tukafan21

That's hilarious and not something I'd heard before

He's going to kill it for someone next year as an OC, probably for a defensive minded HC. Very well could see him getting the job in Buffalo if Brady ends up landing an HC job this offseason.

Not sure why the Bengals would fire Taylor, it's not his fault Burrow can't stay healthy and the GM doesn't know how to sign defensive players or offensive linemen.

Feels like a game where Moehrig could shine in the role of spying Fields.

lol we're not, I think by rule, if you haven't had a winning season in almost a decade, you can't have a trap game

That's wild I really wonder how many players have played 10 combined years in college and the NFL without ever being on a team with a winning record, that's gotta be so demoralizing.

Yes, he's a tier above them, but you also touched on the money side of it. With T-Mac locked in as our #1 on a rookie contract for a few more years, I'd much rather use that money that would be needed for DJ on our defense and develop Coker into our #2. Especially given his contract situation as an UDFA, as his contract is up at the end of this year but we can keep him around for a 3rd team controlled year on the real cheap. Which means we probably could get him to sign a very reasonable extension this offseason to give him a little more money while giving us a bargain contract for what he provides. DJ's contract is north of $20 million for the next 5 years, why pay that for your #2 WR with the needs we have on defense and you have guys like Coker, XL, and Horn on rookie contracts who very well could combine to be a serviceable 2-4 WRs behind a stud in T-mac? I love DJ and he'd be a great fit on this team as our #2, but the money side of it just makes absolutely zero sense, that's all it comes down to for me on this one. And no, I don't see the Bears wanting XL back in that trade, because they drafted Burden, who is essentially a better version of what XL provides, a player you want to get the ball into their hands and let them go to work.

This Chuba isn't getting traded, but Rico very well could be in a few weeks if he keeps playing well in a tandem backfield with Chuba also playing well. I think we'd end up going with a two headed monster in that case, but with Rico being on a one year deal, it does open up the possibility of a contending team offering up a decent pick for him. Depending on the recovery of Hampton, I could see someone like the Chargers giving us a 4th for him if they think he could put them over the top, he would fit nicely in a Harbaugh system I think. If it comes to that, we need to make that trade, as I can't see any way we re-sign Rico with all our other needs and getting Brooks back too. And he's not going to get a contract big enough to get us any comp picks in return, especially if/when we sign a FA or two ourselves. So if we're not going to bring him back, the prudent decision would really be to get a draft pick for him at the deadline.

T-Mac and DJ really would be a nice pairing that compliments each other well. However... I'm not interested, as much as I do still love DJ and would love to see him as a Panther again, but in a vacuum, not in reality. Trading for DJ means either XL or Coker get no development the rest of the year, and possibly even both, and really it would effectively end Horn's season too, as he'd be back to not getting a uniform on game days (and no, I can't see them trading DJ to get XL back, because again, they're a team with other holes too, no reason to trade a better WR to get a worse one back). If we were a true contender this year, then sure, bringing him in would make sense, but since we're not, we need to ensure those two develop this year by getting the targets they need to get better. Not to mention we shouldn't be spending money on a WR contract right now anyways, not when we have so many on rookie deals and have so many other holes on the team that need quality players. If we're trading for any vets and bringing on contracts, it should be for a LB or DB, I wouldn't even want a pass rusher as I don't want to take snaps away from Scourton or Princely, as we need to develop our young promising talent, not bury them behind vets again.

100% and a completely different discussion. But once you brought him back this year, firing him 6 games into the season just seems dumb to me.

Fair analogy, but if you want to take it a step further, firing your HC this early into his career is like buying that car, not taking care of it for the first month you have it, and then tossing the keys to a 16 year old who just got his license and doesn't know how to properly drive or maintain a car like that either. Neither are good, one just seems worse to me.

Your point was that you play to win the games. My point was that that's a statement you make when you can't see the forest through the trees. Yes, you do play to win the games, but you're also playing to win THE game, as in the Super Bowl. And just playing to win the games at hand at the expense of getting better so you can contend for THE game, isn't a long term successful strategy, it's how franchises like ours are unable to have back to back winning seasons. And Herm's career "success" in comparison to his quote is a picture perfect example of exactly that. Just playing to win the game isn't going to help you down the line, it's immediate happiness for long term disappointment.

