Panthering

Mingo has promise but I don't love drafting WRs who aren't good at running routes in the first few rounds

He's on video tapping Fitterer's shoulder in the 2022 draft saying, "It's time." 

This was for that sweet trade up to snag Corral lol.

4 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

See I think we are doing a rebuild, even if it's not acknowledged to be so.

I know this is where people disagree with me, but that's still my belief.

Not sure how you can reach that conclusion after trading away a 1st next year and denying 2 1sts from the Rams for Burns last season. Unless you're saying we wanted the rebuild to start with a rookie QB, and us standing pat and not trading anything away since is a rebuild... which I guess is what we should be doing but holy smokes. 

Rookie on a bad team had a bad game, that's all I can cling to right now (which isn't much at all).

15 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Smith-Marsette and Blackshear brought some juice in the return game today. Honestly one of the few bright spots today.

I noticed this too before I cut the game off for good before halftime. Thought the defense was fighting too and Burns was making his presence known. 

8 minutes ago, Carl Spackler said:

I thought he looked great against Houston. Commanded the offense, made some damn good throws spinning out of trouble or hitting guys in stride, and made the plays to win. Yesterday was the first "what the hell was that, Bryce?" game. Wonder if he'll bounce back. 

I missed a lot of the Houston game so couldn't comment on that. Bryce is a rookie who's allowed to have bad games, he will bounce back! But I want the confident version of him out there testing his limits, not the scared indecisive guy. 

13 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

I wouldn't go that far on either the franchise or Young.

It's one thing to say Stroud might be better, another thing entirely to say Young is bad.

Young still has plenty of strengths that can be built on.

I agree and I am over-reacting but are you going to disagree that Bryce is limited at the NFL level? Because that's all I'm saying. He can work around his deficiencies, and the Panthers can get better, NFL teams can turn it around in a hurry because it's happened quite a lot. But are you expecting that to happen here? Under this ownership? With this head coach? With this rookie QB? With no 1st round pick next year? That's the real problem I'm having with all of this, it's based on what we know right here right now. It's tough! 

Still going to tune in a little and watch, because at the end of the day Bryce intrigues me and I want to watch him grow. But we got to get something here and there, not what we saw yesterday against the worst defense in the league right now. Outside of Bryce, it appears we can't draft or develop talent at all, and I've always viewed that when a team cannot draft or develop any talent, then that always hits said team very hard in the following 2-3 years. 

Look at our draft return this year right now. Early returns are absolutely brutal right now, room to improve everywhere, but brutal right now. Mingo had 1 catch yesterday for 5 yards against the worst defense in the league. Downs, who we would've taken in the 2nd round if we had a freaking fan vote online for it (we should try that, would be fun as hell), is an immediate impact starter in the NFL. These kinds of misses are going to bite us these next 2-3 years before they're sadly released into the waiver wire void where all draft busts go. 

Fixes I'd do, time to focus on beefing up the line inside out RIGHT NOW. Cut your losses on Ickey at LT and move him to LG where he belongs, let him build a rapport with Bozeman and keep the right side intact. We actually have okay depth at the inside spots if we do that. Run whoever at LT and let it ride from there, we've got to turn back to a bull rushing team the rest of the year. 

Get Laviska back in there asap when he returns, screens all day to him. Let Mingo continue to develop, but test his butt on hard routes and find out if he's a true 1 sooner rather than later. Get Tremble more looks since he can block and catch a little, and keep doing your thing until the season ends. 

6 minutes ago, WhoKnows said:

I wish I wasn’t there with you but yesterday was awful. The second pick 6 and Young’s jump throw made me really feel like the height will always be an issue. Also, the first pick 6 was the same. The angle of the throw made it go right over Sanders to a defender a few yard behind him. I felt like week 1 that he couldn’t see Bates on at least one of the interceptions. We know he doesn’t have a cannon and has no weapons outside Theilin but I do feel like we’re going to try and build around him and he’ll never be that guy and we’ll have a decade of under .500 seasons before our next try. 

I turned the game off before the first pick six even happened, because I was just so annoyed with watching the Panthers and the whiplash of watching them after the awesome CJ Stroud game was a little too much for me to handle. Just took my dog on a long walk on a beautiful day outside, which was great.

