WhoKnows

You’d hope. I don’t feel like we’ve been good at this for a long time.

I’m talking about football talent. Technique is something you can learn and improve. Innate football talent is something that isn’t going to be learned. Bad route runners don’t become great ones. Bad hands don’t become great ones. Edge rushers don’t all of a sudden get amazing bend. There may be a little overlap in that players can improve, but some players just have better football skills. All things equal, sure I want the guy who loves football and is super passionate, but I’m not going to want a passionate guy over Calvin Johnson. The whole Dawg thing was fun at first but that’s supposedly what Dan was looking for and we literally had the worst defense in NFL history. Let’s just hope we draft some god damned good NFL players for once.

Umm, you need to let a combine result overrule the tape when, like @SmokinwithWilly mentioned, Greg Little’s combine drills were the worst of every OL in attendance. He was a PFF superstar with only 1 sack given up. The numbers stuff can exaggerate good or bad too much, but all the drills they run are simulating actual plays/movements so doing poorly/well there is a good way to compare people and to show why you should take a chance on a Trey Smith in the 6th or not waste a chance on Deonte Brown in the 6th because one is skilled and the other benefited from first and second rounders all around him. It really is funny how some of us armchair GMs can see the obvious but the Panthers GMs get fooled way too often.

Before we crown these guys, can we find out who 55 from the team with those silver wings on the helmet is. He was in both highlights and well, he might not be NFL material. Of course I just jinxed us as he will be our surprise 2nd rounder this year.

You are confusing great athletes with talent. XL is a great athlete but I think Coker has shown to be more talented. Running routes and having great hands are “talents” for a WR. DJ Johnson was never considered a great talented edge who just didn’t have enough passion. We need great football players. DL that know how to get leverage, fire off the line the quickest and make plays. If you watched our defense, we had so many guys who couldn’t get off blocks or couldn’t maintain their gaps. Doesn’t mean they didn’t try hard or were bad athletes, they just weren’t good talented football players.

Me too. I saw the top ref and thought they got it but then he backs off as soon as the bottom ref ran up. I forgot about the Worthy play. If Worthy was given the catch then the ground touch made it incomplete. Made no sense. Either you rule an interception and Buffalo QB touched and down before the ball is pulled out or call it an incompletion because the ball touched the ground before Worthy got possession. That was likely an additional 4 points that KC got instead of having to kick a FG.

He did. A frame before or after showed his face and the top of the ball. The spot on 3rd down was also way closer to the first down than the spot was as well. The ball was in his left hand and his helmet was at the line. Using both angles, you could determine it without much difficulty. Refs played their part. No way to know if Buffalo scores or not and what KC does after so it is what it is and Buffalo had their last chance by abandoned all runs and dropped that 4th down throw.

There’s no doubt in my mind that he made it and there’s also no doubt in my mind that it should have been a half yard or almost the entire yard closer on Kinkaid’s catch the play before. Bills still had their chance and blew it (especially taking the XP off the board so early). That’s there MO to mess things up and go away from easy plays and the running game.

From where the OL’s blue stripe is and Allen having the ball in his left arm (can see that from the other side), he looks like he got to the line. Also, Kincaid caught the ball and fell on the line. Looked like he almost got there or did get there but look at the blue line of scrimmage. Had they not spotted Kincaid way shorter, Allen makes it easily. Huge play that the refs gave to KC by spotting it short and then going to replay. Basically means there has to be indisputable evidence to overturn. Two straight poor spots and they get shafted IMHO. If KC wins, it’ll be because of those two spots both clearly benefiting KC.

He did. The ref on the side where you could see the ball in Josh’s left arm came in and spotted it at the line. The other ref came in short. That was legitimately a game altering call and the refs pulled a Cotchery on it. Sucks but the refs have too much pull in these games. Put a chip in the ball or use AI to determine the exact spot. The refs have been spotting the ball short for the Bills on multiple plays.

I think it’s BPA at that point. If TMac is available at 8, it means all the top D guys are gone and we’d be reaching. Assuming, two QBs, if TMac is there at 8, it probably means Hunter, Graham, Johnson, Carter and even Walker are gone. The last thing we can do as a team is reach. We don’t have the talent to do it again. Take TMac so that our WRs aren’t crap if Thielen retires. If Thielen is gone this year or next, the offense will be right back to meh. Coker, XL and Sanders isn’t scaring anyone.

Ok? What does that mean? Our defense is pretty similar to those Detroit teams, they both sucked. Jerry Rice wouldn’t have done any better in Detroit yet he has a few rings because he was on a better team. Again, WTF does Calvin Johnson’s team have to do with comparing TMac with him?

