5 Carolina Panthers players facing an uphill battle at training camp

[kungfoodude]

11 minutes ago, Scott12345 said:

I think Daley can be a player…if he can stay on the field

he was pretty good when healthy

I'm stealing this quote from someone(cannot recall who), "Availability is an ability." If you cannot stay healthy, it doesn't matter how good you are.

We have a LOT of guys on the roster that fit that description currently. Unfortunately, a lot of them are in that OL unit. 

[AU-panther]

1 hour ago, kungfoodude said:

IMO, it's that they believe in their ability to turn these guys into something they likely aren't. Let's be honest, rare are the stories of journeyman backup OL and busts that go from team to team in the NFL and then suddenly become above average players. Hence my general dislike for the Erving and Elflein signings. Had we signed them as backup OL, I'd have completely different feelings but IMO they were signed to start(or at least compete to start). 

I feel similarly about Christensen. He's a guy that looks great when you see his RAS but his film isn't exactly outstanding. To that point, our hopes of him becoming our future LT appear to have dimmed a little. Which, in fairness, the "news" coming from the organization leads us to believe they thought more highly of him as an OG anyway. 

I think they appear to place a very high value on athletic ability and raw potential. I believe that makes a lot of sense if you are a college coach but in the NFL everyone is a great athlete and has potential. That's my general theory on why we make some of the moves that we do(and did). 

But, perhaps they just have the special sauce like Pete Carroll did and can motivate these guys into being champions. We will see in the next few years.

I totally agree, I think this staff believes they can get more out of player than other coaches.  That's a risky gamble.  

I said it years ago after the Matt Kalil deal, and several times since.  Expecting a player to become something he hasn't recently proven to be is a losing proposition over time.  You might get lucky occasionally but overall you don't.  Its one thing if it is a one year cheap deal, but when start throwing serious money at it the risk/reward ration starts to work against you.  We lost that gamble with Kalil, we lost it with TB, im sure there have been others.  I'm worried about Erving, Elflien, and Darnold.

Also I think you are spot on with the assessment of them placing high value on measurables, which is somewhat different than Hurny, and we all use to complain about the Gaulden picks.  There is a difference between valuing measurables out of college and guys who have already struggled at the pro level.

Erving has some ideal measurables for LT, I'm just afraid we overpaid.  With Elflein i can see some of the thinking.  He had a decent rookie year, had some injuries, here again we just seem to overpay for reclamation projects.  Also i keep going back to the fact he was a pretty highly regarded center prospect coming out of college.  You always need a back up center on your team, also Paradis is in the last year of his deal.  There might be some other thinking there, here again bit of an expensive gamble, not saying I would have done it but I see the thinking.

I like Rhule, I think he has potential to be a really good head coach in the NFL, I think our drafting will be above average over time, but I'm not a big fan of most of our free agent moves.  Lets be honest, last years class was a failure, time will tell about this one.

 

 

 

[LinvilleGorge]

18 minutes ago, AU-panther said:

I totally agree, I think this staff believes they can get more out of player than other coaches.  That's a risky gamble.  

They made their living doing exactly that in college. The problem is that this isn't college. And it's worth noting that their record against actual good (top 25) competition in college was abysmal. I think when I looked it up that the only two top 25 teams Rhule ever beat were ECU and Navy. Every other time he faced a top 25 team he lost.

[kungfoodude]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

They made their living doing exactly that in college. The problem is that this isn't college. And it's worth noting that their record against actual good (top 25) competition in college was abysmal. I think when I looked it up that the only two top 25 teams Rhule ever beat were ECU and Navy. Every other time he faced a top 25 team he lost.

Yep and regardless of how much sand our fans like to place between their ears and these facts, they are going to exist until they prove these doubts wrong. 

Make no mistake, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the direction we are headed, the personnel we have to achieve it and the methods for achieving it.

We just have to hope these are the guys that prove all those doubts wrong. That's about all we can do.

[AU-panther]

27 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

They made their living doing exactly that in college. The problem is that this isn't college. And it's worth noting that their record against actual good (top 25) competition in college was abysmal. I think when I looked it up that the only two top 25 teams Rhule ever beat were ECU and Navy. Every other time he faced a top 25 team he lost.

 

You would expect a high school kid to continue to improve, especially with better coaching.  Once a player in in the pros for a few years you have a pretty good idea of what they are, usually.  Lets hope we get lucky with a few exceptions.

