Realistic Expectations for 4th-7th Rounders

[DaveThePanther2008]

7 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

It's especially perplexing because of how good he looked in camp and preseason. Honestly, he looked like possibly the best rookie WR in the league in preseason. Then... basically he just disappeared.

 

I'm not totally convinced it was all about talent.  Something makes me feel that the Rhule Rookie effect was in place.  In preseason he wasn't just playing well against 2nd teamers he had a couple really nice catches against 1st team talent. 

[Pejorative Miscreant]

7 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I would not be shocked if there were some folks when we drafted Amini that were legit like

 

[Pimpdaddy]

9 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Eric Shelton, Amino Silatolu, Greg Little all say "Hi!"

...I was so high on Shelton, he folded like a cheap Walmart lawn chair...

[LinvilleGorge]

1 minute ago, Pimpdaddy said:

...I was so high on Shelton, he folded like a cheap Walmart lawn chair...

Evidently his body was basically shot by the time he got to the NFL. I can't remember if it was knees or ankles but he was basically physically trashed.

[kungfoodude]

3 hours ago, DaveThePanther2008 said:

I'm not totally convinced it was all about talent.  Something makes me feel that the Rhule Rookie effect was in place.  In preseason he wasn't just playing well against 2nd teamers he had a couple really nice catches against 1st team talent. 

I mean....I guess maybe that could be true. I don't know. It's rare a player just completely disappears to the level he did.

I hope it's just a dum-dum Rhule issue. If not.....woof. That 2021 draft already looks pretty bad as it is.

[Khyber53]

21 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

Agreed. That is about how I slot them.

That was one reason why Marshall was such a head scratcher from last season. Genuinely perplexed by how ineffective he was. That was a guy I was sure was going to be a season one contributor. 

I feel the same, but I also have to look at last season with that entire offense. What we saw on the field wasn't great and it always made me think there were off-field issues that were affecting it. Maybe the ineptitude and strife hit the rookie hard and he'll come back better this year.

We'll just have to wait and see. Still, second rounders aren't a sure thing either, but you expect more than we got.

[MHS831]

Basically, the players with high football IQ tend to do better, even if they are 2 tenths slower, 20 pounds lighter, etc.  Give me smart players all day long.

[DaveThePanther2008]

16 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

I mean....I guess maybe that could be true. I don't know. It's rare a player just completely disappears to the level he did.

I hope it's just a dum-dum Rhule issue. If not.....woof. That 2021 draft already looks pretty bad as it is.

I'm not so down on the 2021 draft.  Many of those players got in games last year and hopefully they have grown some.  I don't think we've ever had a draft where they actually played on game day.  

We'll see.

[Sgt Schultz]

The problems that stick out in my mind from the Hurney era was not as much drafting the wrong second and third rounders, but drafting guys in those rounds who were not second or third rounders on anybody's board.  It was like the guy thought he was some oracle of seeing talent nobody else could recognize, results not withstanding.

My jury on the last two drafts is still far from a verdict.  When I see almost an entire class regress, and I see the following class frustratingly not be put in positions to succeed or fail, that results in a concern about the guys deciding how to use the tools, not the quality of the tools themselves.

But, back to the original point, I agree.  It is said the number one cause of disappointment is unrealistic expectations, and when you get beyond the third round (or even deep into it), expecting the guy you drafted has just started his march to the HoF is setting him up for failure and yourself up for disappointment.  Sometimes they work out, but the odds are steep enough that the expectations should be tempered.

[kungfoodude]

1 hour ago, DaveThePanther2008 said:

I'm not so down on the 2021 draft.  Many of those players got in games last year and hopefully they have grown some.  I don't think we've ever had a draft where they actually played on game day.  

We'll see.

Yeah, but getting into games and getting  meaningful time is completely different. A chunk of that PT was due to injuries or poor performances from players ahead of them.

From our 2020 guys, we need to see a clear improvement and the start of being a solid NFL professional. From our 2021 guys, we just need to see the incremental improvement that shows they are learning and progressing.

Brown definitely has a critical year coming. He has to show consistency and shore up his technique issues that lead to him getting out of position so much. If he can't get that accomplished, he's leaning bust at three years of starting experience. For YGM, we need to see him basically come in and establish himself as a starter or critical rotation guy. Establish yourself as the DE that should get the most reps on that side. Chinn we just need to see get better at coverage and understanding his role as a safety. If all those things happen, 2021 was a home run class. If none of them happen, it's not looking great.

For 2021, it's just about getting Horn on the field and getting some production and high caliber play from the rest of the draft. If Hubbard can take a step forward, we have a plan if/when CMC goes down again. If Marshall finally wakes up, we have another serious WR threat. If we find some actual role for BC, that is a big win. If Tremble can establish himself as a more consistent pass catching threat and keep improving on his blocking, he might be a long term solution. If we can get basically ANYONE from the rest of that draft as a solid rotational player or even a starter, that's a home run. But we need at least 2-3 of those things to happen. If not.....ooof. That 2021 class is looking really bad.