Yeah, this I can see and I’d love him at 8 if he could be Mike Evans. He’d have to run sub 4.4 to be compared to Calvin.

He’s not the next Calvin if he doesn’t have track speed. Calvin Johnson was huge but he ran a 4.35 at the combine. That’s disgustingly fast for his size. It doesn’t sound like TMac is close to that speed. If we get him, I hope he’s an all-pro but CJ was in another world physically.

He will never be a great pick. We lost 2 of 4 years already and Hubbard is now under contract for the last two years. The 2025 RB draft class is super deep and day 3 of the 2024 draft had several solid rookies. There’s literally no way he can be a great pick. The huddle liked the Cs and CBs and Sainristill and Frazier were the guys we discussed taking as the next guys up where we took Brooks. We’re likely taking another RB in the draft this year as well because we have to now.

There are 60+ guys who were seen by some teams as a 1st rounder before the draft process starts. Greg Little was a top 15 pick before the combine. Malik Willis and Matt Corral and Levis were all seen as 1st rounders at some point early in the draft process. Unfortunately, we got spooked by the Cowboys maybe wanting Brooks and took him way too early. Hurney did the same with Little and grabbed the falling sword when Little had been dropped from most top 50 lists. Fitterer jumps on TMJ thinking the Saints will nab him. Fitterer said we considered Corral a potential 1st rounder too. We were the only ones thinking Brooks was worth the risk and as usual we were wrong. Brooks was never healthy during any of the real draft process so your oh he was ranked a first rounder when healthy by others is just comfort food for our mistake. We were likely the only team that thought anything like that since it’s our history and he wasn’t. If he went in this draft with an ACL, he makes it to the 4th. We fell on the sword and now the deep 2025 RB class will all have a year of experience in the NFL before Brooks and still not be close to his injury risk. Someone in here said we probably don’t need him in 2026, so we’ve got folks already thinking we might get 1 year out of a 2nd round pick.

If the WRs don’t test amazingly, Walker could also be gone. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s all defense and 2 QBs before we pick. I really hope there’s one or more teams that surprise everyone. Based on our luck of being one extra win away from a super stud (Herbert, Sewell/SF trading us 3 1sts, etc.), it really won’t surprise me. We’ve done some stupid stuff but we also don’t seem to have the oh look Jayden Daniels is a stud type of luck either. Charlotte is the hey we almost got Wemby type luck.

Yep. Remember how we liked every QB prospect, just depended on whose article you read. That went for the 2022 draft and the 2023 draft. That said, we might let out some hints to reporters about the guys who aren’t in the Hunter, Johnson, Graham and Carter group that are likely all gone before we pick. Kind of an it’s ok that we didn’t get Carter because we liked Walker just as much. Soften the blow of dropping to pick 8.

Brooks wasn’t a first rounder and the ACL was too risky considering the 2025 RB class was loaded and there were several day 3 guys in the draft that looked like a great compliment. I agree that it was dumb to risk it but his ACL was likely to tear and it would have sucked more if it happened week 1 2025. That said you should have an issue with drafting him in round 2 if you thought he shouldn’t play in 2024. If he’s not going to play then you have to compare him to the 2025 RB draft class and with the talent and depth, Brooks wasn’t likely a 3rd or more likely a 4th based on injury risk in 2025.

We’ve done such a poo job bringing on draft talent for years now. “Doing their best” has been terrible and we continue to take risky, old and raw talent and it’s not working. It amazes me when people are happy with the results and defend the team with every move. Morgan needs to knock this draft out of the park or we’ll continue to win participation trophies.

It is, which is why you don’t double down on a risky gamble.

How good he looked? 22 yards on 9 attempts and 3 catches for 23 yards is all he did. We barely saw him and I don’t think we can say he looked really good. 3.8 yards per touch on limited touches isn’t flashing anything. We won’t see him until 2026, so who knows what we have and how long he’ll last.

I agree with some of these comments. Why did we wait until 1/18 to have surgery when he was hurt on 12/8? 42 days seems long. Pretty much seems like that guarantees no play in 2025.

Oh yeah, I forgot that terrible holding call on Buffalo that basically stopped the drive. It would have been 2nd and 3 on Samuel’s catch instead of 2nd and 22. I hate when the refs make such a huge impact.

Refs seem to want Lamar to move on. That holding was ridiculously obvious and they’ve let multiple pushes and two punches after the whistle go.