[SBBlue]

36 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

They made their living doing exactly that in college. The problem is that this isn't college. And it's worth noting that their record against actual good (top 25) competition in college was abysmal. I think when I looked it up that the only two top 25 teams Rhule ever beat were ECU and Navy. Every other time he faced a top 25 team he lost.

Temple beats Penn State for first time since 1941, ending 39-game winless streak
Temple broke the longest active losing streak in college football.

Temple beats Penn State for first time since 1941, ending 39-game winless streak - SBNation.com

[Sgt Schultz]

8 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Yep and regardless of how much sand our fans like to place between their ears and these facts, they are going to exist until they prove these doubts wrong. 

Make no mistake, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the direction we are headed, the personnel we have to achieve it and the methods for achieving it.

We just have to hope these are the guys that prove all those doubts wrong. That's about all we can do.

I am not worried about them being addicted to the "coach them up" philosophy yet.  15 months ago we had purged the roster of aging and overpaid talent where it made sense.  I think we will look aback and say it was where we tore things down completely. 

Now we are building from near ground level up.  We drafted some good defensive talent last year.  This year we added a CB,and added a few pieces on offense that are obviously still in front of the jury whether they work out or not.  One replaces a WR that we could have gone down the sink hole of overpaying.

Almost all of our FA signings have been short-term contracts.  That tells me they are on "prove it" deals that are long enough to allow us to find a replacement if needed.  Even TB was basically a "prove it" deal.  Whose idea it was to pay him $20M as opposed to $12M (if that would have gotten him) is not known for sure, but we have our suspicions.

I would be much more comfortable if we had drafted a marquee OL early.  Had the Lions not drafted Sewell, he would be in a Panther uniform.  I liked Slater apparently more than they did, but I guarantee you they have more analysis behind their decision than I have behind mine. 

It is a process.  Sooner or later we need to address the OL, though.  It just looks like a lot of the OL they had on the draft board were either taken before we picked or not worth the next pick we had.  Even if Christensen and Brown work out, we are not done there.

We went from "help needed, all positions, inquire within" to "help needed, most positions, inquire within" after last year.  I am just hoping that changes to "some positions" next year.  That would put us back on a par with a lot of teams after having purged the stench.  That, alone, would be a significant accomplishment in two years from where we started.  Especially given a "pause" in the salary cap growth.

[LinvilleGorge]

30 minutes ago, SBBlue said:

Temple beats Penn State for first time since 1941, ending 39-game winless streak
Temple broke the longest active losing streak in college football.

Temple beats Penn State for first time since 1941, ending 39-game winless streak - SBNation.com

Penn State was unranked.

[Moo Daeng]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

They made their living doing exactly that in college. The problem is that this isn't college. And it's worth noting that their record against actual good (top 25) competition in college was abysmal. I think when I looked it up that the only two top 25 teams Rhule ever beat were ECU and Navy. Every other time he faced a top 25 team he lost.

Baylor beat Oklahoma State who was ranked 25th in 2019.  Though non of this has much bearing on what he can or can't do leading an NFL team. 

The only people questioning Rhule's coaching potential are those who seek negativity in everything. People who actually know coaching are impressed by him.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Moo Daeng

[LinvilleGorge]

4 minutes ago, Moo Daeng said:

Baylor beat Oklahoma State who was ranked 25th in 2019.  Though non of this has much bearing on what he can or can't do leading an NFL team. 

The only people questioning Rhule's coaching potential are those who seek negativity in everything. People who actually know coaching are impressed by him.

Not sure which poll you're looking at. I'm seeing them ranked the previous week but dropping out of the rankings after losing their 2nd game of the year to an unranked Texas Tech prior to facing Baylor.

[KatsAzz]

On 7/5/2021 at 11:12 AM, SBBlue said:

As I'm thinking about it, Zylstra could very well beat out Kirkwood and Simon.  Man that WR room is crowded.

In my opinion, WR Brandon Zylstra will make the team but he could be placed on the practice squad.

[SBBlue]

3 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

Unfortunately, a lot of them are in that OL unit. 

Injuries on  oline is more of a rule, than an exception. 

[kungfoodude]

10 minutes ago, SBBlue said:

Injuries on  oline is more of a rule, than an exception. 

To an extent that is true. We do have quite the collection of guys with pretty extensive injury histories. 

That's one thing that really can hurt, having little continuity in the OL. 

[Snake]

Thats a second and third round pick getting straight cut by us. But everyone loved Hurney magic right?