tukafan21

Jets currently ahead of us by .002 in the SOS I'd love to know what has to happen over the final games this week and next for us to have a worse SOS than them, but that seems like WAY too much work to try and dig into and figure out lol

I don't think there is a blue chip can't miss pass rusher in this draft, even the top pass rushers are more of projects than sure fire guys, more in the mold of a Burns who might take a couple of years of development before they can be great. Even if we don't take T-Mac, I still don't like taking any of these pass rushers around pick 5ish, I'd much rather use our cap room to address the issue, with proven vets who will make more of an immediate impact. Take the stud who will be a true outside #1 WR, something we haven't had since Smitty.

T-Mac and I don't even care about anything else, maybe ever, I've never wanted the Panthers to draft a player more than him.

People need to stop pointing to the Parsons pick as an example of a stud player being drafted outside the Top 10. Parsons the draft prospect is NOT the player Parsons is today. Going into the draft he was a MLB, not an edge rusher. He got thrust into that role as a rookie because of all their injuries and he was so good at it that they changed up their plans for him. Even the Cowboys missed on that projection of him or else they'd have just made him an edge rusher from the start, so people need to stop pointing to him as one example, because in reality, every single team in the league missed on that evaluation of him.

Most NFL divas are extremely hard workers as well, because you can't be a diva if you suck. Being a hard worker, even being a good person, doesn't preclude someone from being a diva and a locker room cancer in the NFL. He's made it VERY well known that he expects to be a full time two way player in the NFL. That's just not happening, and when it doesn't happen, I think he's going to be a locker room problem. Particularly when he's drafted by a bad team at the top of the draft and they very well could struggle on offense. There have been way too many concerning things with him, even just playing for Deion wasn't good for him. His HC has been a surrogate father figure and basically just a buddy of his, that's not happening in the NFL, I think it's going to create problems when he's treated like any other player.

So it's starting to look like we'll be 6th if Miami beats Cleveland today, 5th if Cleveland wins (this is also if we keep the SOS advantage over the Jets who we're tied with, if today's results makes that go the other way, that's another pick we drop). But we'd have been sitting in 2nd if we lost last week. All those people excited about that win last week, are you still feeling all warm and fuzzy about that meaningless win? Is it really going to keep you excited all offseason and into the draft when it might have cost us 4 spots in the draft? If we had the 2nd pick, we'd have been in a perfect spot to trade back to pick up additional picks, something most people want to do. If not, we'd have had our pick of better players at #2 as well. Winning last week hurt our franchise more than it helped, it's really not hard to understand this concept late in the season.

It's one of the many reasons he's not even on my draft board at all, there's just too many red flags with him for him to be worth the risk given the state of our franchise, we can't miss on this pick. I think he's going to have injury issues, but I also think he's going to have massive diva problems, especially if he's not getting the offensive snaps he wants and the team is struggling to put up points.

Because defensive rookies tend to struggle more than offensive ones. Our best chance at bringing in impact defensive players next year is through free agency. Take T-Mac in the 1st to finally solve our #1 WR problem, spend all cap room and the rest of our picks on defense

Think 3rd was a possibility if Giants, Titans, Browns, Raiders all won... but also would come down to SOS as we came into the day tied with the Jets, no idea how that one would shake out with today's results. Problem is the Jags are probably beating the Titans which keeps both of them ahead of us in the order

His WR skills aside, I think he's too small to be a true elite WR in the NFL for a long time. He's had injury issues in each year of school so far, partially because he already has the equivalent of 6 years of college ball on his body due to playing both ways for 3 seasons. I just don't see him lasting in the more physical NFL with his frame, it's a big reason I think CB is his path to NFL success.