Very true. I just think in a situation like this, even if the HC is a problem, firing him this early in your #1 overall pick's career is going to end up doing more harm than good. If you wanted a head start on other HC searches, that's fine, but fire him in Week 14 or something to accomplish that. Continuity, even with questionable coaching decisions, is better for a rookie than making this change and now having even worse coaches in charge of his development.

This one isn't me complaining, it's pointing out that we still missed an opportunity, I see them as very different things. I gave the players and coaches their props yesterday, I enjoyed watching that game and enjoying the win. But those things don't mean that I'm not going to ask questions when I see a stat like this and realize that even in a good win that I was happy with, there were still missed opportunities to help improve our players.

I think there is an argument to make that firing your offensive minded HC 6 games into your #1 draft pick's rookie season is going to hurt him more than help him. You know, kinda the exact same thing that happened to Bryce with Reich?

No, I'm starved for contention. If you can't see that and keep wanting to turn things like this back around on T-Mac, then you're just either being purposefully obtuse, or is a fan who is happy having 5-6 win seasons just because we're so used to the 3-4 win seasons and you like "just being better"

You mean the guy who took over a franchise that hadn't had a losing season in the previous 4 seasons... who proceeded to get his team into the playoffs in 3 of his first 4 seasons, only to win 2 games in said playoffs, to then go on to having a 54-74 career record and never won another playoff game after those first two? Who then after being fired from that job, took over a team that was 30-18 in the 3 seasons before he got the job, got into the playoffs that first season, lost their first postseasons game, and then went on to have a 6-26 record over the next 2 seasons? You're literally proving my point by bringing up someone who's claim to fame is that quote. If you just play to win the game, you're never going to be a successful franchise. You need to play to win the game while ALSO working to make your players better. Having the former without the latter is a picture perfect recipe to become a stagnant franchise. That's how you work towards being a winning franchise who can contend in the postseason. And sure, having a stagnant franchise that makes the playoffs every other season is better than what we currently are, but that's not what I strive for with our Panthers, I want to actually contend for championships in my lifetime.

That's a very incorrect statement right off the bat, coaches get fired for winning ugly all the time. Every coach of a playoff team that then gets fired, got fired because they won ugly and didn't improve their players enough to win in the postseason. Guys like Andy Reid have been fired for "winning ugly" like you said, because they kept winning in spite of the improvement of their players. Also, "this is a fanbase starved for wins" is a statement I also don't agree with, I'm not "starved for wins", I'm "starved for a winning and contending franchise" which are two VERY different things. If the team and fans just want to win some games, then that's a loser mentality, sorry, but it is. We should want to contend, not win a handful of games. Every time this comes up I point back to the Lions the last 5 years or so. They were losing games but improving every week while doing so a few years back. THAT is how you improve as a franchise and move the needle towards contending, not winning games ugly.

No it's not, there isn't a single coach who's only job is to win games, because no coach is going to win games unless they're also improving the quality of play out of their players. For coaches with contending teams, winning is their #1 job, but I think it's a more than reasonable take to say that coaches of not yet contending teams winning comes second to making your players better. We have 11 games left, if you gave me the option of winning all 11 of the games in terribly ugly fashion to where we don't improve the quality of our players vs we lose all 11 games, but do so in spectacular fashion where our players show significant improvement, I'm taking option B every time. Because option B is the path to future and long term success, while option A is a path to short term happiness at the expense of long term franchise stability. And yes, that is clearly an extreme example that could never actually play out in either way, but you still know what I mean. And no, it has nothing to do with draft position, it's about how good will these players be a year, 2 years, 3 years, etc, down the line, when you hope to be a true contending team, because nobody actually thinks we're that type of team this year unless you're literally crazy

Two completely different arguments, the YPC has literally zero bearing on what I'm saying here, it's the umber of pass attempts vs pass attempts 10+ yards downfield that is driving it. Throw 15-20 passes in a game like that, with the same 8 passes of 10+ yards downfield and I don't say a single thing about it. It's when you throw 25 passes that it becomes a question to me, which again, has nothing to do with the YPC, because we still threw it 25 times. Argue we should have only thrown 15 passes when we were running like that and I have no retort, as that is a perfectly valid argument.

