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Steve Smith on the firings


Jackie Lee
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6 hours ago, stratocatter said:

Look I want to be clear I did not want Reich. I never bought in to excluding half the candidates for NFL HC because of what side of the ball they were on as assistants. So, I was not an offensive only person. I am a CEO guy; I feel that NFL HC is just a different job than NFL OC or DC, and you need people suited for that job. Not their old job.  As an aside, it is why if Wilks sucks in SF as DC, it wouldn’t preclude me from hiring him for HC because I have seen him do that job well. 

Okay, to Frank Reich:

I did accept him once they passed on my guy Wilks. I was never excited, and once Young was the pick I was not much of a fan of anyone in the Panthers organization. No faith in their judgement. Okay. Great. 

That said: 

I don’t really agree that Reich was so ignorant or horrible and that he hired a bunch of ignorant and horrible people (it was Always going to take time, everyone was brand new practically). Which is becoming more and more the mass attitude it seems like. Pile on Reich. I don’t blame him for the quarterback being bad. I don’t blame the quarterback for being too small and physically inadequate, there is no shame in being short with an average college arm and good accuracy. It is what it is. 

Crux of it is I think Reich was caught up in an organizational hurricane that he had no idea how to counter or deal with. I’m gonna say he sort of shut down, froze, because he couldn’t’ see a way forward.  He could not endorse with a clear conscience, whatever he was being pushed to do, I believe, with the young quarterback. That he so obviously didn’t believe in. I think.

Could be wrong of course. Now, this is in his mind, I mean from his perspective, and  he could have been wrong. Regardless, we are about to find out real fast who is on the right track with this quarterback analysis. I think. Either that or we shut him down and go fetal position until the season is over. Get that 33rd pick yo!

Back to Reich I don’t think a competitive guy lets a crap OL stop him from stretching the field. He knows how important it is.

He keeps someone in, he shifts the ‘pocket’ left or right, he figures out a way to get it done. I give you Andy Dalton vs Seattle. 

But he isn’t doing it with the rookie. He isn’t, heh, wasn’t pushing Young in anything. I give you Dalton in for a sneak - Hell I bet Young went to Reich and complained about that lol. And that’s what happened there (Uhh, wait.. I am remembering he did push Young one time, about being a more take charge Leader. More vocal. More demonstrative. To speed it up, get the pace rolling, put some pep in your step).

But Reich was super over protective of that kid,. To the point of passive aggressive and dragged his feet (to avoid following orders, uh… suggestions) to the point of being fired. 

I am not really sure Frank was the yes man people need him to be. I think if he’d have been a yes man he’d still be coach. 

edit: It’s all some of the weirdest strangest stuff I have seen since following the NFL. 

I would piggyback and more bluntly say that it’s  overlooked to a degree that Frank has never worked with a rookie.  He has worked with Pro Bowl vets….and he even acknowledged Andy had to ask for a different game plan and have more stuff put in.  

I don’t think this was Frank’s vision of how to “save” Carolina.   He got tasked with a rookie QB who needed a Bryce specific scheme.  I do think he wanted a Carr type.  And if he had a rookie probably wanted one that plugged into his bread and butter.  Frank wasn’t trying to reinvent himself and that was what the job ended up calling for 

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13 hours ago, Jackie Lee said:

Good point by Cam Wolfe that Bryce just too California laid back in the huddle/getting the calls in for them to run effective pre snap motions. That combined with his lazy dropbacks/crazy footwork/hopping in the air to throw is gonna be tough to fix. Almost like you just want a completely different QB

What is that hopping thing Young does 

I saw that in another clip on here….it is unbelievable…how could any pro coach allow that to go on ?   Did they not see that on his college tape or is that dime nervous tic in the pros ?
 

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2 hours ago, frankw said:

Yeah my biggest concern in all this talk of fitting the offense to Bryce's strengths is how poorly this has worked for Mac Jones in NE. And Jones was more successful between the two at Alabama.

Whether he ran it at Alabama or not you have to get Bryce running PA successfully. If he can't it does not matter who we hire from here.

The issue with PA is he's generally only comfortable about 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage or completely bailing from the pocket. With under center play action he'd have to turn his back, turn around, and have some 6'4 dude breathing down his neck where he proceeds to do his frog jump pass thing about of panic

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4 minutes ago, raleigh-panther said:

What is that hopping thing Young does 

I saw that in another clip on here….it is unbelievable…how could any pro coach allow that to go on ?   Did they not see that on his college tape or is that dime nervous tic in the pros ?
 

I dunno, QB school ignores it too even though he'll kill some draft prospects for clicking their heels once in a while

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15 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

with Bryce's height interior OL play is vital. Smitty went as far as to say that for a young QB IOL play is more important than OT play because that pressure is coming in your face.

I've been saying this for months. Look at the Saints when Brees was at his peak; they routinely had the best or one of the best interior OLs in the league. Jahri Evans, Carl Nicks, Ben Grubbs, Max Unger... they clearly made the interior OL a priority because they knew how important that was for a shorter QB.

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58 minutes ago, Jackie Lee said:

The issue with PA is he's generally only comfortable about 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage or completely bailing from the pocket. With under center play action he'd have to turn his back, turn around, and have some 6'4 dude breathing down his neck where he proceeds to do his frog jump pass thing about of panic

When you account for all this it is simply baffling trying to understand why this staff would have wanted to limit themselves to this with Young versus Stroud or even AR/Levis. Especially knowing you just hit reset at running back and more importantly wide receiver.

This is basically the Cleveland Browns of yesteryear before they finally ended their postseason drought. And that was with bum ass Baker Mayfield.

Edited by frankw
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Anyone catch what Smitty said about the Ben Johnson situation last year


First time I’ve heard this
Smitty claims Ben Johnson didn’t necessarily turn down the Panthers the way people think.  But said Johnson interviewed badly.   Then felt he wasn’t ready to make the jump so turned down the 2nd in the interview

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6 minutes ago, ncfan said:

Anyone catch what Smitty said about the Ben Johnson situation last year

First time I’ve heard this
Smitty claims Ben Johnson didn’t necessarily turn down the Panthers the way people think.  But said Johnson interviewed badly.   Then felt he wasn’t ready to make the jump so turned down the 2nd in the interview

Johnson never interviewed with us, but he did interview with another team before us. May have been that his interview with that team went badly.

It's a plausible story.

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3 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Johnson never interviewed with us, but he did interview with another team before us. May have been that his interview with that team went badly.

It's a plausible story.

Did he not have a first Skype interview?  Pretty sure he did.  Just didn’t get on the plane to come for the 2nd interview.  Which Smitty alluded to

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1 minute ago, ncfan said:

Did he not have a first Skype interview?  Pretty sure he did.  Just didn’t get on the plane to come for the 2nd interview.  Which Smitty alluded to

Virtual interviews we're being done with guys that were still in the playoffs. Johnson and the Lions were out so they could bring him in if they wanted.

The story fits in with what Johnson himself said last year though. People forget he turned down all head coaching interviews after his first one, not just us.

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4 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Virtual interviews we're being done with guys that were still in the playoffs. Johnson and the Lions were out so they could bring him in if they wanted.

The story fits in with what Johnson himself said last year though. People forget he turned down all head coaching interviews after his first one, not just us.

Pretty sure virtual interviews were being done with everyone.

They didn’t bring anyone physically in until the 2nd interview 

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