2018 Hangover

[hepcat]

I’ve been a Panthers fan long enough to never get too high or low. This team is guaranteed a 4-12 record but could finish 14-2 and I wouldn’t be surprised by either result. 

[Khyber53]

We came into this season and went 0-2. That was not, by any means, something that created a false sense of hope for this team. In the process we lost our starting QB and one of our starting guards.

We came back and won four straight with an undrafted, unsung, hell unknown, backup QB and started shuffling our line as we lost a tackle, too along the way. We lost our star CB and our star DT.

If anything, this season has shown us what an incredible deep and stable foundation this team has. I mean rock effin' solid. There's depth and skill and a crap ton of grit in our lineup.

We've won on the road (including an across the pond one) and we've won at home. We've beat two of the league's up and coming darlings in Houston and Jacksonville. We've even avenged our earlier loss to Tampa Bay.

And it looks like Cam is coming back. Action Jackson should be back soon, too. Little may be back to take over at LT again.

Our offense is playing steady, scoring football. Our defense is a league leader in sacks and turnovers. Our special teams group is playing better than it has since the John Fox days. Our team has among the fewest penalties called against it in the league. We haven't thrown an INT in four games. 

I think optimism from here might be warranted and rewarded. We've got tough games ahead with the 49ers, Packers, Saints, Seahawks and Colts. At least two of those teams is worse than their season says right now and the rest, well, I think we can give them a run for their money. And we have the Redskins, two Falcons games and the Titans left to play: and that could very well be four victories right there with no sweat.

[d-dave]

11 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

You always have to remember that an NFL season is a marathon, not a sprint.

100%.  This is why I want to see how well Allen plays with some adversity and real pressure on him.  Things look good, and I hope they stay that way, but NFL teams change throughout the season.

I just want us to get to week 10 with a decent record so we can push to the end for the playoffs.  I feel like Ron and the Panthers have usually played their best at the end of the season.  Last year was such an aberration, that it sucked the life and hope out of most of us.  We just aren't used to see us play so poorly in November and December.

I go into each game hoping we do well, but expecting the other shoe to fall and us to implode.  Yeah, I'm still scarred after last year!

[trueblade]

If the Panthers are 6-2 again after 8 games which would include wins over the Titans and 49ers (possible, but not probable), many people are going to start thinking about the last half of 2018. You'll even see the national media talking about it.

[mc52beast]

If someone had told me before the season that Cam would miss multiple games and Kyle Allen would step in and be part of a four game winning streak I would’ve called you nuts.

Im not getting overly optimistic just because we haven’t played the toughest part of the schedule yet and nobody knows what Cam will look like if/when he returns.

[Mr. Scot]

On 10/16/2019 at 11:32 PM, outlaw4 said:

My biggest fear is that our team - regardless of who's our QB - is going to look worse coming off the bye. Just a nagging feeling that Ron will not have the team ready and the 49ers will give us the Steelers treatment to where we can never full recover.

So, ummm...yeah 

I suppose I could ask whether anybody's feelings have changed after this past weekend.

[Shocker]

There is no way in hell this team is winning the Super Bowl.  In 2015 we were amazing and dominant and not winning it then stunk.  This team has no where near that kinda mojo and you do not just find that midseason.  Its not happening and it feels like we could make the playoffs but it will be a fight bigtime.  

I really think we need to see at some point what Cam has left, otherwise we are shopping for a QB round 1.

[SmokinwithWilly]

On 10/16/2019 at 6:22 PM, pantherj said:

Well I know that you hate the Ron and Marty combination, and you thought and probably still think Marty is a bad GM, so it makes sense that you might think the bottom is about to drop out for this team. I think Marty is a good GM and he needed time to fix Gettleman running this franchise into the ground with terrible draft picks and free agent disasters. Now we have plenty of Marty's pieces in place and you see the results, but you might still have doubts like any fan.

In any season you play top tier, middle tier, and bottom tier teams. I trust that this team can beat bottom tier teams now, and win more than we lose against middle tier teams, and steal a few close ones against top tier teams. That's really all you need to make the playoffs in most cases, and anything can happen in the playoffs. So we appear to be in a great situation.

