Maybe Teddy Bridgewater wasn’t that bad….

[NorthTryon]

In Cam's MVP year, he ran for more TDs than Teddy has ever thrown for in a season in his career. I just couldn't get excited about him. 

[Pimpdaddy]

12 hours ago, Sgt Schultz said:

And for that crime he had to be banished.  We really showed him.  I'll bet Rhule pulled his scholarship, too.

That whole escapade was when I started to think Rhule was a dead end. 

Yea... Teddy wasn't OOU.

[Thorrez]

Teddy just don't have the physical tools. Slow, long wind-up and the ball still lacks velocity coming out. He is accurate, so dink and dunk worked, but when the field condensed closer to the goal line the ball simply did not arrive before the defender had already made the play. 

And he knew it so he always opted for the bail out for a short gain. Made stats look great though...

[BIGH2001]

That was a year when people actually thought Rhule was good because the QB didn’t lose games by himself. It just got worse from there.

[Pantherxtreme]

18 hours ago, gofightwin said:

He wasn’t bad but he was never going to win us a playoff game, which is why he was traded. But he could have been kept if just to mentor a young player until they were ready. We have lost draft capital on the two current QB failures putting us further behind.

Yea because that coaching staff sure knew what it takes to win a playoff game. 

Getting rid of Teddy ultimately cost them all of their jobs. 

Joe Brady no longer looked like the offensive wiz kid everybody was overhyping, and he got axed in midseason a year later.

Rhule got exposed for the joke of a coach he was. 

They should have left the offense alone which was the strong point of the team their first season, instead they gutted the most important position and the irony in all this is the Dodo birds actually improved the defense enough that even with just a middle of the road offense we could have threaten for NFC South titles. 

[OldhamA]

19 hours ago, hepcat said:

If they’d just drafted Fields and kept Bridgewater in 2021 we’d be in quite a different situation 

I swear to god half of this fanbase just needs to become Bears fans at this point. 

You're in love with a very mediocre QB that we chose not to draft. 

[saX man]

He wasn't bad.  He also wasn't good. 

Someone said it best pg 1, should've just been a bridge, but fortunately, it doesn't look like we missed on any QB talent.  Just a mindless carousel.

Well at least we're off the Rhule ride and starting fresh again, this year was the unfortunate wash.     

 

[hepcat]

3 minutes ago, OldhamA said:

I swear to god half of this fanbase just needs to become Bears fans at this point. 

You're in love with a very mediocre QB that we chose not to draft. 

You’re missing the point entirely. It’s not that I love Justin Fields, far from it. The point is, it was clearly the right decision for the Panthers to draft him. Even after they traded for Darnold. It’s highlighting the continued failure of the previous and current regime to draft a replacement for Cam Newton.

There were multiple opportunities to draft a QB prospect in 2020 and 2021 and they passed on them all. 

[hepcat]

10 hours ago, CPantherKing said:

Neither QB is good at winning a close game in the final minutes. The mental pressure causes them to consistently make mental errors. They are far from clutch. Fields is one of the worst clutch QBs in the NFL.

Say what you want about Bridgewater, the book is written on him. But you can’t say that about Fields. How many 4th quarter comebacks did Cam have 2/3s of the way through his second year? How many have MOST star QBs have that early in their career?

The biggest thing Fields has shown this season is that he markedly looks better than his rookie season. If he builds on that he could become a good QB. 

[Khyber53]

Teddy wasn't terrible, he was fair under Rhule. Under a different coach he might have been a bit better, but we know for sure that Teddy was telling the truth that he was being made to wear boxing gloves out there.

Still, our biggest mistake was letting Heinicke go. That kid has the "it" factor like Jake Delhomme did. He's tougher than a $2 steak and he's got more fight in him than out entire defensive line.

The kid ain't the greatest, but man, he's competitive as a m'fer.

 

[hepcat]

4 hours ago, CPantherKing said:

Option 2) Acquire a proven QB in the NFL. There are only 20 proven QBs in the NFL. Of the 20, there are 4 QBs who started the season as back-up QBs. 2 of the 4 are now starters in Garappolo and Heinicke. The other 2 are Cooper Rush and Nick Foles. 6 of the top 20 have won the SB. Only 1 QB outside of the top 20 have won the SB.

This strategy has been blowing up in team's faces across the NFL with some obvious exceptions, but those are rare and come with a list of caveats. It's time for the Panthers to draft a 1st round QB prospect. It's even MORE important to put an offensive staff together with a proven record of developing a young QB. 

