LinvilleGorge

Except that our 1st round pick has been obvious for years now.

I definitely think that we want to. I'm just not sure that we find a dance partner unless we're willing to take less (possibly considerably less) than traditional draft pick value chart value for our pick.

It's about the importance of the position. If you don't have a QB you can't compete so if you don't have one it's kinda like fug it, let's roll the dice. Especially at the top of the draft where the rookie wage scale protects you from having to pay these kids like proven future HOFers.

I always get lectured every year when we inevitably win some meaningless late season games to tank our draft position that we're building culture and you always have to try to win no matter what. This is why that's bullshit. Once you're out of contention it's to your competitive advantage to LOSE.

It's called being a fan of a bad team. The draft is our version of the playoffs.

I think it dates back further than that. Back to at least Shaq. I remember Igo calling both Shaq and Vernon Butler and neither made sense for us at the time given our rosters. LB and DT we're probably our strongest overall units on the team at the time.

Love how we're making it obvious that we'd love to trade down while at the same time trashing the value of our current draft position. Brilliant. I wish the Panthers would at some point stop Panthering so much. LOL

7 sacks allowed = 127th (out of 141) 39 pressures allowed = 130th 12 penalties = 130th Overall, the Panthers had the 2nd lowest pressure rate allowed in the NFL.

Yeah, he probably got beat on those plays. We also only had 32 sacks all season while having the most pass attempts against us. By far the most pass attempts. We had 534 pass attempts against us. Second was the Cowboys with 66 fewer. The team that saw the fewest had over 200 fewer attempts against them. So we're not exactly comparing apples to apples here.

If a CB is doing his job a lot of times he's not going to get a lot of stat production because the opposing QB is simply going to avoid throwing his way. There's easier ways to move the ball.

Our defense hasn't been elite. That doesn't mean that an individual player hasn't been. All an elite CB can do for your defense is greatly limit the other team's best receiver or greatly limit the passing success to his side of the field if he's a zone guy. There's still a lot of opportunity for the opposing team elsewhere. I'm not saying he's a Luke or a Peppers. He's not. But I think he's a top 10 CB when healthy. I consider a top 10 CB to be elite. If you have a different definition, that's fine. I'm not gonna really argue where we draw that line or even if you think Horn is saying top 15 instead of top 10. Again, fine. Not really gonna argue that either. All I'm really trying to argue is that Horn is pretty damn good when he's on the field.

I'm not saying there's not a place for him here. I'm saying we massively overpaid for his skill set in today's NFL. Both statements can absolutely be true.

I didn't say cover two. I said he runs a lot of two deep safeties. Both cover two and cover four do that.

We've been drafting largely on RAS. Draft the best athletes and hope we can make them football players. It hasn't been working. The notable exception being Bryce where we did the exact opposite. We have to strike a balance. There's no perfect scientific approach to the draft. I think we've probably been overanalyzing the whole thing with Tepper thinking he's going to eventually crack the code that simply isn't there.

A big part of our drafting issues is that it seems like we're constantly swinging for the fences. Taking the athletic phenom who is boom or bust and they keep busting left and right. If we plan on continuing that trend, Shemar Stewart is the pick. Jalon Walker would feel like a departure from it. Pretty good is a helluva lot better than bust. If we'd been drafting pretty good all along the way we wouldn't have sucked so horrifically in recent years. Our problem hasn't been settling for pretty good, our problem has been ending up with worthless rock trying to mine for gold.

Yeah, he projects as a 3-4 OLB. He isn't Micah Parsons. Parsons was a great off the ball LB who simply projected as more valuable as a pass rusher in the NFL. He doesn't look special when he's dropping back. But man, he sure does when he's coming downhill.

Yeah, if you run a pure 4-3 system I honestly don't think you'd have him high on your draft board. I definitely think he projects to the NFL as a 3-4 OLB.

I wouldn't read much into that.

Would not be mad. He's my #1 preference out of decently likely to be available guys. I'd still listen to any incoming trade offers but I'd be plenty comfortable taking Walker if none were incoming or none were enticing.

You don't pay run support safeties big money in 2025. I just don't see him as a fit for us at all unless Evero is changing up his scheme to accommodate. He typically runs a lot of two deep split safeties. That's not Moehrig's game. And if we're going to shift to more of a single high scheme then good lord, FS might be our biggest need period.

Yep. Happens to a lot of talented kids. I just think a lot of people don't understand that just because this kid is super talented doesn't mean he's going to make it to the pros. Most of them won't. Some will get injured. Some will run into trouble off the court/field. Some won't put in the work. The catering greatly increases the odds of the latter two. Then most will simply just not be good enough to make it to the pros. Either way, it all adds up to a long shot and the kids need to have solid plan Bs. A few years back my HS had the #1 RB recruit on the nation. He originally committed to UGA but flipped to Bama and was getting decent playing time as a true freshman before obliterating his ankle. He was never the same again after that. Never made it to the pros. Not sure what happened to him but evidently he wasn't the brightest bulb and was basically just getting passed through school to stay academically eligible. I don't think he was a bad kid, never really heard anything like that. He just wasn't all that bright and all the eggs were in the football basket.

Our current hand is to pick up his fifth year option and then we have up to two more years to work on developing him and evaluating him.

That's the Marty Hurney approach. I sure hope we don't go back to that. I paid the guy like he's elite so hopefully that will manifest itself...

We're praying Horn can stay healthy. He's been elite when on the field. That's a lot different than praying Icky learns how to pass protect.

Seriously. We've drafted a total of three good WRs. Smitty, Moose, and Moore. That's the whole list.