something to feel good about in the offseason..."could be something special brewing in Carolina"

[Khyber53]

13 hours ago, PadresPanthersFan said:

We had our close losses last year to playoff teams. Ill take winning any day. Fug a couple draft spots. Gimme a couple more wins and a playoff berth all day

Because losing sticks to a franchise, it gets hard to shake it off. High draft picks don't always provide the soap that gets rid of the stinks.

Win, win some more, win most of them, then win the big one. That's how good franchises progress.

[Icege]

It's hard not to notice that most of the fans pushing pro-tank or anti-culture takes also happen to be down on Bryce. Feels more connected than coincidence.

[WhoKnows]

2 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I've been hearing all about this "winning culture" for years while watching us piss away top shelf draft position with meaningless late season wins when we're already eliminated from the playoffs but being assured this is building "winning culture" just to inevitably suck again next year.

With that said, I'll always take a playoff berth. Just make the dance and you have a chance to make some noise. But spare me the "winning culture" bullshit.

There in lies the rub. We don’t have a winning culture yet because we haven’t had a winning season since 2017 (8 years away now) and it’s weird how that’s not understood.

I hate to say it, but Fitterer fuged U.S. hard by trying to win with a no talent team and trading away the house.

Last year’s team, QB and HC all showed promise. The problem is that talent wise we are still miles from the top teams. Before people interject with the we played KC and Philly tough, the Matt Rhule and Bridgewater led meh team of 2020 lost to both 1 seed teams by the same one score margin and we had chances to win both of those games. That’s the NFL, bad teams often surprise the top teams. The KC team Rhule almost beat was far better than the 2024 Chiefs.

Anyway, I’m legitimately worried that we are absolutely going to get stuck in that 7-10 to 10-7 range where we can win our crap division but we don’t have the talent to do anything else and we can easily have an bad injury year and our depth gets us an under .500 finish.

Someone mentioned Detroit and until we have some of their drafts, like Gibbs, LaPorta, Branch and Campbell in 2023, we are going to be middle of the road for a while. Let’s hope the 2025 draft class is it.

[pantherclaw]

12 hours ago, tukafan21 said:

And only the fans who can't see anything other than black or white think like this.

Did I one time mention tanking or trying to lose on purpose?  

No, I explicitly said the opposite, that we show great growth and just lose some close games.  I'm not asking them to lose or even try to lose, nothing of the sort.  

Do you want to feel good about some wins or playoff appearances or do you want to win a Super Bowl?

Because while I'm sick of losing and not making the playoffs, I'm more sick of never having won a SB and I don't care about  anything other than that right now.  

For me, as a fan, I'm going to root for them every week, but I can objectively step back and know we're not contending this year, if we make the playoffs it's squeaking in and then losing the first game.  So I'm able to objectively look at it and know it's in our best interests to be better this year, win a few more games, but still just miss out on the playoffs and hope we finish in 3rd place because the Bucs and Falcons made the playoffs.

If you can't OBJECTIVELY see how that sets us up to have a better 2026 season when we actually might be good enough to contend, then that's a you problem, sorry.

There has to be growth every year, or a team is back tracking. 

Talking about what you are is definitely a lover mentality.  

As long as the team does their homework,  there is always talent to be had in the draft,  if they draft well, not dependent on draft position.

[LinvilleGorge]

9 minutes ago, WhoKnows said:

There in lies the rub. We don’t have a winning culture yet because we haven’t had a winning season since 2017 (8 years away now) and it’s weird how that’s not understood.

I hate to say it, but Fitterer fuged U.S. hard by trying to win with a no talent team and trading away the house.

Last year’s team, QB and HC all showed promise. The problem is that talent wise we are still miles from the top teams. Before people interject with the we played KC and Philly tough, the Matt Rhule and Bridgewater led meh team of 2020 lost to both 1 seed teams by the same one score margin and we had chances to win both of those games. That’s the NFL, bad teams often surprise the top teams. The KC team Rhule almost beat was far better than the 2024 Chiefs.

Anyway, I’m legitimately worried that we are absolutely going to get stuck in that 7-10 to 10-7 range where we can win our crap division but we don’t have the talent to do anything else and we can easily have an bad injury year and our depth gets us an under .500 finish.

Someone mentioned Detroit and until we have some of their drafts, like Gibbs, LaPorta, Branch and Campbell in 2023, we are going to be middle of the road for a while. Let’s hope the 2025 draft class is it.

You're missing what I'm saying. Every year where we tank our draft position winning a couple of meaningless games we always have quite a few people pounding their chests talking about how this is how you build a winning culture. Doesn't seem to be working. I think you build a winning culture by assembling the right coaching staff and roster pieces to win on the field.

[WhoKnows]

1 hour ago, Khyber53 said:

Because losing sticks to a franchise, it gets hard to shake it off. High draft picks don't always provide the soap that gets rid of the stinks.

Win, win some more, win most of them, then win the big one. That's how good franchises progress.

