The Evolution of the Panthers WR Room from 2023 to 2025

[Krovvy]

The 2023 offense had arguably the worst receiving, tight-end, running back, and offensive line groups in this team's history.

[TheSpecialJuan]

Tremendous 

[CRA]

21 minutes ago, Krovvy said:

The 2023 offense had arguably the worst receiving, tight-end, running back, and offensive line groups in this team's history.

If you took a hot tub time machine to the huddle at this time of 2023…..it was a roster that rivaled 2003 with the bonus of an all star staff 

[jfra78]

10 minutes ago, CRA said:

If you took a hot tub time machine to the huddle at this time of 2023…..it was a roster the rivaled 2003 with the bonus of a all star staff 

100% true

[Basbear]

21 minutes ago, CRA said:

If you took a hot tub time machine to the huddle at this time of 2023…..it was a roster that rivaled 2003 with the bonus of an all star staff 

That year broke the last of my football soul..... I believed they could at least challenge for the super sorry NFC south.... so that 2024 first would be in the 20s and not as valuable as having a playoff team. I loved 95% of the coaching hires and I never care for most(I was 100% about rhule tho..)

Such a let down and that team/year. It worst than the 1-15 season and expansion 95 Clemson year. My dumbass thought the odds were nicely in the Panthers favor, Im getting sick again.....

Edited 22 hours ago by Basbear

[BEASTfromdaEAST]

Great write up OP

This is the EXACT reason why DM drafted TMac, with his possible plug and play ability at the X role this year frees so much up for our offense. No other player on the board this year at 8 was going to do that Offense or Defense in my opinion.      

3 TE 1 WR sets even got better adding Evans, which down in the redzone or short yardage situations just adds another dimension needed in the NFL to compete week to week. 

Saying I am excited about this group is an understatement.  When you watch a guy like Coker last year making PLAYS as an UDFA I think this team finally is developing that hard nose, fight for each yard mentality that this team used to be about sans Tepper. DM played and help develop that attitude as an organization and hopefully it comes back fully this year. 

I am not a BY believer, but I am hoping that he is going to make me eat a big ole plate of crow this year because I think DM has done a good enough job to fill these rooms out with talent.

[mav1234]

5 hours ago, CRA said:

If you took a hot tub time machine to the huddle at this time of 2023…..it was a roster that rivaled 2003 with the bonus of an all star staff 

I mean maybe the way the roster looked coming in to 2003 - 2003 had a lot of players emerge in such big ways but didn't look spectacular at the start, lol

Nobody thought that receiving corps was going to be particularly great, but a lot of us thought our great coaching hires (lol) would carry us through to challenging for the division...

[Shotgun]

11 hours ago, CRA said:

If you took a hot tub time machine to the huddle at this time of 2023…..it was a roster that rivaled 2003 with the bonus of an all star staff 

Remember how Stroud was going to be terrible because of the Texans awful roster? 6 months later Stroud all of a sudden had an elite roster. lol  

[CRA]

7 hours ago, mav1234 said:

I mean maybe the way the roster looked coming in to 2003 - 2003 had a lot of players emerge in such big ways but didn't look spectacular at the start, lol

Nobody thought that receiving corps was going to be particularly great, but a lot of us thought our great coaching hires (lol) would carry us through to challenging for the division...

People were super high on the OL coming off the ending Steve Wilks had with this team.   Folks were billing it as one of the strongest units we have gone into a season w/.  

They also convinced themselves that Miles Sanders was an awesome add.  OL and run game were locked up going in. 

They loved the vet adds of AT and Chark to help Mingo/Bryce. .   

BY was basically a can't flop pick to go w/ an all star best ever staff. 

Talk here got wild at the time. 

 

[rayzor]

17 hours ago, Captroop said:

Seeing a tight end group without Ian Thomas warms my heart.

[Panthercougar68]

Darin Gnatt made a comment on the Kyle Bailey show yesterday that it’s night and day with all positions since 2023.

He stated that you can see the level of competition is much better and deeper because each group now has not just the starter competition but general roster competition which has been lacking for years.

You’re gonna see Panther players actually picked up by teams at final roster cuts.

[CRA]

6 minutes ago, Panthercougar68 said:

Darin Gnatt made a comment on the Kyle Bailey show yesterday that it’s night and day with all positions since 2023.

He stated that you can see the level of competition is much better and deeper because each group now has not just the starter competition but general roster competition which has been lacking for years.

You’re gonna see Panther players actually picked up by teams at final roster cuts.

Darin Gantt is a Panther employee.   He has nice things to say about things going into every year.  

[Icege]

31 minutes ago, CRA said:

People were super high on the OL coming off the ending Steve Wilks had with this team.   Folks were billing it as one of the strongest units we have gone into a season w/.  

They also convinced themselves that Miles Sanders was an awesome add.  OL and run game were locked up going in. 

They loved the vet adds of AT and Chark to help Mingo/Bryce. .   

BY was basically a can't flop pick to go w/ an all star best ever staff. 

Talk here got wild at the time. 

 

That's a tiny bit of revisionist history there.

The OL was definitely viewed as one of the stronger units going into the season, but then we saw different offenses that leaned heavily on a zone scheme rather than the power game that the line had excelled at under Wilks.

Sanders was seen as somebody that could perform so long as he had a strong OL like he did in PHI. The assumptions about him were based on the OL, which then was decimated by injuries over the course of the season.

Nobody loved the Chark addition. I might have been one of the fans that was higher on him and even I was hesitant to anoint him as the X. AT was applauded though (and rightfully so).

Bryce got asked to uplift all of that as a rookie, then was excoriated by the Stroud Boys on here that really wanted us to believe that DJ Chark was better than Nico Collins and Tank Dell.

 

(Counting down until the usual suspects get butthurt about that last paragraph... :p)

Edited 9 hours ago by Icege

[Panthercougar68]

22 minutes ago, CRA said:

Darin Gantt is a Panther employee.   He has nice things to say about things going into every year.  

Sure. 
 

ignore that he said this roster wasn’t good in 2023 to 2024 but keep up the effort