Where Are We Really -- One Season and 7 Games Into It...

[Madwolf]

1 hour ago, Carl Spackler said:

This theory that the Panthers go on late winning streaks went out of style YEARS ago. 

Since David Tepper bought the team, we're 3-21 in the second half of the season.

[BurnNChinn]

Just 10 games from sitting at home watching playoff games without the Panthers in it!

[iamhubby1]

On 10/28/2021 at 10:13 AM, SetfreexX said:

TL;DR -- We are on schedule

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 3-0 start had us all hype, happy, excited, and to me that is what has made the last 4 games more painful than they should be. However, most seasoned and realistic fans could see in the off-season / post Darnold trade / post draft that we were probably a 6-9 win team. We were coming off a 5-11 year and had just traded for a HUGE question mark at QB.

With that in mind let's look at some changes considering we are 1 season and 7 games into the rebuild...more so on the offense...

QB - 

Teddy Bridgewater >>> Sam Darnold -- This is a net negative IMO, Darnold has more talent, but he's a worse QB (TBF and I'm not a TB fan / apologist -- we probably beat PHI / MIN / NYG with Teddy - Darnold has proven to be inept at reading coverage)

HB - 

CMC & Mike Davis >>> CMC is on IR, Chuba is not matching Davis' production but I can give him a bit of a pass as a 4th round rookie behind a bad OL who has still flashed on occasion; he just needs to work on his brick hands at the moment, as big as Freeman is, his pass pro is lacking but he is a competent runner.

FB - 

Alex Armah >>> Giovanni Ricci -- Armah is the better pure blocker, Ricci is more versatile -- We should have kept Armah

WR - 

DJ, Robbie, Curtis >>> DJ, Robbie - DJ has been for the most part what we were expecting, Robbie is ''trying'' too hard to live up to the money by pressing to make plays, and Darnold's terribly inconsistent accuracy isn't helping his receivers. TMJ due to Darnold's ineptitude has been limited & recently concussed, and Shi Smith just played his first 2 games of the season in weeks 6 & 7.

TE - 

Ian Thomas, Chris Manhertz >>> Ian Thomas, Tommy Tremble -- I think we're clearly better here, Tommy already has a couple TD's on his young resume, his athleticism shows regularly. To me Joe Brady needs to call more plays to get them involved with CMC absent, and the attention on DJ / Robbie. Darnold needs to look to them more. 

OL - 

Okung (Trent Scott), Schofield (Chris Sneed) >> With Erving, & Elflein you could almost call it a wash due to how many games Okung missed, with Elflein out guys like Daley have been exposed so much so that we are down to the 3rd stringer in Jordan, Miller seems worse than last year as most of us were okay with his return. Paradis, and Moton are the only consistency we have, Christensen is a rookie and learning, and Brown is now on IR. Overall I think in time this will come together, we just have to improve the Guard play on both sides. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

I think it is safe to say the defense is much better, a complete turnaround, gone is the 3-3-5 and in comes a more traditional 3-4 alignment from our base, and most of the guys from last year remain (Burns / Brown / Gross-Matos / Shaq / Jackson / Chinn / Burris)

FA Additions:

DaQuan Jones, Morgan Fox, Haason Reddick

Trade acquisitions:

Stephon Gilmore, C.J. Henderson

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I know this 4 game skid, and potentially one longer than that are beyond frustrating and take most of us back to 2007 - 2010, where we faltered around a bit back as we attempted to replace Delhomme -- Moore, Clausen, Pike, St. Pierre to now attempting to replace Cam with Bridgewater, and Darnold to date. 

I write this to say, honestly what was been done with the defense through a season was / is impressive, and with an active body at GM, it is likely we will continue to improve the roster as free agency and cap space for the first time in a long time will afford us some opportunities to upgrade the offensive line in free agency with more proven targets.

I know a lot of you are concerned with our draft capitol, but we still have:

1st / 4th (HOU) / 5th (JAX) / 5th / 6th / 6th (LVR) / 7th (TEN)

That is still 7 total picks, it is still to be determined if we stand pat with our first or look to trade down (my money is on trading down), if so we will make up for missing picks, but do not forget that ''we ADDED 11 rookies this past draft'', so we are not hurting in the youth / depth departments aside from a couple positions, the likely-hood of a rookie 2nd or 3rd rounder starting is low; they're usually contributors year one aside from the gems that fall (like Chinn). 

Point is, we have options, and we have a GM that seems capable, this was never supposed to be ''our season / time''. The expectation was always some steady improvement in S1 / S2 of the rebuild with us being in position to make some credible noise in S3. 

I do believe we are on pace for that, so keep your heads up, and #KeepPounding 

 

Nice take. This team does have a lot more talent than it did when Rhule arrive. 

 

The consensus when the season started was "I just want to see improvement". Then we won the first three games, and folks lost their perspective.

