tukafan21

In short, I realize what I'm suggesting is a drastic play, and I know that it's NOT what is best for this upcoming season. But I think it's a cheat code to help our 2023 draft decisions regardless of who the coach of the team is. I'm already over this season in a sense, yes, I love the Panthers and want us to win, but I'm also a realist and know that we're not going to be a SB contender this year, so I'm okay punting on this season if it is in our best long term interests. And I think the best way to help our long term interests is knowing our QB situation going into the 2023 draft, which I don't think we will know if we play Darnold for most of the year, period.

For me, it's more about what to do in next year's draft. I don't think we make the playoffs this year regardless of who is the QB, which means we're looking at worst, at a Top 15 pick, very strong chance I think we end up in the Top 10 again, still too many holes on this team. There are then 3 scenarios next year.... 1. We KNOW (or have a STRONG idea) Corral isn't the QB of the future and thus need to draft a new one in the first round 2. We KNOW (or have a STRONG idea) Corral is the QB of the future and thus can use a top pick to fill the holes 3. We have no idea what Corral could be and thus no idea if we should draft a QB in the first round next year Starting Darnold for the majority of the season leaves us with only Scenario #3 in the end. Starting Corral for the majority of the season more or less eliminates Scenario #3 and will leave us with one of the other 2 scenarios. To me, Scenario 3 is the absolute worst case scenario and I'd rather take our lumps next year if it means finding out which of the other scenarios is most likely. We're at a tipping point with this franchise, we're either about to be the Browns, trying to solve the QB spot every single offseason, or we have the opportunity to actually have a team that can compete for championships. We have so many key pieces to contending teams if we can just figure out the QB spot and fill in a few gaps right now. We can't fill in those gaps when we're blowing our mid round picks every season on trying to figure out the QB spot, like we've now done for 2 consecutive offseasons. If we don't KNOW what we have in Corral after this year, we're about to do it for a 3rd straight offseason, that's how franchises die, not thrive. All it comes down to is that if we play Darnold over Corral for most of the year, we'll have spent the last 2 seasons, a 2nd round pick, a 3rd, and two 4ths, and have no answers. That's at minimum 2 starters and possibly 2 more starters that we'd have lost out on and would still be lost going into the draft next year. To me, that's not how you build a successful franchise, that's how you turn a team into the Browns of the last 20 years, or the Marvin Lewis era Bengals, JUST good enough to compete for the playoffs each year, but not good enough to ever actually contend for a SB.

Not even remotely true. Look at Brady last year, everyone and their mother knew he should have been playing somewhere on the line from Week 1, but the coaches wanted to bring him along slowly. And what happened? Late in the season he finally got the chance he should have had at the start of the year, looked good enough to question whether or not he was good enough to be the long term starter, but didn't get enough time there to really know. It's exactly why some people are arguing for starting Brady at LT this year and Ickey at LG, because we didn't find out last year if we needed a new LT or if Brady could get the job done. I'm afraid that the coaches will want to bring Corral along slowly to protect him while Darnold sucks it up and has us with a poor record. Then the final month of the season they finally decide to start Corral and he looks decent, but doesn't get enough time to show if he can be a franchise QB. Then we go into next years draft with say the 5th pick in the draft If we had more knowledge of Corral's ability to be a franchise QB, we could use that pick to take an elite DE or WR. But instead we likely would need to take a QB, or even worse, need to package up future picks to move up a few draft slots to take a QB. Even if he struggles mightily due to not being ready, playing Corral for most/all of the season can show us if he has the potential of being a franchise QB. Just look at how horrible Lawrence was this year, they're not about to jump ship on him, and plenty of other HOF QB's struggled as rookies, but they still showed the flashes of being Elite and thus their teams knew they didn't need to draft a new one the following season.

I value future draft picks when we're not expected to be a playoff team, not a fan of trading away future Top 3 round picks if we're looking at a likely Top 15 pick in those rounds. And when we draft an elite prospect at one of the most important positions on the field in the top 10, then yes, I value them playing that position and not another one just because someone else on the team might struggle at said other position. LT >>>>>>> LG and it's not even close, you don't make the starting lineup decision based on who makes the best LG, you make it based on who is the best LT and then you figure out LG from there.

But that's in situations where they already had an established vet at that position who was an above average starter. I also could be wrong, but not sure that happens often with LT's drafted in the top 10, if anything they might start out at RT first, not usually as a Guard. They originally drafted Brady with an eye towards him being a Guard anyways, I realize he might be solid as a LT, but Ickey is the better LT between them, that's all that matters here. You get your best player at LT and then figure out LG, not the other way around.