You know what's funny? I still am not even that concerned about his height, he's prove he can and will pepper the middle of the field when he's feeling it and can show a decent feel for the game. It's actually all about his arm and footwork right now for me combined with his decision making. He makes up with his weaker arm with his toes-y footwork and does the jump throw thing you mentioned but he's done that his whole career. So, is that simply never going to translate? Or can he work to improve on that? I have no reason to believe Bryce won't work hard to improve. But his decision making to me has been the most disappointing, I expected the most "pro-ready" rookie QB to be extremely decisive and confident, even in failure, which is actually what I saw in the first ATL game. He got burned twice by Jessie Bates, but I loved that he was pushing it hard and testing his limits. I swear on my life I haven't seen that same kid since, and his confidence is shot now. 

4 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

How they can spend that capital on a qb and not see that his arm is subpar is mind blowing 

I just don't understand what these scouts and everyone saw on film. Like I know that QB is also about being a leader, being a motivator, being the face of the franchise, all this stuff. But at the end of the day the freakin' game is played on the field, why is it clear to me as an average joe on the couch that I can simply think, "I like this CJ Stroud kid, he's got poise, he's got size, he's got a good arm, he can scramble if he wants, he makes good decisions, he checks almost all the boxes for a prototypical NFL Quarterback, which is exactly what you want at the #1 spot ESPECIALLY IF YOU TRADED A FUTURE 1ST AND A WR FOR IT!!".

I simply do not understand how that gets botched so bad. Here was my average joe thoughts on Bryce Young, "I like this Bryce Young kid, he's a gamer, he's tough, he plays at Bama, he won the freakin' heisman, he makes plays out of nothing. BUT, due to what we gave up for this pick, at his size I simply can't take this guy at #1 over what CJ presents. It's too much of a risk and I think the size plus arm talent notches CJ just above him anyways."

Like what? I know these dudes that get paid to watch the film saw it all on there so what gives? My thinking? Fitterer and Tepper just fell in love with Bryce's intangibles all over off the field that the film got minimized a bit too much. Bryce is smart as hell and can talk in the room better than CJ probably can, no doubt in my mind, but good god man, game is played between the white lines guys. 

I'm just so annoyed with everyone involved here, we as fans are so screwed for the next 3-4 years like I said. I haven't even mentioned the fact that we can't even draft anywhere else very well either. 

Where I'm at midseason:

This franchise is doomed for the next 3-4 seasons minimum. There is no choice now but to eat this poop-sandwich that Tepper and his yes-men up top have created. You simply cannot pay the price we did to get to #1 and completely whiff on the QB, just can't happen. BY may improve, and he has my support, but he's so clearly limited at this level that I'm just not holding my breath for him to become a top 10 guy. 

100% suited for a rookie qb for the fans, the ownership and front office decided to finally give us one with a horrible supporting cast around him. Oh and they probably took the wrong guy and paid an embarrassing price for it. 

Miles Sanders should be cut right now. What a bum

Stroud was so awesome today, but it felt like Bowles didn’t do a damn thing to switch anything up against a freaking rookie lol. I’d be livid if he was my coach and I watched that. 

It was noted on The Roar podcast but I missed a lot of this game, wasn't it all operationally much better pre-snap? As in the call got into the huddle quicker, we broke out of the huddle with time on the play clock which I think helps Bryce and this offense, then we used some amount of motion right? That's something to build on and so is a game winning drive in front of your home crowd, that's always good.

This felt like it was always going to be the outcome there, that hire was awful from the get-go.

Nice, hope he can contribute.

He's worth keeping around as annoying as it can be to watch him play

I'll take it to be honest. Probably came from Tepper too 

Im actually excited to watch that game for the drama. It’ll be interesting that’s for sure. 

... and as we've seen so far there's very little chance that will ever happen. Hell if I was the owner of an NFL team I'd be all up in the business too. It's his toy!

He's definitely got this entire season for me even though I'm pretty sure we took the wrong guy and even next year so we can build on this. But it's just bleak right now there's no doubt about it. Like everyone else has said he's just not "popping" in any category when you watch on TV as a casual. #1 picks should always pop on the screen as they'd have an elite trait but I'm not seeing it. 

Alright grandpa time to take the keys from you for a little bit....

Appreciate you putting this all together for us. 

If true and he does something drastic then he's going to rubber stamped as one of the worst owners in the NFL instead of being thought about as one by his own fanbase and nobody will want to play/coach here. Nice! But also.... the product on the field this season has been unacceptable so I kind of get it. 

1 hour ago, Sir Big Spurr said:

You don’t throw rookie olinemen out there to learn on the fly when you’ve traded the farm for a tiny QB. I swear, I really don’t think our front office has a clue what they’re doing. 

We literally have no choice in that due to injuries