tukafan21

Well, T-Mac beat his man and of course Bryce over throws him, bum

Yes to his first drop today, but this one wasn't a drop or even him "not making the catch" as Bryce put it in a place that forced him to make a diving catch and it took him off his feet.

Vrabel doesn't strike me as the type of coach who is going to go full on prevent defense just because they have a lead, if anything, he's going to dial up even more blitzes in the 2nd half

Dude, you just sound more and more pathetic every time you do this. No, Bryce's size isn't causing other problems, but to think his tiny midget ass isn't seriously compromised as an NFL QB because of said size, then you're just being purposefully obtuse. He's not an NFL QB no matter how you slice it.

No, that was the right call, if we caused a turnover there and maybe got a score it does change the 2nd half.

Not an NFL QB. Period.

And that's what we get for that terrible 3rd down play call

Draw on 3rd and 10?!?!?!

Oh 1 million percent true. Everything after the 1st, we fall for the fools gold year after year, thinking we're going to take these raw high RAS score type of guys and turn them into stars but never can. But we've been amazingly rock solid in the 1st since 2001, I honestly wonder how many other teams have had as many long term starters at the rate we've had. In our last 24 1st round picks, setting aside Bryce and XL, Butler would be the biggest bust, KB exploded and then fell apart, but that seemed more on him than a missed evaluation, and Otah also started out great but then injuries derailed his carer, so not really a "miss" either. The other 19 (if including T-Mac) were starters and true impact players as career long Panthers until we decided to move on from them through trade, release, or we didn't want to re-sign late in their career, with all of them except Burns having signed a 2nd contract with us as well. Star and Peppers are our only 1st rounders since 2001 to leave through free agency after their contracts expired. Morgan, Peppers, Gross, Gamble, TD, Deangelo, Beason, Stewart, Otah, Cam, Kuechly, Star, KB, Shaq, Butler, CMC, DJ, Burns, Brown, Horn, Ickey, Bryce, XL, T-Mac Really a wild run over 25 years

I mean, to be fair, we've really only missed on 2 first round picks since 2016, they just happened to be the last 2 years before hitting again this year with T-Mac. Hell, looking back even further, we're just historically great at not screwing up the 1st round since 2001. The worst 1st round picks we've had since then are... XL, Bryce, Butler, Otah, and KB. The next worst pick other than those 5 since 2001 would probably be between Star and Ickey.

Until the Vikings badly needed WR help, there was never a remote report about Thielen wanting out, and beyond that, he brought out Bryce and all the pass catchers to Minnesota for a few days to work out a month or two before the season. He wasn't trying to force his way out of here until the Vikings possibility came about, trying to say anything else is just attacking him for asking for the trade in the end and being sour about it. It would be like we had injuries and reached out to the Ravens about Smitty going into his last year and then him telling the team he'd love to come back home.

I don't understand why this whole thing is so tough to understand, it's very simple. Neither Thielen nor his wife wanted out of Carolina, it's why he signed the new deal to come back here this year. The Vikings had WR injury issues in camp, when that happened they then needed a WR and reached out to us to try and get Thielen. Once that happened, it changed everything, because it was an opportunity for a player who lived his whole life in that state, to go home for his final NFL season. Once that was on the table, yea, of course he's going to then "request a trade", but what people don't seem to grasp, is that Thielen didn't just come out and ask Morgan to trade him. It ONLY happened because the Vikings became WR desperate in the weeks leading into the season, but I'm a million percent convinced if they didn't, we'd never have considered trading him and he wouldn't have asked for one. It was a very unique situation that arose because of another team's needs, not Thielen's doing, and it was ONLY happening with that one team, no others would have made us want to trade him, especially for a bag of peanuts. Now, had we still looked this bad to start the year, I think he'd have been traded to a contender at the deadline to just get something for him, but that then would have been a different and smart move at that time.

And if he switched to grass, when the players get the same injuries, the fans will say it's now just bad luck. Yes, grass is more forgiving, but there have been tons of teams, not to mention most high schools and colleges that have Turf and you don't hear people say the same thing there. Injuries overall are just up because the sport gets more physical every year, and I think players push themselves TOO much, particularly in the offseason, and the increased strength/muscle that players have now vs 20+ years ago, limits flexibility and is a bigger cause of today's injuries than the playing surfaces. Just think about teams like the Lions, Cowboys, Vikings, etc that back in the day played on those astroturf fields on top of cement flooring. If those weren't causing more injuries back then, I really don't think the playing surface these days is to blame.

Depends what you mean by "better than Fitzgerald" At each of their peaks, sure, Smitty was the far more dangerous player and would absolutely strike more fear into opposing DC's than Fitz did. But Fitzgerald definitely had a better career and is a clear cut 1st ballot HOFer, something as much as I love Smitty, never was going to be of course.

I mean, it was, but when you trade away your #3 WR and then your #2 WR gets hurt days later, your depth takes a huge hit. Then when your #4 who should be your #2 ends up regressing from their rookie year, and yea, you now have a problem at WR, no matter how good T-Mac has been.

Luke abasolutely should have been a first ballot guy and I still think the only reason he wasn't was the new stupid voting procedure, under the old, he probably gets in last year. We also need him to get in this year so it can give Smitty a more realistic shot in 2027, as I just can't see any way they put two Panthers in the same year, plus with Fitzgerald a shoe in, not sure we'll see two WRs in the same year either with the backlog of them combined with the new voting.