Shane Steichen is a very intriguing option. He has worked with both Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts, both QB's who look best under his coaching. Maybe he'd be open to bringing in Frank Reich as his offensive coordinator, if Frank doesn't find a head coaching opportunity he finds suitable. 

Frank Reich is also an interesting option in his own right, and his family apparently lives in the NC region. Would depend on who he'd put on staff, in my opinion.

 

[firefox1234]

1 hour ago, hepcat said:

You’re missing the point entirely. It’s not that I love Justin Fields, far from it. The point is, it was clearly the right decision for the Panthers to draft him. Even after they traded for Darnold. It’s highlighting the continued failure of the previous and current regime to draft a replacement for Cam Newton.

There were multiple opportunities to draft a QB prospect in 2020 and 2021 and they passed on them all. 

People can’t see the forest for the trees.

[frankw]

Of course he wasn't he just spoke out against big brain Rhule. He should have been a one to two year stop gap while we develop our rookie but our mgmt was scared to draft one and then when we did they threw him to the wolves behind an oline of randos.

[CPantherKing]

12 hours ago, hepcat said:

Say what you want about Bridgewater, the book is written on him. But you can’t say that about Fields. How many 4th quarter comebacks did Cam have 2/3s of the way through his second year? How many have MOST star QBs have that early in their career?

The biggest thing Fields has shown this season is that he markedly looks better than his rookie season. If he builds on that he could become a good QB. 

This is very straight forward.

There are LIMITED opportunities to produce GWD for every QB. A rookie contract is 5 years. On a bad team they will have on average 10 opportunities in a season. On a good team they will have 5 opportunities.

QBs who do not produce 30% GWD rarely win in the playoffs and even more rarely win a SB championship.

Fields has 2 GWD in 18 opportunities. It is easier for a .100 hitter in the MLB to become a .300 hitter than it is for a QB to go from .100 to .300 in 5 NFL seasons. It may even be easier for a .100 hitter to get to .400 in MLB, and that is not easy to do. A QB like Fields has a career of 9 seasons at the most. So, if he does make it to the playoffs consistently at some point in his career, he will have 65 opportunities.  That leaves him with 47 more opportunities and he would need to have 18 more GWD to pull even with 30%. He will need to be a .400 hitter from here on out to prove he is capable of winning a SB. He is currently a low .100 hitter. Place your bets. The clock is ticking.

Here is the other part of it. College QBs do not improve their college GWD in the NFL. If they couldn't do it in the NFL, then your hope is they are at best a great game manager that you need to plan on having a great defense to win a championship for your team.

Justin Fields was tested in 2 games in college. He lost both of them. 0 GWD and 2 Ls. He has yet to prove he is any better than Sam Darnold. Fields, Mayfield and Darnold are prime examples of what a big school program can do with their defense, OL, and skill position players to pump up the stock of a game managing QB. This translates very poorly to the NFL.

Cam Newton rattled off 6 GWD in one season at Auburn. He was 1.000 at Auburn. If you include his Blinn college year, he was a .900 GWD QB in college. That of course came down in the NFL. Cam is a prime example of a QB who comes up short, and it showed in the SB.

Most QBs who win the SB win it in their first 2 to 3 seasons as a starting QB. Then they have the potential to establish a dynasty. Stafford (y13 SB [injury plagued first 2 seasons], 28.0% GWD by S32), Mahomes (y2 SB; 36.4% GWD by S2), Brady (y1 SB; 35.3% GWD by S32), Foles (y6 SB; 31.6% GWD by S32), Wilson (y2 SB; 50.0% GWD by S32), P Manning (y9 SB; 33.3% GWD by S32), E Manning (y4 SB; 26.3% GWD by S32), Flacco (y2 SB; 20% GWD by S32), Rodgers (y3 SB; 21.1 % GWD by S32), Brees (y8 SB; 31.6% GWD by S32), Roethlisberger (y2 SB; 43.8% GWD by S32)

You can do your best to find NFL champion QBs who can't produce GWD in their first 32 starts. Keep hope alive for Fields, but he really is that bad in the clutch.  He is currently sitting at 11.1% GWD in 21 starts. 11 more starts to go, and he will need 4 more GWD and no more than 2 losses in the next 11 games to hit 30% GWD.

Teams will learn the hard way, but Garappolo>Lance and Foles>Fields if they want their team to win.