I highly doubt that's the actual locker room set up, seems like they put all the recent top picks together so they could just mention them all there. I've got to guess that come the start of the season, he'll be surrounded by fellow OL

At DB, DL, LB, sure, you play someone out of position if it means getting the best players on the field for that position, even if it means one player not at their ideal position. But LT is the second most important position on the team after QB, I don't care how much the LG struggles, you don't move a franchise LT inside to Guard, period. If Brady was that much better of an LT than LG, then he'd have been playing out there before the final couple weeks of the season last year. Short of Ickey being a complete turnstile at LT, there is absolutely no scenario I can think of to where he plays any position other than LT. There is a reason you'll see undrafted players come in and start at Guard as rookies and can quickly become pro bowlers. You don't see undrafted players do that at LT, it just doesn't happen, there is a reason for it.

I just can't think of any reason that starting our 2022 1st rounder and 6th overall pick at LG and starting our 2021 3rd round pick at LT makes any sense at all. Now if Brady played all year at LT last year and was good, it's a different story, and in that scenario, we probably don't even take Ickey. But that's not at all the scenario, even if Brady is better at LT than LG, you don't draft an OL at #6 and start him at Guard over a Tackle/Guard combo taken in the 3rd round the previous year and had minimal game action as a rookie.

To be fair, Allen sat 4 games and Herbert sat 1 game. Mahomes was an entirely different story as they were coming off a strong season and only had the top 10 pick by trading up for him specifically. If we took a legit Top 10 prospect, I'd have ZERO issue in letting them sit and learn for a bit. To me, it has nothing to do with anything more than needing to know for certain if Corral might be our long term QB before next year's draft, that's all it's about for me.

Active roster, yes, overall roster, no. I actually think he's a great practice squad QB given how many QB's in the league right now are scrambling QB's, he's probably pretty helpful in weekly game prep for the defense due to that I'd imagine.

All 3 of those players were Top 10 picks, those teams knew they were their QB's of the future and no matter what happened that year, they weren't taking another QB in the first round next year. Corral was a 3rd round pick and if we have a top 5 pick next year, unless he plays this year and balls out and we lose because of other issues, 95% chance we'd be taking a QB in the first round next year. Literally apples and oranges with those situations.

Ickey might already be our best OL, and we've started 16 players at LT in the last 8 seasons since Gross retired. Unless he significantly struggles at LT in camp and just can't be trusted out there, he's our starting LT week 1 without question. if Brady can't play at LG next to someone like Ickey, then he's not going to succeed at LT either. And if he does succeed at LT, you say Ickey is only meant to play Guard for 1 year, then what happens next year? Do you then swap them? and if so, then what was the point in playing Brady at LT this year? Ickey is our starting LT, Brady is option A at LG, but if he can't cut it, you do anything other than move Ickey inside unless he's also struggling at LT.

It's not a matter of Sam blocking Matt's development, it's about us finding out if Matt can be our QB of the future, and we're not going to find that out if he's on the bench, we will only find that out by seeing him in live games. Now if you think Darnold still has a chance at being a top end QB, that's a different story, but I'm long past thinking that's a possibility, he has all the arm talent in the world, but he just flat out doesn't have the ability to process things mentally fast enough to be an elite NFL QB. I like him, he seems like a good kid, I just don't think he's someone you're going to compete or SB's with. Again, in the end, I want to go into the 2023 draft knowing if we have our franchise QB on the roster already or not, and I don't think we find that out with Corral not starting until the final month of the season. That's really all it comes down to for me

No, Ickey was the 6th pick in the draft, you don't take an OL with the 6th pick and play him at Guard while starting your 3rd rounder the previous year at LT just because you're not sure if the 3rd rounder is good enough to play Guard. You play the stud at LT and if the 3rd rounder can't cut it at Guard, you put someone else in there. Easy decision here unless Ickey comes in and just looks horrible at LT, which seems rather unlikely to happen.

I think we're making the same point, but with different opinions on what "taking the hit" is. I view "taking the hit" as taking the cap hit by dropping Darnold and seeing what Corral has got, others (most) view it as playing it safe with Corral and bring him along slowly. Because in the end, I think we're hurting ourselves if we go into next years draft without knowing if Corral has a decent chance at being our franchise QB. That's honestly the only question I want answered during the 2022 season, and I don't think we know that if Darnold is our day 1 starter.

I don't believe for a second that anyone is offering a 3rd for Love, if they were, GB would have traded him in a heartbeat right now. With Rodgers coming back, Love is as good as done in GB, they aren't going to use the 5th year option on him, which means he only has 2 years left and I can't see Rodgers retiring after this year now. If someone is offering a 3rd, they'd jump all over it, so I doubt anyone is doing that.

