LinvilleGorge

This might get really interesting. Evidently he's back at TAMU working out with the team and might just try to play college ball again this year. Wild. If he could win the ability to play college ball again after entering the draft it's gonna turn the draft upside down. Basically anyone who doesn't like their draft position or landing spot or whatever could basically just say screw that and go back to college again, cash another NIL check and try again next year.

Oh for sure. I think it was always an effort of poor roster building relying on unproven youngsters and an over the hill vet. But here we go again. It's the same story again this year. Hopefully it works out better this go round.

You're still blaming the one guy who was producing. It's not Thielen's fault that at 34 years old signed to be a #3 option he was forced into a feature role because no one else in the receiving corps stepped up. That's the massive piece here that some of y'all are just absolutely whiffing on. No one is acting like Theilen is a top tier WR at this point in his career. Y'all are trying to argue against something that no one is saying.

Why in Minnesota? That's bizarre. Not like we have a vet WR who played his college ball and the majority of his NFL ball in Minnesota that a few room temperature IQ Panthers fans want to poo on who was obviously brought in every bit as much to mentor young WRs as much as he was to play who has still managed to put up decent numbers in awful offenses in the twilight of his career. Anyone who thinks the Panthers haven't gotten everything out of Thielen that they signed up for shouldn't be taken seriously.

Bingo. Blaming Thielen is dumb.

What do you want me to tell you? I'm sorry that you thought he was brought here to be prime Smitty or Moose. He wasn't. That's a you problem.

No, I don't. What are you talking about? He was brought here to be a #3. He lived up to that. The rest of the roster failed. And you blame the one guy producing. That's what I'm talking about.

"If you view him in a certain way" He wasn't brought here to be a #1. He was forced to be the #1 because the rest of the roster failed. That ain't his fault. I rest my case.

The. Only. Receiver. Producing. It's the only argument I need. There's a lot of low hanging fruit you could blame but you're going after the one guy who is actually doing what he was brought here to do.

The. Only. Receiver. Producing. Yeah, let's blame that guy. LOL

He's the one guy in the receiver unit actually producing and yet you single him out for the blame. That's what's odd. Don't blame the one thing that wasn't broken. It's bizarre this needs to be explained. He was signed to be a high level #3 WR. It's not his fault that our roster's overall failure forced him into a role he's no longer suited for. The guy has been everything we signed him to be.

And that's Adam Thielen's fault? It's the fault of the one guy who produced? Dafuq?

Don't think about this season as much as the future. I don't think anyone really expects much out of the Panthers this season in terms of contending for anything consequential. Veteran mentorship is important and we've invested a lot of draft capital into our young WRs. Yeah, coaches are important but peer level mentorship can be equally if not more important. Virtually everyone has benefitted from that veteran person at work talking them under their wing and showing them the ropes at some point in their careers. It's different when it's coming from a peer vs. someone you have to report to.

We have about $21M in cap space dedicated to WR this year. There are 8 individual WRs with higher cap hits than that by themselves. *Oops, that didn't include T-Mac. Make that $26M. There's still two guys over that number with four more right at it.

Meh, I'm fine with it. Anything you're doing this time of year is about trying to create some competition in camp and maybe have a shot at improving the bottom of your roster.

He's absolutely necessary though. With nothing but inexperienced unproven youth outside of him we need that veteran presence on the unit both on and off the field. Overall, I bet we have one of the cheapest receiver units in the league because outside of Thielen at WR and Tremble at TE virtually everyone else is on rookie contracts.

We're gonna need the offense to look a lot better for that to happen.

I mean, he's basically averaging 1100 yards per year with only one year of decent QB play where his TDs and efficiency numbers dramatically increased. The dude's a stud.

What has happened in HS athletics busted full force into the college world with this NIL/transfer portal stuff. HS sports has been jacked up for a long time now. You have all these "prep schools" that are basically just diploma mills for athletes who hoover up all the good athletes they can get and they're all on scholarship. Then they go out and recruit decent athletes with rich parents to come onboard and pay outrageous tuition while they tout their success at getting their athletes college scholarships. Yeah, those athletes getting college scholarships are the same ones you're giving scholarships to so that you can use them to recruit the rich kids whose parents can pay for it all. You see the same thing in youth travel ball leagues. The whole thing is just getting crazy.

Thank god he was brought to justice for these horrible crimes.

I think the Niners just hopped on the bandwagon too

Yep, you got a be flexible and you gotta be honest about your player evaluations. Yeah, you take what many considered to generational QB prospect in Trevor Lawrence but you can't turn around and pay him like a high tier franchise QB after a few years of mediocre play. That Marty Hurney approach of "let's pay him like he's elite and then maybe he'll start playing like it" almost never works out.

Yep, you're better off needing a QB than you are financially shackled to a mediocre one.

That's the other thing. With the way these QB contracts are going unless you have an elite MVP caliber tier QB you're honestly better off building an offense that is geared to revolve around establishing the run and leaning on play action to setup the pass than you are to pa my some mid to lower tier starter a huge chunk of your salary cap. Let somebody else pay that guy and draft another one.

#2 rushing offense, #29 passing offense (one spot ahead of the Panthers)