[Geronimo]

On 10/28/2021 at 10:13 AM, SetfreexX said:

TL;DR -- We are on schedule

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 3-0 start had us all hype, happy, excited, and to me that is what has made the last 4 games more painful than they should be. However, most seasoned and realistic fans could see in the off-season / post Darnold trade / post draft that we were probably a 6-9 win team. We were coming off a 5-11 year and had just traded for a HUGE question mark at QB.

With that in mind let's look at some changes considering we are 1 season and 7 games into the rebuild...more so on the offense...

QB - 

Teddy Bridgewater >>> Sam Darnold -- This is a net negative IMO, Darnold has more talent, but he's a worse QB (TBF and I'm not a TB fan / apologist -- we probably beat PHI / MIN / NYG with Teddy - Darnold has proven to be inept at reading coverage)

HB - 

CMC & Mike Davis >>> CMC is on IR, Chuba is not matching Davis' production but I can give him a bit of a pass as a 4th round rookie behind a bad OL who has still flashed on occasion; he just needs to work on his brick hands at the moment, as big as Freeman is, his pass pro is lacking but he is a competent runner.

FB - 

Alex Armah >>> Giovanni Ricci -- Armah is the better pure blocker, Ricci is more versatile -- We should have kept Armah

WR - 

DJ, Robbie, Curtis >>> DJ, Robbie - DJ has been for the most part what we were expecting, Robbie is ''trying'' too hard to live up to the money by pressing to make plays, and Darnold's terribly inconsistent accuracy isn't helping his receivers. TMJ due to Darnold's ineptitude has been limited & recently concussed, and Shi Smith just played his first 2 games of the season in weeks 6 & 7.

TE - 

Ian Thomas, Chris Manhertz >>> Ian Thomas, Tommy Tremble -- I think we're clearly better here, Tommy already has a couple TD's on his young resume, his athleticism shows regularly. To me Joe Brady needs to call more plays to get them involved with CMC absent, and the attention on DJ / Robbie. Darnold needs to look to them more. 

OL - 

Okung (Trent Scott), Schofield (Chris Sneed) >> With Erving, & Elflein you could almost call it a wash due to how many games Okung missed, with Elflein out guys like Daley have been exposed so much so that we are down to the 3rd stringer in Jordan, Miller seems worse than last year as most of us were okay with his return. Paradis, and Moton are the only consistency we have, Christensen is a rookie and learning, and Brown is now on IR. Overall I think in time this will come together, we just have to improve the Guard play on both sides. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

I think it is safe to say the defense is much better, a complete turnaround, gone is the 3-3-5 and in comes a more traditional 3-4 alignment from our base, and most of the guys from last year remain (Burns / Brown / Gross-Matos / Shaq / Jackson / Chinn / Burris)

FA Additions:

DaQuan Jones, Morgan Fox, Haason Reddick

Trade acquisitions:

Stephon Gilmore, C.J. Henderson

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I know this 4 game skid, and potentially one longer than that are beyond frustrating and take most of us back to 2007 - 2010, where we faltered around a bit back as we attempted to replace Delhomme -- Moore, Clausen, Pike, St. Pierre to now attempting to replace Cam with Bridgewater, and Darnold to date. 

I write this to say, honestly what was been done with the defense through a season was / is impressive, and with an active body at GM, it is likely we will continue to improve the roster as free agency and cap space for the first time in a long time will afford us some opportunities to upgrade the offensive line in free agency with more proven targets.

I know a lot of you are concerned with our draft capitol, but we still have:

1st / 4th (HOU) / 5th (JAX) / 5th / 6th / 6th (LVR) / 7th (TEN)

That is still 7 total picks, it is still to be determined if we stand pat with our first or look to trade down (my money is on trading down), if so we will make up for missing picks, but do not forget that ''we ADDED 11 rookies this past draft'', so we are not hurting in the youth / depth departments aside from a couple positions, the likely-hood of a rookie 2nd or 3rd rounder starting is low; they're usually contributors year one aside from the gems that fall (like Chinn). 

Point is, we have options, and we have a GM that seems capable, this was never supposed to be ''our season / time''. The expectation was always some steady improvement in S1 / S2 of the rebuild with us being in position to make some credible noise in S3. 

I do believe we are on pace for that, so keep your heads up, and #KeepPounding 

Lmao some of y'all truly are naive to think this coaching staff will eventually get us to the playoffs.....have y'all forgotten that we completely choked against the eagles and allowed them to steal a home game from us in the 2nd half??? And that we got our asses kicked by a completely depleted offensive 1-5 giants team??? The front office did nothing special to aquire Gilmore, he basically just fell in our lap.  He wanted to come to Carolina cause that's where he's from. It wasn't like fitterer had to twist billichicks arm to make the trade.....and I don't care what y'all say there's some shady underlining bullshit going with CMC injuries that nobody's talking about. .......

[Geronimo]

They should've just kept Teddy and drafted a QB 1st round and offensive tackle 2nd round