WhoKnows

SMH. Cam v2 means a QB who can get you to a Super Bowl. It’s not really that hard. In one post you say how hard it is to replace Cam, Luke and our OL from the SB team and now you are saying it’s flawed thinking that we need a top QB to be good again? Do you ever notice how hypocritical you can be? Young isn’t talented enough IMHO to win us a SB. That’s the goal, right? We can sit around and hope we get to be the amazing teams around the Johnson and Dilfers of the world or we can get a great QB. We had a chance just last draft and we made a huge mistake. We had another chance this year if we had done the first trade offer for Burns and used those picks and kept our 2024 1st, but again we fuged it up. Flawed thinking is thinking that limping along with Young hoping he improves enough that if we draft perfectly around him that we can win in spite of him. That’s virtually impossible. The draft history of QBs that have been good enough to make/compete for a SB is a lot longer than the handful of game managers with amazing teams around them. Also, Cam is not a generational QB. Matt Ryan did the exact same thing (making an and losing a SB) and he’s not generational. Josh Allen and Burrow aren’t generational. We don’t need a generational QB like Brady or Mahomes although it would be nice. We just need a Stroud who we just need a few pieces around and some luck.

I agree with the post above that you need great QB play to realistically have a chance. We got our choice of the 1st pick in a decent QB draft and screwed up. Sure, best case is Young has a miracle upgrade, but it looks to me like that’s not going to happen. I liken this to Alex Smith and the Chiefs still knowing they needed Mahomes, except that I’d much rather have a 2nd year Smith than Young. Young might be able to get us into a playoff game but he will never win a Super Bowl. We had an MVP Cam and still lost the big game.

They do, just when. I hate to be pessimistic but it’s all about the QB. I can’t recall a QB situation where a bad QB (not bad stats, but looking like they don’t belong) turned a team around. Peyton Manning had a ridiculous amount of interceptions but he didn’t show his future limitations. Usually, it was picking another QB in the draft. Unfortunately, IMHO, we won’t be really better until we get our Cam v2, someone who can carry the team and not win only if we have a stud lineup around him. That’s why I’m more interested in how the rest of the draft picks do to see if we can actually solve holes like the ones we created losing Olsen, CMC, Moore, Turner/Kalil/Norwell, etc. I want to actually be one QB away not Fitterer’s definition of one player away.

Even I was a little excited just because we had a rookie QB finally. I’ll be honest that I was worried about the size but I didn’t really know much about the QBs aside from watching some college games. Once preseason started and we got mopped up and all the excuses came flying out, I knew we fuged up badly. Glad I waited to buy tickets. My son asked for game tickets as part of his birthday but he couldn’t figure out which one he wanted to go to and we ended up at the Atlanta rainy (wasn’t bad at all) game and we had a ton of room and had a blast because we actually won. I don’t have any faith that we’ll be good at all and I think QB is still our biggest issue. We’ve limped through 6 years so the interest is so low knowing we aren’t a potential playoff team.

The answer would end up being guys who are no longer on the team. 10-14 year olds aren’t DT fans if they aren’t piling up sacks so I think you’d get blank stares after you remind them over and over that their pick isn’t on the Panthers anymore and you want the current best player.

After Brown, it’s been a miserable failure in the draft, especially when you consider how many picks we traded away. Hopefully, 2024 shows some life but it is scary when Rhule + Marty + Teddy really was the high point of the Tepper era. We actually were competitive with the top seeds in the AFC/NFC. When we played two playoff teams in Miami and Detroit, we got destroyed this year. It’s going to be a bit before we are back to a top team.

I think you are missing my point. I know why you posted that. I was laughing at Goaty_Szn throwing shade on Rhule in March of 2023 as if we were making great moves. In reality, we made enough moves to be the worst team in the league and make us long for the Rhule, Marty and Teddy.

We haven’t had a “good” draft since 2017, but Rhule didn’t completely fug up a draft and put us multiple years behind with a single trade and incorrect QB. Anyway, I was making that point because that guy was basically trying to act like 2023 was going to be a great draft because we were making moves without Rhule. Oops!

Gotta love that guy trying to make fun of Matt Rhule as if we made good moves without him. Oh, what I would have paid to have Marty or Rhule run our 2023 draft instead of Fitterer having full say.

Yeah, hindsight seems so ridiculously obvious. Trying not to beat a dead horse because we of course fell for it, but you truly can’t get how we missed all the red flags. His deep ball stats. His size, not just height but eye level and body. His lack of running ability. His arm strength. His footwork. It’s insane that we truly felt he had such a super processor that it would overcome the litany of physical question marks. For the amount we traded away, truly mind boggling. Then again Fitterer was unbelievably bad and incorrect in almost every decision.

True, we’ve been very successful the past few years picking through the scraps of OL cuts.