My main fear is the injury bug, and the cap space we lost due to Gettleman's Matt Kalil disaster, and he will hit our cap again in 2020. KK is out for the season, and he is an expensive loss to boot. Think about what Marty could do with the lost Matt Kalil money, but that's water under the bridge. My main worry is further injuries, and the Saints uncanny ability to stay healthy overall. If the Saints start losing key pieces we can take the South. If we continue to get our ass kicked by the injury bug then we'll be lucky to even make the playoffs.

Fear of a total collapse? Sure. Cam could come out against SF and start throwing picks and dead ducks all over the place and start us on a losing streak. This could all fall apart due to Cam in a heartbeat. Is Cam going to be Superman or Bizarro? Who the hell knows? If we knew it wouldn't be as much fun.

 

I'm curious what terrible draft picks you are referring to? 2016 was his worst draft, but they all weren't terrible overall.  And let's not forget that Gettleman had to be called in to fix the cap disaster Hurney left when he was canned the first time. I'm no fan of Hurney 1.0, no secret. I've said that Hurney 2.0 appears to have done a better job on paper, but it's too soon to tell. I think it's fair to evaluate after 3 years, much like draft picks. Every GM drops a turd contract every now and again, we all know Hurney had his fair share. But 3 winning seasons in 11 years is not a good track record of success. I will agree he lacked finesse in handling of releasing Smitty and Norman. He always struck me as a business first guy, with emotions second. It doesn't always go over well. 

As for the success of the team going forward, I'm not overly optimistic. Seeing this team completely outcoached against SF, especially coming off a bye, leaves me with very little confidence. I believe that the talent is here to put together a solid, wild card team. I don't think we have the coach with the ability to adapt to what's in front of him to make that happen. Cam coming back, whenever that is will help, but I really think that Rivera himself is the hurdle to big to overcome. 

[pantherj]

1 hour ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

I'm curious what terrible draft picks you are referring to? 2016 was his worst draft, but they all weren't terrible overall.  And let's not forget that Gettleman had to be called in to fix the cap disaster Hurney left when he was canned the first time. I'm no fan of Hurney 1.0, no secret. I've said that Hurney 2.0 appears to have done a better job on paper, but it's too soon to tell. I think it's fair to evaluate after 3 years, much like draft picks. Every GM drops a turd contract every now and again, we all know Hurney had his fair share. But 3 winning seasons in 11 years is not a good track record of success. I will agree he lacked finesse in handling of releasing Smitty and Norman. He always struck me as a business first guy, with emotions second. It doesn't always go over well. 

As for the success of the team going forward, I'm not overly optimistic. Seeing this team completely outcoached against SF, especially coming off a bye, leaves me with very little confidence. I believe that the talent is here to put together a solid, wild card team. I don't think we have the coach with the ability to adapt to what's in front of him to make that happen. Cam coming back, whenever that is will help, but I really think that Rivera himself is the hurdle to big to overcome. 

Gettlman's plan for drafting large WR's didn't work and really hurt us, and we're talking a 1st and 2nd rounder. Did you think 2nd rounder Kony Ealy was good? 3rd rounder Daryl (never looked good EVER) Worly. I'm not going through them all. I completely hated Gettleman's drafting with very few exceptions, and his Matt Kalil decision, a player who looked TERRIBLE to every single member of the Huddle, was a disaster.

Add in Cam, Little and Daley, and this is not a team that should miss the playoffs imo. The 49ers look like possibly the best team in the NFL, and the Panthers players simply didn't execute the offense or defense in any way a that could be considered competent. A rematch wouldn't produce the same blowout result imo. 

It's one thing if the coaching staff is clueless as to how to adjust to what the opposition is doing live. It's entirely another when veteran players are out of position and don't play up to a professional standard. RR's job is on the line imo. If we miss the playoffs I think he won't receive a new contract. I'm fairly confident this team can make the playoffs, but if they don't then clean house.

 

[Paa Langfart]

I do not see how any one who is being realistic can be optimistic knowing the schedule in front of us. Sorry but with this team my mental health comes first.  That means keeping it real.

[ellis]

On 10/16/2019 at 7:52 PM, Mr. Scot said:

I'm not generally a guy who gets my hopes up anyway. I always try to be measured and not set my expectations too high too early.

Granted, sometimes that's not easy.

Last year was one of those years. I was pretty happy with the early season results. Admittedly, there was this nagging little thought in the back of my head that maybe we were a house of cards, but I kinda hoped I was just being paranoid.

Then came the week that reality (or was it the Steelers) walked up and slapped us in the face.

