Mage

4 hours ago, Ivan The Awesome said:

YOu can't pull the "We don't know" card and act like he didn't do the wrongs. You just can't. You either did help with the presvious disaster or you didn't. Only way you can even say he didn't is if he wasn't here. This is a stupid way of doing things. It's like Einsteins quote about insanity.

My point is that if you are going to put the bad decisions made by Fitt onto Morgan because the latter worked under him, then you have to also put the good decisions made by Beane onto Morgan as he also worked under him.

You can't have it one way and not the other.

And yes, the reality of the situation is that we really don't know how much input Dan Morgan had in either respective front office.  

4 minutes ago, Ivan The Awesome said:

I've seen this thrown around like it's logical. The point you fail to see is that in Beane's tenure here, regardless of what people think of him, Hurney was a good evaluator of talent. Hurney knew talent. His 1st round pick rate was one of the best in the league. He had a good teacher. Dan had Fitt boy...so no I do not want anyone from this previous regime.

I mean Dan Morgan worked under Brandon Beane in Buffalo for the same amount of years.  Why are we putting all the Fitt blame on him but none of the Beane credit?

Nobody really knows how much influence Morgan may or may not have had.  And I'm not saying that to say it would be a great hire or people shouldn't be frustrated.  Just think it wouldn't be right to act like Morgan would be a guaranteed disaster.  It is hard to tell.

1 hour ago, hepcat said:

Regarding Dan Morgan, we really have no idea how many decisions were on Fitterer or on Tepper. Tepper probably knows that. Dan might not have had final say on literally anything. Maybe he had some dissenting opinions that panned out and made Fitterer and/or Tepper look like idiots. Or he might just be another part of the awfulness that has spawned in the Panthers organization. We just don’t know enough to tell.

This is how I feel.

Do I want Dan Morgan?  Not particularly, just because it would be nice to know we have new voices.  But someone brought up a good point about Brandon Beane earlier.  A lot of people didn't want him when we were looking for a GM in 2013 for the same reasons (assumed he was more of the same as Hurney).  You just never know.  It would be a hire that doesn't excite me, but I'd give him a fair chance.  

After all, if you want to blame him for Fitt's decisions, then you have to give him credit for helping contribute to the turnaround in Buffalo (where he had a more specific role, whereas he's just the "Assistant GM" here... hard to tell what his primary focus was or if he was just there to learn things and follow in the footsteps).
 

Nevertheless nailing the HC hire matters more to me right now anyway.  

Eh, I feel like Slowik is definitely a realistic candidate.  I'd argue Ben Johnson too, but the Commanders are certainly in the driver's seat.

However there are only so many HC jobs available.  Possible if not likely the Panthers are the only team who end up offering Slowik a HC job.

Regardless of how you feel about Bryce as a player, this should be a lesson to not predict injuries based off someone's size.  A player who can hold up in the SEC isn't suddenly going to break in half in the NFL.  Being "injury prone" really just comes down to genetics and bad luck, not size, especially for athletes who are all in great shape.

I'm not saying this to defend Bryce's play, he sucked.  I just feel like that was a narrative held against him and for no reason.  That he wouldn't hold up taking hits.  In the future if a player doesn't have a history of injuries, we shouldn't assume he'll suddenly start getting hurt.

4 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Houston beat writer analysis of Slowik...

 

I'm sold.  GIVE ME SLOWIK.

Having someone from the Shanahan tree would be nice.  

Once Ben Johnson completes his interviews with us and the Commanders, we should start hearing more information.  Panthers should have a good feel after that interview where we stand with him.

2 hours ago, Steelo said:

Yeah I heard someone saying that he might pull a Ben J and just return to Houston.  That or he's just focusing on the task at hand.

He'd be smart to return IMO.  There is risk but the Texans offense has so much potential to be even better next year that his stock could skyrocket.  Right now I bet he wouldn't get the deal Ben Johnson likely will get.  But with another year under his belt, he could.  And 2nd year CJ Stroud is something I'm willing to bet on as an OC.

Brian Callahan's resume on paper seems super weak.  

7 minutes ago, ncfan said:

So

looks like Bill Belichick or Harbaugh to Atlanta incoming

Hmmm.  I'd probably prefer Harbaugh if I was a Falcons fan.  I'd be concerned about Belichick acquiring and developing a new young QB.  And that is a young team.  Harbaugh seems like he'd be the easier coach to resonate with for a lot of their players.

2 hours ago, Navy_football said:

Bro did he just powerbomb an old lady through a table?!!

9 minutes ago, KBRed said:

Hopefully since there is a team of folks hired for our coaching search, there aren’t any moles in the operation, and we are interviewing more than we think. 
 