That said, I’m glad he’s doing stuff like this because it’s a great experience for the kids, period.

Still looks bigger with the Chargers. Again, I don’t want a huge QB that can’t throw the ball at all but he looks like he hasn’t gotten stronger at all since last year.

Man, that one throwing angle where everyone got excited that he got beefed up seems like it was just a weird angle. Right at the start his right arm is very visible to the left of the kid and he does not look bulked up at all. He has often gotten compared to Brees and while QBs aren’t bulked up like other positions, Brees looks way bigger in the picture below than Young above. Damn miracle that our OL didn’t get him killed last year.

Agreed. I want to see improvements everywhere so we can identify what we actually need. Can Sanders be our go forward TE? Can Iky be salvaged? Is Brooks a long term answer? Is Leggette legit? What do we need on D? I still see Young as holding us back but hopefully we get visibility to plan for future drafts.

The last time we won the division was 2015. The only time we were close was in 2017 when we still had a good Cam, Olsen, TD, CMC, Luke and others and in 2022 when the division winner was under .500. Other than the past long ago we haven’t really been close.

That’s what we said and the defenders club didn’t get it. It’s very simple and not hard to understand. It’s kind of like the “why can’t you just be happy” comments now as if we aren’t 25-66 since the implosion in the second half of 2018 on our 4th coach and 3rd GM in 6 years.

You can’t even give him that. Yes, it helps to have a G who’s good so that the QB doesn’t run straight into the edge rusher and make Iky’s job easier but Iky was terrible just blocking the guy he was supposed to block. We saw that early in preseason. He couldn’t even block (heck even touch sometimes) the one edge guy who was his assignment and that was in preseason game 1. While the preseason doesn’t matter folks were laying out the excuses, it was obvious in preseason that Iky was going to have a bad season and our OL was not good.

Yep. It was an obvious red flag that a lot of people ignored. The results/scores in preseason don’t matter, but individual performance very much does and individually, we looked like the least talented team in the league and it carried over.

Sorry, but in 2015, we didn’t look like poo to the extent of 2023. People who said it’s just preseason were completely wrong. Simple as that. 2015 was a veteran lead team. It was Cam’s 5th year and Luke’s 4th. Even our OL was 80% the same (added Oher) as the great run to finish 2014 with a playoff win. That year can be labeled as preseason doesn’t matter because I’m sure we rested vets and well, Ron/Mike weren’t putting in special plays, etc. I absolutely don’t recall a bunch of us saying that Turner was getting killed on one on ones or that Luke was completely out of position or that Norman was hurt again but probably fine. The only thing that was right about the 2023 preseason is that the minority of us who saw it, were correct that we A) should have been making Young and others play 100% of the reps as there was nothing to hide and B) the preseason means nothing was a bunch of BS trying to stay optimistic when it was obvious that we had way less good talent than the rest of the NFL.

They also have 3 SB wins and more HOFers. Peppers is our first full HOFer versus guys who spend a few years with us. Elway by himself overshadows our history. Winning SB 50 would have been huge for our history, definitely putting that team into the greatest of all time discussions.

They are but TBH, I think I’d trade our QB for either of theirs, although Nix is clearly my least favorite. All the pre-Nix QBs as well and heck I think I’d rather have Levis just for his arm and thinking it’ll be easier to fix his turnovers than build an entire offense around unfixable physical issues. Going to be a long couple years. Really hope the draft this year and the next two are amazing because we need that to get out of this 6 year old dumpster.

I actually think he’ll get 2 more seasons as well. I think either we’ll get some luck and be just out of reach of the 1/2 viable QBs in the 2025 draft or there won’t be any viable QBs like 2022 and we’ll draft a non QB first. I think by default he’ll get this year and next and then 2026 we’ll go all in on a QB.

If this was fantasy land, I would have picked top 16 offense (real ranking not yards on D like our 5th ranked D that was 29th in scoring) or Young producing like Stroud. It’s not so I went with 1000 yard RB since that looked to be the best alternative to showing an improved OL and RB. Honestly, I want to see our rookies and FA acquisitions look really good even if Young is holding us back. I’d like to see the entire team looking better so when we replace Young we actually can feel like we are one QB away from really competing. I just have no faith that Young is the guy for the future. I don’t want a Teddy ceiling which is a middling record with maybe 1 playoff game in good years.

While that’s true, there are still years with better prospects. No player is guaranteed and you get Lance/Purdy stuff occasionally, but everyone said the 2022 QBs were lackluster and they were and that 2023 was better and it was even with AR’s injury and Bryce’s bomb. Same with 2024, no clue if Williams will be successful or not, but it was a way better QB class than 2022. 2024 vs 2023 was closer and both look to be better than 2025 so far. We don’t know who may step up but there are clear better prospect classes and clear worse prospect classes.