Icege

I'm jacked every opening day! Plenty of storylines/narratives to follow. Personally, I'm eager to see how the young guys develop (XL, TMac, Bryce, Wallace, Scourton, Ransom, Sanders, Umanmielen), what adjustments are made to the defensive scheme (if any), and how the offense opens up in year two under Canales.

6 - 9 wins with the biggest factors being: getting lucky with starters remaining healthy defense gelling together quickly young guys on offense turning it up

PANTHERS INACTIVES TE Ja'Tavion Sanders CB Mike Jackson WR Tetairoa McMillan RB Rico Dowdle S Tre'von Moehrig CB Jaycee Horn QB Bryce Young OLB Nic Scourton QB Andy Dalton WR Xavier Legette WR Adam Thielen S Nick Scott CB Chau Smith-Wade RB Chuba Hubbard LB Trevin Wallace G Robert Hunt OLB DJ Johnson LB Christian Rozeboom C Austin Corbett G Cade Mays LG Damien Lewis RT Taylor Moton LT Ikem Ekwonu TE Tommy Tremble TE Mitchell Evans WR Brycen Tremayne OLB Patrick Jones II DT Turk Wharton DE LaBryan Ray DE A'Shawn Robinson DT Derrick Brown DT Bobby Brown III OLB DJ Wonnum Mitchell Evans and Brycen Tremayne inactive? LaBryan Ray too?

I've got an event @ 7:30pm tonight, so I'm probably going to head out in an hour so that I can get there by 7pm and catch the beginning of the game. NFL+ and NFL Pro have been pretty good about getting the replays up soon after the games are done. Figure I'll have plenty to watch while waiting for opening day.

Turk signed a 3-year, $45M deal but in actuality it's at worst a 2-year, $30.25M w/ a $14.5M signing bonus. His ~$15M AAV puts him at 16th out of all DTs currently (DB is 4th). Milton Williams, for comparison, has an AAV of $26M on a 4-year, $104M deal that had $51M guaranteed at signing. His deal has an out after two years as well, meaning that it can also end up being a 2yr, $55M or 3yr, $79M deal. I can't remember which content creator (maybe Brett Kollman?) made it but there was a really good video on YouTube calling out how reporting the full details of deals was done more for the media to get reactions and eyeballs on the story.

Timestamp of Idzik listing TMac, XL, AT, and Coker as the locks and everybody else fighting for the remaining spots. Saids that they would love 6 - 7 considering the talent that they have. WR Coach Moore mentions JHJ, Canales asks about Renfrow. No mention of Moore nor Tremayne included. That might be more of a behind closed doors type of discussion.

Let's fn go Tommy! One step closer to a healthy 1st string for opening day.

That's a weird way to thank you for Joe Judge.

Mike Davis tells a story about during his time with Carolina under Matt Rhule how in hindsight he was realizing that they were doing nonsense like live goal line drills in season the very first day CMC came back from injury and what happened as a result... Once I finish up Raw Room I'll get a summary for Processing Blue put together!

Mike Davis talking about how nobody played as much as CMC and how he personally felt about it

Mike Davis is a damn fool "...so cause of that poo, I got benched, right?"

Chris Jones being the next DT taken after Vernon Butler puts a little extra stank on that nut shot.

Funny enough, I was just listening to Mike Davis talk about how he doesn't like Steve Spurrier and some of the grimey stuff they did at USC with him in charge.

With how aggressively the team used to leak info, I think that if Bryce's leadership was an issue we would have heard about it.

I'm happy with TMac, but Tyler Warren was last season's Tyler Linderbaum for me in that he was at a position that wasn't one of the five pillars but he was the best player at his position AND one of the top talents in the draft. I cannot fuging wait for the Panthers to start winning again so that those guys fall to us like they seem to for teams like Baltimore & Philadelphia.

Still working on consuming all of these so I don't have summaries available, but I figured there might be another Huddler or three trying to kill time before tonight's final preseason game. Panthers Blueprint: Training Camp The in-house produced Blueprint series has given behind-the-scenes look on the field and off. Start the day with Robert Hunt's family, be in the morning meetings, mic'd up players during practice (Jaycee, Rozeboom, Icky, and Bryce), roster evaluations by the staff, and plenty of camp highlights capping off with FanFest. Processing Blue (Mike Kaye & Alex Zietlow Mike and Alex are back talking about a variety of topics including but not limited to: joint practice + preseason game vs. Houston, Trey Hendrickson trade rumors involving Carolina, training camp awards, draft pick draft, and various thoughts about the team. Jordan & Jake 706: Opening Day Another in-house Panthers' production, the most recent episode of Jordan and Jake talk about how to properly balance intensity in practice, react to the starters being shutdown for the preseason finale, share their thoughts on the newest Panther QB, and more. Raw Room - Ep 278 - Gas Pedal (ft. Mike Davis) Assistant special teams' coach Darren Bates' Raw Room podcast has former Panthers' RB Mike Davis on his weekly podcast. I'm about halfway through this one and it's been a lot of fun. The Raw Room guys (DB, his friend Alex Sweets, former Eagles/Chargers OT King Dunlap, and former Atlanta DB Jalen Collins) are hilarious and Mike fits right in. They talk about his football experience coming up, decommitting from Florida and how he decided on South Carolina, and more. Warning: If you're the type of person that is easily distracted by accents, despite XL being on the team, you might have issues with understanding the Memphis dialect. If you don't care about how somebody talks, just what they're talking about, tune in!

