WhoKnows

When people say pay cut, it often makes me wonder if they understand cap. We are “paying” Moron $17M per year, period. That’s his deal. The cap hit is $30M now because we used bonuses to make his early cap hits way lower than $17M a year. His cap hit for 2021-2023 was $25M total even though he was paid $51M (by his average). That’s $26M we saved that’s hitting in 2024/2025. We can’t do anything but push that out. We aren’t a contender so like others have said, let’s eat it while we suck so we aren’t tempted to sign a couple guys to go from 4 wins to 5. Leave the future cap alone so we could afford a big splash when it matters.

Very much so. It’s why we lost value/talent in every draft since our last “good” draft back in 2017. Hurney 2.0 and Fitterer had locks that they had to draft regardless of value and that’s why we are where we are.

That was an all time TE talent draft. We missed the boat.

Agreed. If after this draft we’ve taken a TE in the 2nd and last year was our WR in the 2nd, it will prove we haven’t learned anything. Last year was the draft to go TE in the 2nd and this year is the draft to go WR in the 2nd.

Kiper put out a mock draft today and he sure doesn’t know that the Panthers aren’t that lucky. He has us trading 33 to the Giants for 47 and next year’s 2nd. Not a bad trade since we need talent, but I laughed at who he took for us at 39 and 47, almost felt like it was one of those this will never happen picking Rome Odunze at 33 type mocks. 39 - Ladd McConkey 47 - Jackson Powers-Johnson Right. If we walk out of the draft with those 2 and the Giants 2025 2nd, I’d drop to the floor and pray to the football gods to say thank you. I’ll also brace myself for the football gods to show us why they dropped and then laugh at us again.

Umm, he’s been the assistant GM for three years and I think Person had the article it, but he played a part in getting to where we are. I still blame Fitterer the most but Dan was his right hand man. Let’s hope he learned a lot but until we have some good drafts on the field (not just paper), we haven’t done anything.

This feels like a trap draft to me. Robinson’s measurables at the combine weren’t good. He was slow. JPJ is likely gone. Legette to me feels like another of the same that hasn’t worked and Wilson is 24 in 2 weeks with a very bad injury history. I look at this draft and feel like I’m a year or two we’d be disappointed with the real results.

He was right there although Schneider was the guy. Schneider has been quoted about how he was behind the Wilson selection. I think Fitterer took a lot from the Seahawks leading to Horn (legion of boom) and thinking a small Young would be fine, but clearly on his own he’s not a great scout.

No need to keep blaming Rhule for 2022. The 2022 draft was all Fitterer. Rhule was fired early in the season and was forced to change coordinators. We had tons of threads in here from some of our top posters about how Fitterer had taken the off-season reigns. Rhule isn’t going to be in charge of a draft while on the hot seat and this forum posted articles saying that. Fitterer trade ups in 2022/2023 were almost identical and Rhule isn’t sitting on the hot seat with Corral as his guy. I’m sure he asked for Mayfield.

I think there is a strong correlation but you draft 7 guys and you have 30 visits and as you said there’s a lot of reasons for a visit. Look at last year’s visits: https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/lists/panthers-top-30-visits-tracker-2023-draft/ The whole theme was around our 1st and 2nd picks. Both Young and Mingo were visits so we had a 100% correlation but again there were a ton of prospects we didn’t take in the 1st/2nd that we had in for visits. Some were likely gone before we could take them and some we just made horrible mistakes on. Unfortunately, it was clear who we were taking and how incompetent Fitterer was. This year’s visit list likely contains 1 or 2 of the guys we take at 33/39. It would be shocking if neither of those two picks came in for visits. I could see 33 be a surprise due to someone falling way too far but I’d guarantee that one of our visits is pick 33 or 39. The correlation is strong when there seem to be at least 2-3 picks every year from the visit list. This is a bit more of a wildcard year with no 1st because there are more and more options/visit guys picked by other teams. Maybe having 2 2nds close together makes it less of a wildcard because we seem to have a lot of day 2 (and 3) guys in our visit list with 3 picks between 33 and 65.

Just like @Jackie Lee’s example, both situations ended with success due to two (possibly three) things: 1 - Great Drafts - We haven’t seen Houston’s second draft, but 2023 was like Seattle’s great couple drafts 2 - Great rookie QBs 3 - Because of 1 and 2, it’s a chicken and the egg scenario but there has to be some portion of solid coaching as well to mold that young roster. Hard to know how much credit because those drafts were fantastic and those teams went from mediocre talent to seriously talented right away. My stance is still that until we have some solid to great drafting, we won’t be a contender even in our crap division. We need to hit this year so we can see the sparks and also most importantly prove whether Bryce can be the guy or we have to move on.

No one has been able to make him a star and he’s never shown in 3 years that he has the talent. There’s tons of WRs in the past that looked good with multiple QBs and schemes. A WR that “can play” as you said would show something after 3 years. Running the correct routes and getting separation is up to the WR. Feel free to show us any highlight plays that show your context and where TMJ would have had a great year with other QBs and schemes. Look at DJ Moore. He went through lots of “different” scenarios but it was very clear by year 3 (and before) that he had talent and could play. I know you like to be the contrarian and act like other people don’t get it but if you are going to back TMJ and tell everyone else they are wrong about him, I think it’s you that needs to provide something tangible. You need to show why you think he can play because his first 3 years as a 2nd round pick have been terrible even with tons of opportunities.