Edited May 30, 2022 by kungfoodude

[Sgt Schultz]

4 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Yeah, but getting into games and getting  meaningful time is completely different. A chunk of that PT was due to injuries or poor performances from players ahead of them.

From our 2020 guys, we need to see a clear improvement and the start of being a solid NFL professional. From our 2021 guys, we just need to see the incremental improvement that shows they are learning and progressing.

Brown definitely has a critical year coming. He has to show consistency and shore up his technique issues that lead to him getting out of position so much. If he can't get that accomplished, he's leaning bust at three years of starting experience. For YGM, we need to see him basically come in and establish himself as a starter or critical rotation guy. Establish yourself as the DE that should get the most reps on that side. Chinn we just need to see get better at coverage and understanding his role as a safety. If all those things happen, 2021 was a home run class. If none of them happen, it's not looking great.

For 2021, it's just about getting Horn on the field and getting some production and high caliber play from the rest of the draft. If Hubbard can take a step forward, we have a plan if/when CMC goes down again. If Marshall finally wakes up, we have another serious WR threat. If we find some actual role for BC, that is a big win. If Tremble can establish himself as a more consistent pass catching threat and keep improving on his blocking, he might be a long term solution. If we can get basically ANYONE from the rest of that draft as a solid rotational player or even a starter, that's a home run. But we need at least 2-3 of those things to happen. If not.....ooof. That 2021 class is looking really bad.

When you put it that way, I see a lot of IF's.  I have more faith in the 2020 class, but that may be misplaced.

This has been said ad nauseam, but the fact that young players didn't get time even when those in front of them were short of the mark is one of my major frustrations and really a turning point with me on Rhule. 

IMO, the worst case of knowing some large number of them are busts is better than not knowing.  If nothing else, the task at hand is known and we aren't trying to move forward with nearly the entire list being a question mark.

[kungfoodude]

15 minutes ago, Sgt Schultz said:

When you put it that way, I see a lot of IF's.  I have more faith in the 2020 class, but that may be misplaced.

This has been said ad nauseam, but the fact that young players didn't get time even when those in front of them were short of the mark is one of my major frustrations and really a turning point with me on Rhule. 

IMO, the worst case of knowing some large number of them are busts is better than not knowing.  If nothing else, the task at hand is known and we aren't trying to move forward with nearly the entire list being a question mark.

1000% agree. We the fans don't get to see the practices nor film study nor any of the work these guys are putting in to get better.

So when you have a bunch of underperformed veteran players playing ahead of the guys you drafted, it's extremely frustrating as a fan. Are these guys not capable of playing? Do they just need more development? Is the coaching staff making good personnel evaluations? What exactly is the reason we aren't seeing these guys more?

Is the player evaluation a problem? Is the player development a problem?  Is standard roster bureaucracy the problem?

When we don't see these guys play as the team loses game after game, with veterans playing terrible....we have only questions and no answers. It sucks. 

 

[Sgt Schultz]

16 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

1000% agree. We the fans don't get to see the practices nor film study nor any of the work these guys are putting in to get better.

So when you have a bunch of underperformed veteran players playing ahead of the guys you drafted, it's extremely frustrating as a fan. Are these guys not capable of playing? Do they just need more development? Is the coaching staff making good personnel evaluations? What exactly is the reason we aren't seeing these guys more?

Is the player evaluation a problem? Is the player development a problem?  Is standard roster bureaucracy the problem?

When we don't see these guys play as the team loses game after game, with veterans playing terrible....we have only questions and no answers. It sucks. 

 

Particularly when the season is lost.  I can write some of this stuff off in September, October, and early November.  Once the chances of going to the post season fly out the window, what is there to lose?

I can tolerate losing.  I've seen enough of it over the year both since I became a Panthers fan and long before.  But, in most cases that is buffered by learning something positive about somebody along the way.  Every now and then more gets learned from how players push forward (or not) when they are losing than when everything is clicking.

Last year, we learned nothing and in fact lost part of what we thought we knew from the year before.

But, I can still hear a past coach talking about "Lipshitz gives us the best chance to win"...even though he is awful and we don't.

[kungfoodude]

Just now, Sgt Schultz said:

Particularly when the season is lost.  I can write some of this stuff off in September, October, and early November.  Once the chances of going to the post season fly out the window, what is there to lose?

I can tolerate losing.  I've seen enough of it over the year both since I became a Panthers fan and long before.  But, in most cases that is buffered by learning something positive about somebody along the way.  Every now and then more gets learned from how players push forward (or not) when they are losing than when everything is clicking.

Last year, we learned nothing and in fact lost part of what we thought we knew from the year before.

But, I can still hear a past coach talking about "Lipshitz gives us the best chance to win"...even though he is awful and we don't.

Yep. It literally makes zero sense what we did at the end of last season. It was just another in a long list of strikes against this coaching staff.