Damn... Might just be due to it happening to Slater and now McGary but it feels like there was another player or two that just signed extensions and have already suffered significant injuries.

Mind posting a link to a scientific study that states leadership is genetically linked to one's height?

WR room is going to be interesting because no matter what, the team is keeping 6. There's just too much talent not to. Who that is will of course depend on finances, fit, and more. X: Tetairoa McMillan, David Moore, Brycen Tremayne, Ja'Seem Reed Z: Xavier Legette, Jalen Coker, TJ Luther, Kobe Hudson Slot: Adam Thielen, Hunter Renfrow, Jimmy Horn Jr, Jacolby George TMac/XL/AT/Coker/Renfrow feel like locks... Considering that, getting a guy to back up TMac that can play ST is super important. David Moore has been that guy, but Brycen Tremayne might be pushing him... Trevor Etienne looking good on returns might have been the worst thing to happen to JHJ's chances to make the roster... Personally, I'd flip the coin between Moore/Tremayne and try to stash the other on PS.

Spotrac says that Tremble's cap hit for 2025 is $3.85M with a dead cap of $6M. Next season though, he'll have a $6.5M cap hit but the dead cap number would only be $2.16M. Mitchell Evans hasn't looked good while James Mitchell has looked better (imo). Tremble is still the best guy in that room until JT0 becomes more consistent.

Would love for Crumedy to make the roster but Roberts has played pretty well. I'd be hype to keep James Mitchell.

I think week 1 is a great test for both cat teams. Jags have a surprisingly solid roster with some names on that defense. They've got a rookie HC + rookie DC, which is good for Carolina, but Evero and Coen already met twice last season and it didn't exactly go what I'd call well. Still... there's some match-ups to keep our eyes on: Campinile (Jags DC) comes from GB and was their run game coordinator on defense. The Jaguars have a stacked front seven as well. It'll be a really good test for the Panthers OL and run game. The Jaguars' offense has some guys, and Coen put up better numbers than Canales in his one season at TB, but they're going to have a similarly balanced attack that will allow the defense to rev up against a persistent ground game early. How will the secondary contain BTJ? Is Jaycee going to shadow him? That's going to give us a lot of insight into how different the scheme is from last year (if at all). Will the offense be able to get those chunk plays against a solid Jags defense that PFF graded top-5 in overall Defense, #1 in pressure, top-5 in coverage, and top-15 against the run?

There are some tough decisions that I'm eager to see the results of... Does Blackshear sneak on to the roster as RB4? Does the team go with 4 TEs or just 3 again? And has Mitchell Evans done enough to defend his roster spot from James Mitchell? Who is WR6 and is there a WR7? TMac, XL, Coker, and AT seem to be locks imo and I'm assuming Renfrow also makes it due to all of the camp praise. Who makes it between Brycen Tremayne, Jimmy Horn Jr, and David Moore? If the team goes with 7 WRs, which one of those three doesn't make it? Jacolby George and Emani Bailey both have not gotten a lot of game time. Could the Panthers be trying to hide them so that they can be stashed on the PS? Do they go with 10 OL instead of 9? Who makes it out of Walton, Carter, and Kingston? DL locks are DB, BB3, ARob, and Turk. That leaves Jaden Crumedy, Cam Jackson, Sam Roberts, Shy Tuttle, and LaBryan Ray all competing for the final 1 - 3 spots. Does DJ Johnson get IR'd and Thomas Incoom make the roster as EDGE5? What in the fuuuuuuuuuuuuck is going to happen at LB? Only locks seem to be Wallace, Rozeboom, and Cherelus (Wallace has mentioned in media how Cherelus has been big bro for him on the team). Rhattigan had some good moments against Houston, Martin-Scott is an SC guy, Krys Barnes has popped on defense and on special teams, and Windmon got time starting for the team last season. Are two of those guys going to make it or are the Panthers poaching from another team's cuts? CB5... who is it? Do they go with the 4 expected safeties or bring in a 5th? Has Ransom done enough to take the start from Nick Scott?

Yea, if the team looks like hot ass the first two weeks again it's not going to be a happy time. It'll be especially frustrating if the team starts slow but finishes strong but at the same time that's probably what will happen with the new defense + young weapons getting acclimated... I expect that to take until halfway through the season, and I don't believe that extra preseason snaps would help that much to speeding up the timeline. Even if it meant they gelled a game or two sooner, there's the added risk of injury on a team that's still trying to build depth after years of bad decisions. Now if they start slow and have the same approach in 2026 with a more complete team I'm going to have some not so nice questions (and opinions) for/about the staff.

Just wanted to mention that the Bears were not doing vanilla playcalling. It was very reminiscent to Mike McDaniels' first season in Miami where he showed his hand and then in year two everything seemed to come to a halt. It's too early to make the same determination for Ben Johnson's future, but it was very apparent that he was treating preseason like the regular season. Some fans like that mentality for understandable reasons. However, one of the risks to that is exposing your tendencies to the rest of the league at the beginning. Last season was to see if Bryce could be the guy. At the beginning, it looked like the damage from his rookie season had done him in. Mid-way through, he's back and looking good. At the end, he's still ascending. This season, the focus is on rebuilding the defense while developing our young weapons. Winning is always the #1 desire, but I don't know if we're deep enough on both sides of the ball yet to demand excellence yet. 2026 we'll have cap space, some expiring contracts to make decisions on, and knowledge of whether or not there's going to need to be a change at QB.