TD alt

I'm sticking with 3-14 until I see something that gives me a reason to increase it.

Nothing is absolute. All billionaires aren't bad, just like any other class of people. Thoughtless and heartless, maybe. I don't know. But some of the things that have gone on, if I were rich I just wouldn't do it, especially if I were a so-called Christian. The Bible says it's easier for a camel to get through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Hmmm, I wonder why. It also says that the road to Heaven is narrow, but the road to destruction is wide. Hmmm, again. No anger, just very sober of thought. Truth hurts! I don't know how you got anger or jealousy out of that, but you're off base. I wasn't angry when I posted as much as I was sober. The reason why you're quick to call it an angry rant and call me jealous is because you don't want to acknowledge the truth in the post, or really address the problems. You're happy and content with the status quo. I wonder why. Moreover, the reason why I don't do the tenderbox is because of the rampant dishonesty within it. It's a waste of time, just like Twitter for the most part. You can't have an honest discussion with dishonest people with blinders on.

Human values are turned upside down. Back in the 50s, the top dawg on the ladder made average made about 10 times more than those on the lowest rung. The majority of people (mainly white men, if we're honest) could still support their families working one job while getting an honest day's pay for an honest day of work. They could afford a home and transportation---nothing fancy, but a comfortable lifestyle. Now we have families that can't even afford food, much less a home and decent transportation (and let's not even begin to talk health care). But greed took root, special interests and PACs took over, Corporations were equated to a person by crooked courts, and basically everything than to go to Hell, and that's where our society is headed. Reaganomics took root, a.k.a. trickle-down economics, and obscene wealth disparities began to develop and now the wealth gap is insanely huge and increasing, as many many people can't even make ends meet. People are actually working more than ever; we have a highly productive society (and world), but now even the working-class---middle-class (or whatever you want to call it) is feeling the economic pain that people at or near the bottom have been feeling, and it's all because billionaires have stacked the deck in their favor by stacking Congress and the courts with Plutocrats and wannabe-billionaires in order to continue receiving their corporate welfare to the detriment of hard working people. These people are self-centered and self-entitled and use all manner of instruments to divide and conquer, all so that they can live to excess while others struggle. There is no rightness, righteousness or justice in that. It is hypocrisy of the highest order.

But I don't think that's what he's saying, as much as he's saying that the offense should be better and should actually make us more competitive on a weekly basis. 3-7 wins isn't exactly lighting the world on fire. The defense is a pretty big unknown, but only if we can stay healthy. If Jaycee goes down, which is better than a given at this point, we're essentially just screwed. The same can be said of Clowney to be honest. The analyst said that he doesn't know what the hell we're going to do if the injury bug bites. As for the run game, many seem pretty high on the rookie, and the analyst said that after Reich was canned, we went from 92 to 125 YPG, and he doesn't see any reason that the upward trajectory won't continue with Canales, whom he believes is a talented offensive-minded coach, and the fact that the guard play should be a lot better.

There's much of nothing coming out this time of year, but here's a vid that I believe that many fans need to internalize because it speaks to expectations for the 2024 season. There's nothing really new, but I'd like to point out that one of the few things that I personally learned is that D.J. Wonnum's contract is only guaranteed to the tune of 10 percent. The analyst in the vid is a Vikings guy, and he has seen all of Wonnum's plays. He says that Wonnum disappears for big stretches, and of course, as a Panthers guy, I couldn't help but think of Brian Burns' disappearing act for stretches as well. To paraphrase and kind of give my two cents, Panthers fans should be somewhat optimistic about all of the potential on offense (but not crazily so), and be somewhat worried about the pass rush and defensive backfield. We're thin at both, but hopefully we can at least be competitive based on the offensive side of the ball. This is not to say that we won't be better on defense, but being so thin at rush and on the back end, we will be lucky to substantially improve. One more note is that I believe he's somewhat of a Young apologist, as he didn't really mention Bryce's bad play specifically, taking the position that we just don't know what we have in Young based upon the sh¡t show in 2023. I could argue the point, but what's the point? We'll have to see what Bryce has got when surrounded by much-improved talent and coaching. Check the vid out; it isn't so long, and though there are multiple reasons to be skeptical about the defensive personnel, last year produced a couple of stats that should indicate that Ej knows what he's doing. Like the analyst said, we'll hopefully do for the defense in the 2025 off-season, what we did for the offense this off-season.

I'm just happy to get rid of him. It would have been nice to get more compensation, but once we turned down the Rams' offer, we were screwed on that front. We were destined to take an L. But, we were able to take a substantial amount of savings with his departure and ultimately prioritize the O-line while possibly improving the D-line despite Burns' departure. On one hand wasted opportunity was a hard pill to swallow, but the savings opened up different opportunities.

Not everyone. Some people, like the Tuna, could never see Bryce excelling in the NFL due to his size. As fans, we can only evaluate talent from afar, so we can't see everything and don't know everything. Pertaining to fans, if what you say is true, it's only because it was media-driven. But, if any fan is being honest (especially Panthers fans as of late), drafting is a highly imperfect exercise. A certain amount of misses are built-in. A long history of stats don't lie. We all knew that just as much as Bryce could be a hit, there was a higher likelihood of him not working out. I mean, we're giving him a fair shot, but this is the time that he must sink or swim. This is the time for critical evaluation based upon his real professional play, not pre-draft evaluation based upon projection---in other words, "imagination." I don't think that anyone should apologize for that. The time is now. We have seen what we have seen, and we will see what we will see. Bryce must lead, or be replaced.