You know the rest.

Fast forward to this year. As usual I'm trying to be cautious, but there are also a lot of things to like about how the team is looking right now. Rationally speaking, I know we're still in the easy part of our schedule and that it gets tougher from here.

And that's where the memory of last year creeps in.

To be clear, it's not a particular factor or a certain area of the team that I worry about. Honestly, it's probably not even a rational thing. It's just the memory of how quickly last year went from the penthouse to the outhouse and sincerely not wanting to see that happen again.

So I'm curious now as to whether anybody else is thinking about it. Are you fully hyped up again, all systems go on your optimism, ready to take on the world and come out victorious?

Or is there that nagging doubt that we could get smacked in the face and fall back to Earth again?

I really think they’re going to be OK. What plagued them as much as anything last year was just atrocious pass defense in long yardage. They were managing things pretty nicely even with cams shoulder falling apart. Giving up big play after big play killed their chances. Glad they fixed it for the New Orleans game, but it was too little too late by then. 
 

This defense is not built for a match up like they had Sunday. They are built to get on top of people or stay competitive throughout the game, and unleash a pass rush. They can be bullied, but very few teams play that style of ball. They just ran into one. 

Hell, I even like their chances better against Green Bay than I did vs SF. I think the defense matches up better with that offense than they did against San Fran. It’s not like they haven’t beaten Rodgers before. 

[FeelTheBurns53]

2 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

So, ummm...yeah 

I suppose I could ask whether anybody's feelings have changed after this past weekend.

Haha good call. I defineltly wasn't reminiscing of the steelers debacle last year leading up to this game, but the moment I saw things go completely south for us, that game and the 2018 downfall immediately came to mind. 

Honestly, we're fuging garbage. The rhetoric before this game was "the niners haven't played any real competition either" and that in some way was supposed to justify their 6-0 record. 

The difference is the niners trashed every team they should have trashed, the Panthers barely squeaked out wins against trash, either blowing big leads or playing pussy ass rivera ball (aka winning by 10+ is unethical in the NFL and is showing the opposition up) trash ass mentality. 

Kyle Allen looked good against trash, and the moment he played against a legit defense, he looked like trash, and so did the rest of the offense.

We had two weeks to prepare for this game, and looked like straight manure. This will go down as one of the most embarrassing losses in Panthers history, one that we might not ever recover from. 

A beat down of this magnitude can really affect the psyche of any team. Even the pats would be wounded from a similar ass whooping. We lost by almost 40. That's like an unranked division I no name school thinking their 4-2 record is legit bc they played other unranked division I no name schools and then land Alabama and get fuging trashed. This is a loss of epic proportions, aka, a trash ass team losing to a legit contender. fuging trash. 

BTW, did I mention we're trash? 

[Snake]

On 10/16/2019 at 7:53 PM, Dex said:

SF game will say a lot but the Saints are balling this year and I'm not confident we win the division. 

I'm not confident we win one game against them. We got exposed pretty bad to a team not as good as the Saints. 

[Mr. Scot]

2 hours ago, FeelTheBurns53 said:

Haha good call. I defineltly wasn't reminiscing of the steelers debacle last year leading up to this game, but the moment I saw things go completely south for us, that game and the 2018 downfall immediately came to mind. 

Honestly, we're fuging garbage. The rhetoric before this game was "the niners haven't played any real competition either" and that in some way was supposed to justify their 6-0 record. 

The difference is the niners trashed every team they should have trashed, the Panthers barely squeaked out wins against trash, either blowing big leads or playing pussy ass rivera ball (aka winning by 10+ is unethical in the NFL and is showing the opposition up) trash ass mentality. 

Kyle Allen looked good against trash, and the moment he played against a legit defense, he looked like trash, and so did the rest of the offense.

We had two weeks to prepare for this game, and looked like straight manure. This will go down as one of the most embarrassing losses in Panthers history, one that we might not ever recover from. 

A beat down of this magnitude can really affect the psyche of any team. Even the pats would be wounded from a similar ass whooping. We lost by almost 40. That's like an unranked division I no name school thinking their 4-2 record is legit bc they played other unranked division I no name schools and then land Alabama and get fuging trashed. This is a loss of epic proportions, aka, a trash ass team losing to a legit contender. fuging trash. 

BTW, did I mention we're trash? 

Outlaw nailed it better than I did.