OK, time to decrease expectations.

[top dawg]

Our defense is really looking kind of shaky (well, not kind of). Not to mention the loss of Kemo and, it would appear, Beason, the whole defense looks out of kilter, like they don't know WTF is coming, or where it's coming from. Perhaps Meeks' defense will require the solid year of transition from T-Vac's that many have always thought. Three weeks from the beginning of the season, and now we're all scratching our heads. Everyone was wondering about our run defense, but it appears as if we will have a suspect pass defense as well. The normally hard hitting Harris and solid Marshall didn't resemble themselves IMO.

Moreover, Lord forbid that Jake should be injured, because our other options look pretty much as ill prepared as the defense. McCown played like a third stringer, and Moore played like..well...a third stringer. You have a seasoned NFL veteran QB, and a QB who has been groomed up in our system, and neither one of them looks as though they are prepared to take the reigns. Some may disagree, but I would expect Moore to look a whole helluva lot sharper than he did since 2007, and he may have looked worse.

The machine started faltering towards the end of last season, and now it just looks broken. The bad thing is that we only have three weeks until the beginning of the season, but the good thing is that we have three weeks before the beginning of the season. You can take that last statement however you like.

I hope that our offense (and especially our O-line) is prepared to roll the opposition over, otherwise we may have a long rollercoaster ride of a season.

[John Fox]

I hope we can get our 1st round pick back from SF...

[Brandon]

You can't judge a first string defense based off of preseason games. Period.

[Peppers90 NC]

hey, lower expectations seems to always make the result that much less worst, or that much better!!!! I couldnt read the for post in this thread, just going off the name

[John Fox]

You can't judge a first string defense based off of preseason games. Period.

How so? Our D looked so lost

[mountainpantherfan]

I'm not ready to start declaring that the sky is falling but will say that there does appear to be some dark clouds rolling in.

As I am sitting here tonight I really started questioning not Fox or Meeks or Davidson but Hurney. To me this doesn't appear to be a scheme issue but rather a personel issue. And as much as many on here would like to not admit it, a lot of it has to do with Peppers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming Peppers nor am I saying that I do not want him on this team. But lets face some facts here, that 17 million dollar tag may end up costing us more in the long run.

This team has way too much talent in certain areas for the Panthers not to be competetive. I even think that a winning season (9-7) or even a wild card could still happen. But the expectations of a Super Bowl really seem far out of reach at this point, at least for me.

I do think that the defense will improve and continue to improve as the season goes along. I also think that Williams and Smith are players that are going to make plays on the offensive side of the ball no matter what. So the sky isn't falling because we aren't to the point of the Lions or Browns or Rams. But if Hurney doesn't want the Panthers to end up becoming a team in that type of situation he needs to make some moves and move this team into a new set of expectations.

[Brandon]

How so? Our D looked so lost

Vanilla schemes, one defensive front, two or three coverage packages, maybe a blitz, etc, not to mention the lack of game-planning. It's basically looking at our defense purely on talent. And they did very well against a competent Miami offense which is by definition what would be our weakness given our current situation at DT, which was game planning.

[Mother Grabber]

Vanilla schemes, one defensive front, two or three coverage packages, maybe a blitz, etc, not to mention the lack of game-planning. It's basically looking at our defense purely on talent. And they did very well against a competent Miami offense which is by definition what would be our weakness given our current situation at DT, which was game planning.

That doesn't account or being out of position and poor tackling.

[Brandon]

That doesn't account or being out of position and poor tackling.

The first part is entirely irrelevant, think about it. On the tackling front however, it's really just one person who is missing tackles on first string...

[dpanthersman]

personally im not gonna panic over the result of any preseason games. yes there are things we need to work on but thats what the preseason is for. find the areas your struggling and fix them. what fox wanted to see out of this game was improvement from last week. and IMO the team looked allot better this week.

[top dawg]

You can't judge a first string defense based off of preseason games. Period.

Pre-season games are used to make judgments. That's what they are about. Maybe not used to judge the first string defense as a whole. but the many parts thereof. No one really gets an A tonight, except maybe for Anderson.

I am not saying the sky is falling, nor am i saying that we won't improve, I am just saying that we should be realistic based upon what we have seen so far, which is the NFL's version of LOST.

And let's not even begin to think about the injuries. This alone is troublesome.

[goodlay]

Week 2 of the pre-season is a bit too early to be jumping ship. Did you forget about all the talent we have?

[John Fox]

Week 2 of the pre-season is a bit too early to be jumping ship. Did you forget about all the talent we have?

the talent that is getting injured? also doesn't matter how much god given talent you have, you have to have heart.

[top dawg]

Week 2 of the pre-season is a bit too early to be jumping ship. Did you forget about all the talent we have?

Who is jumping ship?

All the talent in the world isn't going to help you if you don't know how to use it.