And YGM and Chaisson were two edges available around Justin Jefferson, Higgins and Pittman. I don’t think 33 will be WR9 and if it is, I’d think the couple guys we were hoping for got snagged. End of the day, all that matters is we pick the correct guy or one of the correct guys.

Lazy labels? Have you actually watched him play, especially pre-season since he’s done very little in the regular season? As @Jon Snow eloquently said above, if TMJ can’t stand out in the Panthers WR room as a 2nd round pick in 3 years, he’s not good and sorry, he can’t play. It’s still amazing to me how much we overrate our players in here, especially when they haven’t lived up to their draft slot.

Some guys don’t have it. It happens to many day 1 and day 2 picks every year. I honestly don’t think he has serious tools. We harsh on KB and Funchess and they blew away TMJ 3 year stats. Those two had 33 TDs in their first three years compared to TMJ’s 1 TD in three years and KB missed an entire year to injury.

That was crazy. Running from a hit and run would appear to be a felony, especially with all the camera footage and I’m sure injuries occurred. Running with “bags of guns” from the report I saw is crazy.

The post I replied to was 1-2 C, ILB and TE. I agree with you that top Cs go later, which is why I wanted one of the many good C/Gs over Little but that was also a deep IOL class. In this class, I’d still defer to WR versus the C/ILB/TE available in this draft. My example was edge because edge was mentioned often in here and the 2nd and 3rd edge rushers were a guy we drafted and a guy we just picked up against the backdrop of the last WR draft that I’d compare to this one. Trying to give an apples to apples comparison where you can’t just assume 1-3 at one position will be better than 4-7 at another.

I don’t think it’s mental. He can’t separate at all when the CBs press him. It’s one thing when it’s college DBs and you have other weapons taking primary focus.

Didn’t you peg him as a 1000 yard WR last year? His go route stats were an illusion. He couldn't separate but was left almost alone several times in 2022 while we turned into a run first team. He’d have a big catch every week for a short stretch and that’s it. When they gave him the chance to be WR2 next to Moore, he lost the camp battle to Shi Smith and for those of us who watched preseason including one Baker TD pass to Smith where Baker’s primary target was TMJ who fell down when the CB had him in press. Baker saw him fall and threw a nice TD to Smith. TMJ is not that guy. I have more faith in Young turning it around than TMJ. If we draft well, TMJ should have 0 shot at seeing the field.

Why do want someone to go up and get the ball over the middle? Wouldn’t you rather have WR that can get quick separation and catch the ball in stride over the middle and make longer gains? Going up and getting the ball over the middle smells like little separation jump ball where there’s no YAC.

I think it’s a little better, but not competing for playoffs better. On offense, OL looks better, especially if we pick up a starting center (better than moving Corbett). We did not improve much at the skilled positions yet. Diontae is a possible improvement but TE and RB are very much bottom of the NFL and we still don’t have a DJ Moore level talent at WR. I hope we get lucky in the draft at WR. On defense, seems like a wash that we don’t know for sure. We lost some and gained some. Either way, unless we have a great draft, we’re not different enough that we’d have an above .500 chance. I didn’t say anything about QB even though I don’t believe Young is the guy.

We haven’t had even an OK draft in a while. We’ve had poo drafts after 2017. We’ve drafted a few decent guys like Burns, and Brown but even then we missed Herbert by one spot or got Horn instead of some serious studs who haven’t missed 60% of 3 years. The rest of those 6 drafts has been putrid especially when you consider how many picks we traded away for nothing, including many day 1 and day 2 picks. We are unfortunately in must win mode with the next 2-3 drafts or we’ll be sub-.500 for an entire decade.

This is where we go awry every year with Fitterer and Hurney post round 1. In the 2020 draft, Lamb, Jefferson, Higgins and Pittman were the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th WRs. YGM and Chaisson were the 2nd and 3rd edges behind Chase Young. When you are staring at super deep classes, it’s not as simple as you mentioned. TE2 last year was La Porta. That’s fine because TEs were deep. This year you are likely passing on a couple WRs who will become a Higgins, Pittman or even Jefferson for a Howard or Njoku. Drafting the best guys at weak positions is not equivalent to the second tier guys at deep positions. You can get lucky but we’ve fuged up before like going with TMJ over Humphrey in a shallow WR class (handful of top talent) and a deep OL group with tons of starters after TMJ and after a long snapper too.

What? Need to be paid? Sorry man, Hubbard is one of the worst starting RBs in the league. You don’t pay him. You sign him to the vet minimum. He was 9th in the league in carries, but he was 20th in yards. Finding a 3.8 ypc RB is easy, it’s not something you need to pay. He looked good because he was actually giving us effort last year and the rest of the offense minus Theilin was awful.

Yep, been saying that for a while now. Clowney, Diontae and Hunt didn’t make a 2-15, barely won the two, team into a playoff contender considering what we lost as well. The draft is where we setup our future, good or bad.