I was only saying the Jags beating the Titans hurts us because it doesn't let us jump over either of them in the draft order. The others were just comments about how for weeks it was assumed the Giants/Raiders would each be drafting 1-2 (or maybe one falls to 3rd) and would both take a QB. If they both win today, it just screws up the draft from a general sense of how everyone was expecting it to play out, not from a Panthers standpoint. If the Giants/Raiders both end up outside the Top 5 in the end, it opens up all sorts of possibilities, from big trades to maybe no QB going in the Top 5 at all and teams just draft who they want/need.

It had absolutely nothing to do with tanking as they were already terrible with him in there too. If he got hurt and they had to take on his contract again next season, it hurts their cap, it makes a weird situation for a new QB to come into. So yes, it might have helped them be even worse to play for a pick, but it was 1,000% about the money.

Ugh, Jags winning in the end hurts as their SOS is so much worse than ours that it means we won't jump either them or the Titans today. If the Giants and Raiders both end up winning today though, it screws up the draft SOOOOOOOO much. Giants SOS is real strong, so they'll tumble way down the order and honestly might end up putting the Titans in a position to where they'll take one of the QBs, then the Giants and Raiders would be battling it out to give the best trade offer to someone else to move up in the draft for the other.

There isn't a thing that XL or Coker does better than T-Mac If T-Mac is there and we pass on him because of the WRs we currently have, every person involved in that decision should be immediately fired on the spot. If they pass on him because they like someone else better, that's different, but in no world can any NFL front office look at a WR room of XL, Coker, and 87 year old Thielen on the last year of his contract (if we even bring him back instead of letting him go try to play for a contender) and say, "you know what, we're good enough at WR and don't need to take T-Mac because of it" Everyone is complaining about XL's drops, but sure, let's pass up on a player with some of the best hands I've seen in a college WR in a long long time.

He got cut because it was just the smart decision for the franchise. If he got hurt, his contract next year became guaranteed, which was something they couldn't have. He wasn't going to play again this year, let alone even be active for any games, keeping him around would just be a distraction for everyone and be messy.

That is really weird, makes no sense I do think it's pretty cool though that for the 2nd round the Rose Bowl is getting Oregon/OSU though

Uh, what? Colorado and BYU are playing each other in a bowl game? Since when do bowls have teams from the same conference play each other???? (not counting playoffs of course)

The Browns chances of beating the Dolphins go up dramatically if Tua ends up not playing, and he's now listed as doubtful. There is a very real chance we are sitting in the 4th spot after this weekend This is also why winning last week wasn't a good thing, as it quite possibly cost us the 3rd pick if we end up losing out, as I'm convinced the Patriots will end up winning next week. As if the Bills beat the Jets tomorrow, they're then locked into the 2 seed no matter what happens in week 18. When that happens, the Bills are going to be resting all of their regulars, and playing in NE against a team with a bunch of coaches and players who's jobs are on the line. And for those who have been screaming "trade back" for a while now, being behind both the Patriots and Jags in the draft are an absolute worst case scenario for anyone wanting to trade back. Nobody is trading up in this draft for a non QB, and there are only 2 QB's who teams are trading up to get, and the Giants will take one of them at #1 assuming they don't sneak out a win. Winning an OT game isn't going to do anything to carry over to next year, it didn't allow us to evaluate players more than a loss in the end would have been. This is exactly why I can't understand the "I'd rather win and enjoy it" argument over losing a game such as that. That "joy" of winning has already worn off for those people, but sure, let's keep pretending that it wasn't a bad thing for the future of the franchise. Nobody is saying we should purposefully play bad and lose, but wanting us to play well, be competitive, but end up not being able to pull out a win is what every REAL Panthers fan should have been hoping for over the last month or so once the season was officially shot.

I'd rather be celebrating playoff wins in a few years than December wins in a 4 win season. I'm not against rooting for us to win meaningless late season games, I did it in the early Cam years without hesitation. The difference is we had so many key players in those years, that winning was what was best for our future. Right now, I don't see it, we have a couple great players and then a bunch of JAGs across the board, if even that good. We just beat a team that is historically bad on the road, who has only beaten 2 playoff teams this year (and that's assuming the Rams still get in). It's not like we just beat some great team soundly, I don't see this win as a turnaround for the franchise.