But, you would think the hot (not physically) candidates would be spotted in the airport or around town. /shrugs/

Don't teams have to make that information public?  Don't think they can just interview a candidate on the low without anyone finding out, but I could be wrong.  Because they have to put the request in through the NFL anyway (not sure how that works with college coaches though).

2 hours ago, strato said:

I don’t see any angle that makes us better than last. 

The one positive IMO is that you aren't tied down to anyone long-term (even Bryce with it being a rookie contract wouldn't be crippling to move on from if he shows no development).  If you are confident in yourself as a GM, you can mold this team to your liking as opposed to going to a team with less flexibility.

2 minutes ago, hepcat said:

The Browns gave up speculative assets (draft picks) for a proven asset. The guaranteed contract was ridiculous but the amount given up in trade for a young franchise level QB wasn't insane. The risk was the criminal accusations which seem to have hurt his play on the field.

The Panthers did the opposite and gave up proven assets for a speculative prospect. Your point about the guaranteed is valid but the Panthers took on dead money to trade away those assets to make these trades. CMC and DJ Moore were the offense since 2018 and it completely fell apart without them. The value there was insane to give up. 

Also, the Browns are still a good team.  The trade sucked, but it didn't ruin them.  They will be in the playoff race with Watson next year.

Panthers made the trade and ended up being so bad they earned the No. 1 Pick the following year, which now belongs to another team.  The Panthers trade (as of right now, unless Bryce turns is around) has done far more harm to us than the Browns trade has done to them.  And IMO it is more likely Watson turns it around than Young does.

38 minutes ago, frankw said:

All we can do is wait and see if Tepper will at least back off his meddling somewhat and let the GM and coach do their jobs. I think it's mostly unlikely. But I'm going to hope for it in the meantime because I need some level of hope before the offseason kicks off and the media and everyone else starts laying into us in for giving the Bears the first pick. We'll see.

My (small amount) of optimism is due to Tepper being mostly in the background during the first couple of years of Rhule's tenure here. I do think if the team was winning he would chill out a lot.  The problem is he needs to get us to the point where we are winning.

Almost all teams do this before they hire a new HC unless they know for 100% certainty they are doing a clean sweep.  Last year the Broncos denied the Falcons a chance to request Evero for DC.

Sucks for them but not a big deal.

3 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

If you were a fan of another team and you had seen what happened with us regarding the whole "Hunger Games" thing this past season, would you want your team to hire somebody from the Panthers?

I mean the Panthers suck lol so no.  But if in this hypothetical the Panthers were in the playoff race almost every year and had recently been to a Super Bowl, then yeah I wouldn't be against my team hiring them despite the dysfunction.  Because on the outside looking in, it would seem like someone who has been in an environment with dysfunction and still found success because of it. 

Say whatever you want about Howie Roseman but he's always got those Eagles playing with talent and winning games.  Yeah maybe he uses underhanded tactics but I just think maybe that is what we need with an owner like Tepper, so if Halaby follows in his footsteps then by all means.  I mean I get why someone would be against that, I understand.  I just want to win, really.  So I don't care how it gets done.  It just needs to get done.

15 minutes ago, Khyber53 said:

Then there's the guy who traded everything for Russell Wilson to go to Denver, or the guy who gave up everything to get Deshaun Watson in Cleveland and maybe the guy who got suckered into taking Aaron Rogers to the Jets. 

Those teams didn't miss out on a 22 year old dude who looks like he could be a future Hall of Fame QB.  Those teams didn't trade away a future No. 1 overall pick, making them trading for the No. 1 overall pick look dumb.  Imagine if Bryce busts.  The Panthers would have essentially chosen him over CJ Stroud, Caleb Williams, and Drake Maye.  All those two really need to be is somewhat decent in their rookie seasons to make the Panthers look like fools (unless Bryce turns it around).  

17 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Unfortunately between he and Jeffrey Lurie, he's also part of a culture that tends to undermine those guys and shoot its own wounded.

To play devil's advocate.  If Tepper is as bad as most think he is, then would hiring a candidate from a similar organization be a bad thing?  After all, "iron sharpens iron".  I'm not saying that in defense in how they get the job done, but maybe we need a GM as ruthless and cutthroat as Tepper if we want to make this work.  Because that same person will know how to check Tepper.  After all Philly has been able to maintain success in spite of it.  

I think so.

We actually fired him really fast by NFL standards.  Teams will give really bad GMs like 5 years sometimes.  It usually takes that long for their plan to completely bottom out anyway.  Look at how long Steve Keim lasted as GM with Arizona.  Matt Millen lasted EIGHT YEARS.  Imagine 8 years of Scott Fitterer?  Imagine how much more damage he could have done?