I'll knock him for that, as his job isn't to only win games this year, it's also to improve his players. As winning at the expense of improving the players is a short term gain for long term pain. And again, this isn't me bashing the coaches like I've done in the past, just a tad disappointed that we let yet another opportunity for Bryce to work on the thing he struggles with pass by without taking advantage of it. He's never going to get better at passing downfield if we don't let him do it more, especially when we're playing the worst pass defense in the league. Just remember this game the next time we lose a game because we dinked and dunked the ball in the passing game and it never gave us a chance to be competitive because of it. Those aren't the games to work on those things, these are those games, just a missed opportunity in what was a good win, could have killed two birds with one stone but didn't take our shot.

I don't necessarily agree that they're "coaching to win the game" in that sense. If we were a contender with an established QB, then yes, you're "coaching to win the game" But if our coaches are only "coaching to win the game" every week, then they need to be replaced, immediately. This team is WAY too young with too many uncertain futures to only be worried about the game at hand every week. It's the literal reason Canales came out and said we need to play the younger defensive players more and why we cut DJ, because we need to improve the younger guys on an accelerated schedule. Sometimes you do things that may hurt your chances to win that week but will significantly increase your chances to win more in the future. With a team like ours, there has to be a balance of trying to win games while also trying to improve our players at the same time, and I see games/stats like this and see a somewhat missed opportunity, that's it.

Just because it wasn't necessary doesn't mean it was the right decision. And look, I get it, the coaches and players just want to win the game and are doing what they see best to do so every week. But as a fan who knows we aren't going to be a SB or even likely a playoff contender this season, I'd like to see them take advantage of opportunities during the season to allow Bryce to improve on the things he doesn't do well. This game was one of those opportunities, maybe even more so with how well the running game was working. As we could have done more play action to give him the extra half second to throw it further downfield, that's all. I've been one of the more critical posters against both Bryce and Canales, but I also already gave both of them props for this game. I'm just a tiny bit frustrated at us not taking advantage of another situation to help actually improve Bryce's biggest weakness, as this seemed like the game to do it. Neither Bryce nor the team will have long term or high level success if he can't throw the ball down the field more than 10 yards, that's really not even debatable. You have a game against the worst pass defense in the league, you throw it 25 times, but only 8 of them 10+ yards downfield, to me, that's just bad math.

Hence my point... if the team is still determined to make Bryce happen, you have to take advantage of the opportunities to help him grow as a player. You only get 17 games a season, and only a handful of them against a pass defense as bad as the Cowboys are this year. You play the worst pass defense in the league, throw it 25 times, but only 8 of them more than 10 yards downfield. That's bad math right there, that percentage needs to be higher in a game like this against a defense like that. It's a similar argument to what the majority of our fans made in the preseason and the lack of Bryce snaps in those games. You're not taking advantage of the opportunities to improve his play when they are presented to you, this is just a different reason for it, but same general concept.

Has nothing to do with the yards per carry, like at all. It's that 17 of his 25 passes were less than 10 yards downfield, against the worst pass defense in the league. It's another game where Bryce's passing attempts were mostly dink and dunk type of passes. I wasn't asking us to throw it more yesterday, hell, if anything, you could make an argument that with how we were running it, we should have thrown it less than 25 times anyways. It's that we still threw it 25 times but only had 8 of them where the ball was thrown 10+ yards downfield. Our schedule takes a dramatic shift after this week, even next week against the Jets, they have a decent defense for a team that hasn't won a game yet. This was a great opportunity to allow Bryce to throw the ball downfield more against the worst pass defense in the league, hence I'd just have liked to see more than 8 of 25 passes be thrown further than 10 yards downfield. IF we were going to throw it 25 times against Dallas, I'd have liked to see a good 12-15 of them be further than 10 yards downfield, let Bryce work on his weakness against the worst pass defense in the league, not throw more dink and dunk passes per usual.