It really doesn’t. Go look at the Lions draft history from 2021-2023. They turned around their team from joke to SB contender by picking 6 pro bowl players in 3 drafts.

Look at the 2020-2023 Houston drafts. Started with 2 pro bowlers in 2020/2021 as a base and then added Stingley, Stroud and Will Anderson in the last two drafts along with a bunch more starters and depth. Houston had a terrible massage parlor culture and a couple greats drafts getting 5 stud players turned them into a winning culture.

This slow burn win a little more and more works far less than just drafting well and in the cases above tanking a bit (trade Tunsil, Watson, Stafford, etc. and not after losing value) actually helped. There aren’t many, if any cases of bad teams trading up and being great. KC doesn’t count as Alex Smith had them in the playoffs every year.

[WhoKnows]

Just now, LinvilleGorge said:

You're missing what I'm saying. Every year where we tank our draft position winning a couple of meaningless games we always have quite a few people pounding their chests talking about how this is how you build a winning culture. Doesn't seem to be working. I think you build a winning culture by assembling the right coaching staff and roster pieces to win on the field.

I’m not missing anything. I agree completely. I’ve given examples where 1 extra win cost us Herbert over Brown and 3 1sts from SF over Horn. Those meaningless wins didn’t improve our culture but they sure impacted our talent.

Winning culture comes from actually winning and good coaching. Having the best players actually on our team helps.

[LinvilleGorge]

David Tepper was right when he bought the team. If you want to compete year in and year out, you need a HC, a GM, and a QB. Everything else is a want. Every organization and roster is going to have some weak spots. You just can't have weak spots in those three roles. A mediocre QB can get carried by a great team and a great coach but the burden becomes a helluva lot heavier when that mediocre QB is eating up a huge chunk of your cap space limiting your ability to put that great team around him. You're pretty much forced to have to knock it out of the park in the draft to keep replenishing the talent. You just afford to miss.

[raleigh-panther]

15 hours ago, tukafan21 said:

Unless a miracle happens and we're legit SB contenders, I want to just miss the playoffs due to some close losses, not win the division to lose in the first round.

We finally have all of our picks again next year, I'd rather be picking 5-7 spots higher in each round, while at the same time, then having a 2nd or 3rd place schedule next year instead of a 1st place one.

I just can't see any scenario where we are true contenders this year, but we should find out if Bryce can be our QB of the future.  If he isn't, then we're not making the playoffs anyways and will have a high pick to replace him.  If he is, it means 2026 is the real opening of our SB window once we add some more defensive pieces, so I'd rather go into that season picking earlier and have an easier schedule.

And yes, I know people will say think like "you need to win to gain confidence and experience, blah blah blah"

But just missing out on the playoffs because you lost couple close games is certainly a way to make a team hungry going into the offseason and keep them motivated to be better.

I've said it before and still think it holds true, we need to look at the Lions and hope to repeat their path.

Our last few years were their early 2020s when they sucked.  This year can be our version of their 2022 when they missed the playoffs in week 17.  Then our 2026 can be their 2023 when they made a run to the NFC Championship game (and really should have won it).  Which then puts us in line to be one of the best teams in the league going into 2027, as they were last year.

‘You play to win the game’

This isn’t Madden and I can assure life has zero guarantees 

Frankly, who knows what the world will be next month much less in 2027 or if any of us will still be here.  

…as George Allen said ‘the future is now’.

…long range salary cap planning, yes. Long range draft scouting, yes.   Everything else is right now   As far as Young, time to produce over 17 games…current management owea him nothing   
 

[tukafan21]

3 hours ago, pantherclaw said:

There has to be growth every year, or a team is back tracking. 

Talking about what you are is definitely a lover mentality.  

As long as the team does their homework,  there is always talent to be had in the draft,  if they draft well, not dependent on draft position.

And we went 5-12 last year while being nowhere near the playoffs 

You think going 8-9 while being in the playoff hunt until Week 17 or 18 and ending up just missing out wouldn't be considered growth this year?

You're acting like I'm saying we should be playing for the #1 pick and try to lose every game for it.  It's not even like I'm saying I want us going into Week 18 needing a win to make the playoffs and a loss keeps us out and thus I'm rooting against us that game.

I'm solely saying that I think making the playoffs only to lose in the first round would in the end, be less beneficial for us than if we were to just miss the playoffs, pick 5-7 spots earlier in the draft, and get the easier schedule that goes along with it.

Edited 35 minutes ago by tukafan21

[mrcompletely11]

18 hours ago, PadresPanthersFan said:

We had our close losses last year to playoff teams. Ill take winning any day. Fug a couple draft spots. Gimme a couple more wins and a playoff berth all day

Its funny people always talk about the close losses conveniently omitting 2 dog poo teams (NY, Saints) took us completely to the wire one in which we were completely outplayed and one daniel jones mind left body play.  The "if" game playing doesnt work in professional sports.  The margins are already razor thin and there is no room for "if".