2015, but had a career ending concussion in the preseason. Kawann Short was set to potentially hit free agency, which meant that the team needed a pass rushing DT more than an LT as Oher already fulfilled that role and Williams was already showing that he could start at RT. The defense lost Josh Norman to free agency, Charles Tillman to retirement, and Benwikere had an injury that ended up changing the course of his career. The cupboards were bare at CB. Olsen was Cam's security blanket. Gettleman had success drafting "insurance" for TD & KB in Shaq & Funchess seeing that the team made the SB the year he drafted them. He tried again the following season and horribly failed. Thank goodness for 2017 when he netted probably one of the best drafts in franchise history. As mentioned earlier, this was under Jerry Richardson, David Gettleman, and Ron Rivera. Different head coach, different general manager, and different owner. The franchise itself isn't sentient. It goes the direction that leadership points it in.

Pat Elflein has indeed sucked so far

Pat Elflein was on the field for only 23 snaps. Surely, he couldn't have screwed up that much in such a short amount of time, could he? LET'S FIND OUT The very first play, Elflein gets pushed back. Paradis and Miller set up a great combo block to seal off the DL before Paradis pivots to the LB. CMC would've had a nice hole to run thru had Elflein held his block. Instead, it goes for 2 as Elflein's man gets the tackle. 3rd play of the game. Here's Pat Elflein blocking air. Ian Thomas also almost got Sam injured when he failed on his block and the dude crawled into the back of Sam's knee. He has also been noticeably bad while blocking. Here is Pat getting owned by a DB Fun fact: Elflein at the point of this play has almost lost as many reps as he's been asked to combo block (4:5) Lawd, baptized by the LB before being trampled... Aaand the next play he gets yeeted by another LB Here he is blocking the air left behind by the Saints defender 7 out of 23 snaps Elflein lost and lost badly. This dude is bad and we desperately need to see who between Daley and Christensen can shore up the weak spot on the OL.

Getting to watch the game now (missed it yesterday, was out most of the weekend) and the first play of the game for the defense is Morgan Fox bull rushing Armstead backwards before thumping Jameis in the chest. They threw a flag on the play tho. Whack. But he did make helmet-to-helmet contact.

idk, I was just trying to protect myself from @Mr. Scot reminding me that Morgan does the pro scouting while Fitterer is the college guy.

From NFL.com: Panthers DE Morgan Fox recorded 8 QB pressures, 0.5 sack, TO forced by pressure on 17 pass rushes (47.1 pressure pct). Another Fitterer/Morgan success story?

Duke said Slater was OT1 for him last year. MAKE LINDERBAUM A PANTHER!!

This was godlike omg

I mean, Teddy's a good dude, a good teammate, and a good QB. Fans had already decided that they didn't like him because he was Cam's replacement. You've got the same users desperately pushing a narrative that Teddy was a snake because he said that a call took awhile to get in yet were supportive of Cam when he was talking about suggestion boxes after a loss to the Cowboys. There were folks that hated Cam's guts that took that whole situation and turned it into him throwing his teammates under the bus because he said "We keep finding ways to keep games close." The equivalent with Teddy is the, "He's a bad teammate because he fuged up DJ's ankle and blamed the coaches" when there's more than enough to show that wasn't the case at all. But hey, some folks just need a scapegoat and fortunately for them they got it in Bridgewater. Why he continues to be their scapegoat though is just... weird.

The UI looks like it was designed by the NFL's competition committee in that it makes zero sense.

I wouldn't say that Elflein is the scapegoat for the season. That will surely be Darnold. However, Elflein is the worst player on the OL and it isn't close. Is he as bad as some of us feared? Not necessarily, but is he still getting drives blown up on multiple snaps? Absolutely. Erving has been surprisingly decent, but the Panthers are also getting the ball out much faster than most teams (at least that seemed to be the game plan to neutralize the pass rush of the Jets and take advantage of match ups against their young DBs). Elflein was still noticeably losing reps.

Nincompoop still salty about this scramble by Cam I see.

They said during preseason that they'd have it back up in time for Week 1 of the regular season. Hasn't happened yet tho.

I've been fiending for this dude to be a Panther since looking at center prospects from last season. He is a BEAST!!!

@ncfanIS ON BOARD THE TYLER LINDERBAUM TRAIN I SEE