Think about that.  It took 8 years for the Lions to go 0-16.  The Panthers damn near accomplished that last year.  We came pretty damn close.  Didn't even have a 4th quarter lead - those Lions were MORE competitive than us.  And guess what Millen's Lions didn't do?  Trade away their 2009 1st round pick or WR1 Calvin Johnson.  They got Matthew Stafford out of it.  We are not going to get Caleb Williams out of our suckage.  

We crap on Tepper and rightfully so.  But thank god he pulled the trigger.  Firing a GM 3 years in almost never happens, but that is how fast Fitt tanked this team.  He took a team that was in perfect position for a rebuild, an attractive destination, and he blew it up into flames in 3 years.  And you can't blame Rhule.  If anything, Rhule saved us from Fitt.  Because after Rhule got fired is when Fitt was at his absolute worst, beginning with not doing the Burns trade (I'll admit I was wrong on that one - we should have done it).

So when you consider how far he nuked the team in the shortest amount of time, I think he's gotta be in the convo as worst GM.  We should be thankful we won't have to endure 8 years of it (which does keep Millen at the top).

Just now, Mr. Scot said:

If you say so

You're free try and refute the argument, of course. By all means, tell me anything and everything positive you've read about Halaby that makes you think he's the right guy and this other stuff won't matter.

And specifics to Halaby himself, please. Association with the Eagles isn't good enough. Using that logic you could argue for Brian Johnson as our head coach.

Whadda ya got?

(and FYI, responding that I wouldn't listen anyway or that it's all just guesswork is basically an admission that you don't really have anything)

You're right.  I don't have anything.  If you want me to admit you are smarter than me on the subject, than I will.  Because you almost certainly are (and I mean that seriously - you have introduced me to candidates I have never heard of).

Just as my time as a fan in the NFL, I've seen "good" GM candidates.  I've seen "bad" GM candidates.  And they all seem to hit or bust more or less the same.  At least at head coach, you can (for the most part) see how involved a coach is as a coordinator or positions coach.  If a front office guy isn't a GM, how can you really evaluate him?  Sure, the article sounds bad, but it is also just that.  An article.  I'm not debunking it, I'm not saying it isn't true (it more than likely is), but it might not also tell the full story.  And how can we verify it?  

But that's just my stance.  I admit I don't have anything beyond that, because I'm outside the buildings and I don't think anyone outside the building can really know what is going on inside the building or how good a worker is (obviously this is different with someone who is actually a GM, because you can evaluate him on variables that you can see ie free agent signings, trade quality, drafts, etc).  That doesn't mean we can't speculate, I just feel like it is hard to take a hardline stance against a guy.  Maybe that is just me playing it cautious.  But it feels impossible to know outside of extreme candidate cases.

6 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

I have no problem with people liking different candidates.

But yeah, if you can read everything that's been written with about Halaby to this point and still say "that's the kind of guy we need", I can't help you.

Saying "I can't help you" is 100% putting down someone who has a different opinion than you.

But I get why you don’t want him. Just understand why some do.

58 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Did the team we watched last night (specifically, the one that started the season 10-1 only to finish like they did) look like something you'd want to emulate?

If you watched that dreck and said "you know, we need to hire people from there" I can't help you.

People can like different candidates.  Nobody here actually knows how any of these GMs will pan out.  People thought John Lynch was an atrocious hire when the 49ers got him.    People thought Scott Fitterer was a great hire when we got him.  People thought Nick Caserio was a bad Patriots hire when the Texans got him.

It is all just guesswork.  The best you can hope for is the guy you get comes from a team known for stockpiling talent and that it rubbed off on them.  That is why some people, including me, want Halaby.  Now I'm sure you'll tell me to go read the article again and that is okay.  I'm not pretending like I know Halaby will be a success for a fact.  But you shouldn't pretend like you know he will be a failure either (which you seem to be doing by putting down anyone who dissents from what you believe in).  None of us really knows what these front office people are doing on an everyday basis.  Predicting a good GM is even harder than predicting a good HC (and that is a crap-shoot too).  

We are such a garbage organization. Baker and Stroud about to be in the 2nd round.

I'm not defending the job Thomas Brown did as an OC here.  But I'll just say this

1) There is a lot of evidence of guys being FAR worse here than they are in other places.  Coaches and players included.  Brown still may have a very bright future.

2) Thomas Brown is only 37 years old and was an assistant head coach under Sean McVay (the type of coach every team pursues nowadays) for a team that won a Super Bowl.  Even if he was white, he would be getting HC interviews.  Teams will pursue any notable assistant under McVay.