It's a provocative article. Could be me, but I don't think that the analyst would bet his lunch money on Bryce being the long-term answer at QB. Despite all the obvious reasons why Bryce was in a bad situation, the times that he had a clean pocket, he was decidedly mediocre at best, and that's being polite. The expectation is that he will never play to a level commensurate with what the Panthers gave up to get him. We lost on that deal. His---our "safe place"---really bespeaks of him being JAG...a backup. If we get more from him, color me shocked---pleasantly surprised. But I'm not counting on that any more than I'm counting on humanity to unify as a species and save ourselves and our planet from ourselves. We're just going through the motions until we can truly see a better future ahead. It's going to take more than Bryce to really get us to where we want to go.

The digital age was supposed to make things cheaper. The ability to stream has made things exponentially cheaper for the NFL, but yet (just like most corporations) the charge more and more for their product. I'll be damned if I start paying for their exorbitantly priced Sunday Ticket after all these years. It costs them substantially less to stream than to broadcast. The NFL is full of sh¡t!

Don't know who you are, but if you don't understand that people use the term "we," as the league, owner, coaches, players and fans as part of a team, literally and/or figuratively, then you don't understand being a fanatic or marketing, which in large part are based upon appealing to emotions. In this case, "we" are the Panthers. Keep Pounding!

You're crazy! Just answering the call. Pie for putting in the work. I suspect we'll be better, but we won't know what we really have until October. Ej has proven to be somewhat of a magician if last season is any indication. Let's see what he has cooking in 2024. I don't know what veteran rushers will be cut in August to add depth (or more), but we'll be first in waiver priority. We gotta hold on third downs (pun certainly not intended).

OK, second lowest pressures and lowest pressure rate. PFF ranks him 10th. https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-guard-rankings-top-32-2024-nfl-season

Are you forgetting about our new top five guard?

I got two tiles for ya (use your imagination or ChatGPT for the storyline): How The Tepper stole Christmas...But Brought Music to Charlotte Rudolph Breaks His Red Nose...And A Leg On Artificial Turf

I was tired of the Burns thing. Sure, I thought we could've held out for more, but we probably would've missed out on the guards while fooling around. I'm at peace with it all, as I believe that we are an overall better team.

It's just a matter of time before AI takes over the world, first figuratively and then literally.

My ex-boss, arguably the best that I ever had, used to love having discussions about where America was headed. He is a Carolina-born, white registered Republican. At the time, I was a black registered Democrat. He was roughly a decade younger than me, and he outright told me that his parents were dumb racists living out the legacy of divide-and-conquer and raised him to do the same. He told me about how some of his family used the N-word as a matter of course, and essentially lived an existence to prop up those politicians that spewed the politics of divisiveness while they lined their pockets at everyone else's expense. He said that it wasn't until he got to highschool and began to experience other people that he realized that his parents had fed him a bunch of lies and bullshit¡t about how the world is and how it should be. He used to tell me, "The only way things are going to change in America is through blood." At the time, I thought that he was just being dramatic (and you have to realize that this was during Obama's first term and pre-pandemic). But now I'm thinking that he is right. I say this because I don't think that many people are prepared to change the way of our world via blood. If this world is going to change, it's going to take the youth to do it. Us old-heads are tired. With us, the roots of Cynicism and Stoicism run deep.

Yep, corporate welfare is a thing. Homelessness is expanding, as you can imagine, especially with rents as they are, the dearth of affordable housing for sale, and high a$$ interest rates. The government, along with the Fed created artificially created all of this. We're a nation where plutocrats do the bidding of oligarchs, and the proletariat stands by and does nothing because it has been thoroughly brainwashed and manipulated by the masterful execution of divide-and-conquer by those who continue to line their pockets to the detriment of the lower and middle classes.

When I was younger and more optimistic, I used to think "diamond in the rough." Now? I don't see any way in hell that this dude makes the team.

So, it's who you know, but not what you know... I'm kidding. You've been a good Huddler FWIW. Hopefully that's inclusive of your mod responsibilities. I haven't been paying enough attention to judge. I do appreciate your insights though.

Ha ha. I was thinking, Dimbee was a Bears fan.

Honestly, I have no problems with being fixated on a player. If the FO is on board, which it sounds like it was, at least for now, then I don't see the problem. Every FO in this league develops a preference or preferences during draft season. I think that you're assuming that there were better options analytically, but X could easily be deemed the best of those options depending upon one's perspective. They loved him for specific reasons. Now, they must put their plan in action.

Bear Hands, who are you? Who were you before "Bear Hands?"

Yes, I liked it.

Damn, all that gear. My son just gave me a hoodie and a heavy sweatshirt for Father's Day...I'd be good as long as they stay in the Carolinas. Yeah, that's my first thought, so bite me, and get off my grass.