QB Quandary: 2024 Draft, FA Stopgap, or Stand Pat?

[LinvilleGorge]

27 minutes ago, jayboogieman said:

This is the correct answer. The Panthers need all the cheap young talent they can get even if they don't pick another QB in the round 1 of the 2025 draft

It's a terribly depressing thought but yeah, it's honestly probably the best approach for the future. Winning maybe 7 or 8 games with a good backup vet wouldn't accomplish anything other than make it harder to find the actual answer.

[jayboogieman]

12 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

It's a terribly depressing thought but yeah, it's honestly probably the best approach for the future. Winning maybe 7 or 8 games with a good backup vet wouldn't accomplish anything other than make it harder to find the actual answer.

Riding with the vet and winning 7-8 games would also make a lot of fans feel better about themselves. But as you said, it wouldn't help the team find an actual QB answer.

[The Natural]

Sink or swim with Bryce. Either he shows enough improvement to make us think we have our guy or he fails and we have a great pick to try again.

[SmokinwithWilly]

1 hour ago, JawnyBlaze said:

Unless they do something to replace him before the season, they’re going to ride with him all season long unless he gets injured. Gotta get every bit of evaluation in for the following year before pulling the plug on a guy that cost us two #1 overalls, two second rounders and a good WR. The side benefit will be tanking. Doesn’t have to have anything at all to do with Tepper. 

As a coach, there's no way in hell I'm coming to Carolina knowing I have no choice but to start Young to continue "evaluations." Either he can beat out the guys in camp, or he can't. And if he can't, then he needs to be on the bench. And if you have to start him despite him not being able to beat out the competition, that order is coming from upstairs. Young is a sunk cost at this point. He's player A up against player B, C and D. That's how you have to evaluate him. 

If playing Young is a requirement, you might as well hire some limp dick head coach that's already failed miserably in the NFL to guarantee that first pick. But firing him at the end of the season just to hire another one that will be able to pick their QB is going to make things even more intolerable around here. 

The goal should always be winning. Dalton should have been starting from day 1 here last year if that was the ultimate goal. Personally, I don't think it was. Bryce wasn't ready to be the day 1 starter and it showed. I think it was Tepper trying to show he was smarter than everyone else and he ended up looking like a dumbass, again. 

We'll know by the coaching hire if we're trying or if we're tanking for 2025 and having our 1st rounder back for a QB selection. But if we're looking for a coach who is ready to ride or die with Bryce, based on what we've seen so far in 16 games, our list of candidates is going to be really short. 

[mc52beast]

Give Bryce what he needs to succeed. If he doesn’t improve greatly than that means we need someone else

[Carolina Cajun]

Its gonna be Bryce next season.  That said, I mentioned this a while back, I wouldn't be surprised if we signed Russel Wilson this offseason.  With Bryce's size and limitations, Wilson is a guy they can have mentor him and I really don't think he's gonna be a hot commodity this offseason.  Also Dan Morgan has connections with Seattle and gets more prominent if we decide to go with Dave Canales which I think we might again with Morgan's Seattle connections.

[top dawg]

Drafting young competition and continuing to improve other parts of the team are not mutually exclusive. I'm not quite sure why so many are acting like they are. If you're questioning the viability of your guy, in my opinion it's irresponsible not to keep feeding the pipeline. 

[Pejorative Miscreant]

35 minutes ago, mc52beast said:

Give Bryce what he needs to succeed. If he doesn’t improve greatly than that means we need someone else

I like this.  We need go into the season with the mind set of building a team around a young QB.  If Bryce is not that QB then you will know it and probably be in a draft position to get one in 2025.  Getting a vet to chase 6-8 wins is just going back to Darnold, Teddy, etc...  Already done that dance.

[ForJimmy]

5 hours ago, 45catfan said:

I'm good.  If I happen to be wrong about the 2024 and 2025  QB classes, I'll own up to it.  No, it's not too early for receipts, BTW.  Our season is over so 2024 draft talk/speculation is totally fair game.

Yeah it’s too early to tell. AR went to IR early, Hooker hasn’t even played yet, Levis is suppose to be a project.  Remember Mac Jones looked promising his rookie year from that “loaded” QB class of Lawrence (solid but not as good as advertised), Wilson (bust), Lance (bust), Fields (might get traded), and Mac (looks like a bust). If we drafted Stroud we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. 

[ForJimmy]

2 hours ago, OldhamA said:

But they HAVE spent their resources on trying to create some sort of offence.

FA signings in Hurst, Sanders, Thielen, Chark and a second round pick on Mingo. They were not bad players when we acquired them. 

And trading away CMC and Moore. Tell me are those players you listed better than CMC and Moore. Also why did Baker struggle so bad in this offense that he was cut midseason and suddenly he looks good again on a different team? Hmmm

Didn’t you tell us that Van Dyke was the next great QB? 

[DaveThePanther2008]

11 hours ago, Ricky Spanish said:

I can't write Bryce off yet. I know tons of others have because they're reactionary, think they know better and want to be right, but I can't. Gotta give him next year to prove if he has it or not. The situation was screwed from the jump and literally no one looked good in our offense not named Adam Thielen. Bryce is the QB so he is the punching bag, but he doesn't deserve all the crap he's getting from the fan base because he was far from the only thing wrong with us this season.

If he sucks next year, then he sucks next year, we reassess in the 2025 draft. No reason to keep sending good money after bad year over year with QBs. Ride it out with Bryce and try and fill out the roster to surround whatever QB we end up using going forward, but do it competently this time around.

I don't know the total drops we had in 2024 but it has to be near the top. Stop with the big receivers that can't run a route.  We need solid route runners that are fighters.

 

[FuFuLamePoo]

12 hours ago, frankw said:

We've been flailing around making moves for QB's going on 4 years now and each time we've been worse off for it.

Leave it alone and reassess in 2025 and if you need to draft one then go for it. Odds are 95% we will have a top ten pick.

It is absolutely insane that this isn’t common sense. We’ve been so obsessed with fixing this position that the rest of the roster has been absolutely depleted. Then everyone we move on from immediately goes somewhere else and begins playing better. And we still can’t figure out what the common denominator is.

[Waldo]

4 hours ago, jayboogieman said:

Riding with the vet and winning 7-8 games would also make a lot of fans feel better about themselves. But as you said, it wouldn't help the team find an actual QB answer.

A vet winning 7-8 games seems like the stretch. Even with Dalton starting as many games as he physically could this year it's still a 5 win team. Now spending big in free agency on a QB or god forbid a frigging trade is absolutely the worst addition to the situation. But some Dalton like vet? I mean worst case scenario you do a Baker @ 4 mil a year deal and get into the playoffs and hope to have hired the offensive guy who made that possible before they are snagged away. Even in that scenario there is more competency than this franchise has sniffed in years. That wouldn't be a complete loss. Just saying

[Davidson Deac II]

We aren't going to draft a qb, unless its someone in the later rounds as a shot in the dark.