Just as the majority of fans have been rooting for that at the end of seasons for years. How's that working out for us right now? We're not here because we haven't had a winning culture, we're here because we haven't had good enough players to build a winning culture, regardless of the coaching staff.

Eh, you're looking at it in a vacuum by draft slot, not how they got the picks. Gibbs and Laporta were because they had the 6th pick in the draft and traded back to get those additional picks to get those guys. They had the 6th pick in the draft from the Goff trade. The Rams lost in OT in Week 18 the previous season, if they win that game, the Lions fall back 2 more draft picks and probably aren't able to make that same trade to get both of them. They got Sewell because we won a meaningless game in Week 17 the season before, if that doesn't happen, we're drafting Sewell before them as LT was our biggest need at the time. All of that is also a moot point, because them going on that winning steak to close out the 2022 season didn't affect them getting any of those players. They already had most of them, and the ones they added after that season, was mainly because of the 6th pick in the draft that they held and was only that high because the Rams didn't win a late season game. And THAT is the point in all of this. As you said, it's a combination of having the players and building a winning culture. And 9 times out of 10, you can't build the winning culture and then add the players afterwards, it's the other way around, you get the players and then build the culture. The Lions had the players and then built the culture, that's how it's done in the NFL.

Good freaking lord. How many times does this have to be explained, it really is not a hard concept. NO... players and coaches will never intentionally lose games, and fans shouldn't want them to. But as FANS, we can hope we end up losing games because it is what is best for the franchise, even if the players and coaches are trying to win them. Losing is not the same as tanking, they are two entirely different things, one is acceptable, one is not.

Hey guys, remember when we won those meaningless games in 2010 and it cost us the #1 pick and the chance to draft Cam? Oh.... right I get that's more of an extreme example because it got us a HOF caliber QB. But it's the general concept, you want to win late season games when you have the pieces in place to make a run the next season, we currently are not in that place. Herbert and Sewell are the ones I point to so much, because we literally lost out on 2 franchise different makers by 1 draft slot. Give us those two players while we still have CMC, Moore, and the rest of the picks we gave up for Bryce, and we'd have been a legit playoff contender the last few years. Draft position matters in the NFL more than any other sport (other than the #1 pick in the NBA in a year with a generational talent).

You're right, good teams don't worry about where they are drafting. The problem with that... WE ARE NOT A GOOD TEAM We have a solid OL, we have a good RB in Hubbard, we have an elite DT in Brown, and we have a possibly elite CB in Horn if he can continue to stay healthy. Outside of those players, right now, who do you see on this roster that has a shot at being a Pro Bowl caliber player in the next few years? This roster is so void of high end talent that saying things like "good teams don't worry about where they are drafting" is one of the more asinine statements I've heard on here in a while.

If you think the Lions are who they are today solely because of Dan Campbell, then you just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, he's a huge part of it, but........... Amon Ra, Gibbs, Goff, Sewell, Ragnow, Hutchinson, Branch all off the top of my head are better than any player on our roster not named Derrick Brown (and some of them are better than DB anyways). And that's before you even talk about guys like Montgomery, LaPorta, Smith, Campbell, all of whom would be starting over players on our team right now as well (and there may be others too, I don't have their full roster memorized). Culture is great and all, and no, you can't win without it. But more important than culture is actually having the players you need to win, and we just don't have that right now, our roster is still a mess. If you don't think the franchise would be in a better place if we were picking 1 draft slot better in 2020 and 2021 and have gotten Herbert and Sewell in those drafts, then you're kidding yourself. We could have had an offense of Herbert, CMC, Moore, and one of the game's best LT's. But sure, that extra win in each of those seasons still give me all the good feels all these years later, who needs to have an offense with all those guys in their prime.