Ugh, I'd want to hear almost anything other than calf injuries these days, always seems like those tend to lead to Achilles issues lately (knock on wood)

I mean, if he wanted out of Houston because he wanted to be used on the blitz more, I'd think he would just be replicating what we have with Moehrig and Ransom already, what we need is the back end safety.

His Freshman year he played for Jackson State, which is in Mississippi and closer to the Saints and Falcons than the Jags, maybe even the Texans, Cowboys, and Titans as well, lol

Yep, I always said the best way to use him in the NFL is as a full time CB, and then get 8-12 offensive snaps a game. Half those snaps he's out there as a decoy so the defense doesn't know where the ball is going every time he's on the field, the other have are play calls with him as the first read, and likely trying to get it into his hands quickly to let him make plays with his athleticism. That also would mean he needs less practice time on offense too, as he's not trying to get his routes/timing down with the QB as he'd be running a bunch of quick hitter routes or screens to get it in his hands. How NFL GM's didn't see this is beyond me (or maybe some did and it's why the Browns traded the pick and it was just the Jags who were dumb enough to think he'd be able to play both ways full time at an elite level.

Also reading this thread again and seeing that was a clear WoahCam alt, it really makes me wish he was still around to hear his takes on how "his guys" are doing this year. Shedeur can't beat out Gabriel for the #2 job behind old man Flacco, Hunter is struggling on offense and doesn't have a clear role, while T-Mac is proving to be exactly who I said he was and the guy WoahCam was very much down on for a while until he said he was coming around on him, lol

This thread was a fun re-read, and not to toot my own horn, but I'd say I was pretty spot on with the things I was saying about both T-Mac and Hunter, like eerily so. I really wish I had kept a bunch of screenshots/links to all the arguments I got into with people over the last 2 years over T-Mac, would just be fun to look back on them and laugh. To your post though, it's wild that any NFL GM couldn't see this being the case as 90% of fans out there could see it from a mile away, it really was just common sense, you can't be a full time 2 way player in the NFL today, and he's a better CB than WR, always was. The fact that they traded a future 1st and a 2nd in that draft to move up to take a CB and part time WR is beyond comical, and even if he ends up a great player, is more than likely going to be looked back on as a terrible trade by them. Two 1st's and a 2nd to take a CB is just asinine, I'm not sure there has ever been a CB who was worth that, even the peak years of Revis or someone like Asomugha weren't worth that, let alone a full career of play.

Not really sure I’d say we had “constant success” on the ground either. Take away Dalton’s kneel down and Bryce’s scrambles and we had 103 yards on 27 carries. Not garbage, but not constant success to where it wouldn’t have been reasonable to let your QB try and gain some confidence by throwing it a bit more, or even just further down the field. I’m happy we won, but just frustrated in that we somehow didn’t even look that great in a 30-0 win because it was largely due to the Falcons ineptitude and bad mistakes. We only had 2 drives all game of over 30 yards, the 61 yard opening TD drive and a 48 yard drive for a FG. So it’s not like our offense was some well oiled machine that couldn’t have been trying to throw and push it downfield more.

I agree that we already know what we have in Bryce, but the team doesn't, if they did, he wouldn't still be our starting QB right now. Also, for as bad as he is, I do think the players believe in him, so the more we have games like this, the harder it will be for the players if/when we move on from Bryce after the year, which is a good recipe to destroy a locker room. But your point about the team and the fans needing a win is kinda my point. The fact that this franchise and it's fans just "needed a win" is why it's so hard for me to enjoy a win where we could have both won the game and used it as an opportunity to let Bryce loose in the 2nd half to see what he can do when he plays loose.

Do you honestly believe this is a team that will even be in contention for a playoff spot this year? To me, if you're not at minimum a genuine contender to make the playoffs, every win you get is a meaningless win in the end. This is the NFL, it's not peewee league where you just want to win a few games and have fun, you want to get into the playoffs and have a shot at making a SB run. We haven't had a winning season in how many years? Does "enjoying" a small handful of wins every year really make for an enjoyable season for you? I said it months ago and I'll say it forever, I don't care about winning or losing this year, as we don't have a playoff caliber roster yet and I'm a realist about where we are as a franchise. I'd enjoy watching the games so much more if the team and Bryce in particular were just showing marked improvement, even if it came in losses. Because THAT would give me hope for the future of the franchise and the direction we're going. Bryce was complete garbage in Week 1, in Week 2 he was terrible until the Cardinals went into super soft prevent defense and then collapsed gain when the game was in reach, and he was a serviceable game manager today, but didn't make any throws that any college QB couldn't make. This game was a perfect chance to let Bryce go out there and play loose because of the lead, just let him be himself and see if it sparks his college self. But instead, we went unbelievably conservative with the play calling to help ensure the win, when actual wins and losses are the least of our worries this year, it's figuring out what Bryce can be (fans may be decided, but the team obviously has not yet). I don't want to make the playoffs every few years, I want to contend for SBs. I just don't get anything out of 6-11 type of seasons anymore, they're way more frustrating on the whole to be able to actually enjoy the few wins just because our shitty team got a win for a change.