As it stands right now, we have our 2022 2nd and 4th rounders, 2023 3rd rounder, and an additional 2022 4th rounder from another team tied up in our QB spot. That's at least 2 starters and 2 more rotational players we could have had with those picks. I'm okay using them on a QB instead, but we NEED to know what we have at that position before the next draft given that, playing Darnold doesn't answer that question for us. I don't think anyone out there believes Darnold can be our long term starter, even with a better line, he doesn't have it between the ears when the ball is snapped. So why keep playing him with all that draft capital tied up in the position and still don't know if we need to use our first rounder (or more?) next year on the position as well.

If that's what we want to do, then don't use next year's 3rd rounder to take a QB this year. THAT is my problem with the Corral trade/pick, but now that we've made our bed, I'd rather lie in it and see if we get a good nights sleep rather than go sleep on the couch to keep the freshly made bed neat and clean.

If we have him in the building all year, likely play him a bit, and then decide we need to re-draft a QB, nobody out there is giving up close to a 4th for him, we'd be lucky to get a 6th round comp pick sent our way for him at that point, more than likely a 7th rounder or a backup/ST player for him. Point blank, in the end, I'm also just angry that we gave up another future top 75 pick for someone we might not know what we have in them going into next year's draft, and tossing him into the fire and seeing what he's got, to me, is the way to rectify that a little bit. You give up future picks when you have a good team and know you're not giving up a top 10 pick in that round, particularly when it comes to the first 3 rounds as that's where you can potentially draft day 1 starters. That 3rd rounder would have been solid ammo to add into a trade next year if we need to move up for a QB, instead we'd yet again be needing to dip into future drafts if needed. We have too many holes on this team to keep sending away future picks for players we have no idea if they can be "the guy" yet. That's what teams with contending rosters do to fill in the final gaps they have to be able to make a SB run, not teams who are picking in the top 10 for 3 straight years.

But that's not devoting 18 million to it, it would be 3-4 million for the backup to replace Darnold. That 18 million is gone no matter what choice we have... it then comes down to is it worth an additional 3-4 million to get a better mentor for Carrol, I strongly think it is.

If we're in the position to draft them, that means we gave up about the 65th pick in the draft next year for Corral, that absolutely is a decent investment in him. And in reality, it would mean we gave up this year's 2nd and 4th, next year's 3rd, and next year's 1st (and possibly more if we needed to trade up) to solve the QB position. I'm all about solving the position, but without all the other picks, we're not able to properly build around them. In the end what it comes down to for me is that we're not winning the SB this year, we'll be lucky to just contend for the playoffs under the best case scenario. So I have one and only one goal for this season right now, and that's to find out if Corral can be our QB of the future, until we figure that out, we're in QB purgatory.

I absolutely LOVE Cam, was all about him coming back last year, and up until last night, I was very on board with bringing him back this year. But now that we drafted Corral, I no longer want it. Love the guy, he's a Panther legend and will always be so to me, but we need someone to teach Corral how to handle the mental side of being an NFL QB, particularly off the field... that's not Cam lol.

There is a difference in mentoring the player on the field itself and mentoring the player in the locker room and outside the facility. The coach is there to do it on the field and in the film room, everywhere else, it's on the other players on the roster to show them the ropes. It's just about how you handle yourself everyday as the starting QB of an NFL team, those aren't the things these kids learn from their coaches, it's their teammates.

But the problem is what do you do when Darnold is terrible as expected, we then throw Corral in there in the final month of the season and he shows flashes of potential and flashes of being a bust. We go into next year's draft with a top 10 pick, which also means we're missing about the 70th pick in the draft thanks to the Corral trade. We could easily draft a QB at that spot or use future picks to move up and draft someone if needed. But if we start Corral all year and lose games due to the holes in the roster around him, but see that he has the potential to be our long term starter, we can then use that top 10 pick on other positions of need and fill in those holes around him. My fear is going into the draft with a top 10 pick and no idea what Corral could be, that's the ultimate worst case scenario. I'd probably feel differently if we didn't give up next year's 3rd, if we just had our 3rd rounder instead of trading it away and took him, I'd likely take a different tact here, but giving up the 3rd increases the need to find out who Corral is immediately in my opinion.

On the field this season, yes, minimal benefit. In the locker room and film room, invaluable benefit. Darnold isn't the guy you want teaching your rookie QB how to go about daily life as an NFL QB. If I told you for $3-4 million out of this year's cap, we would know going into next year's draft whether or not Corral could be our QB of the future, you'd take that in a heartbeat. Part of it also is just getting Darnold out of here to give Corral the piece of mind that he's the starter and not worried about making mistakes and getting benched. You bring in someone where it's known to all that they are the backup and Corral is the starter, with Darnold there, he'd always be looking over his shoulder.