New Processing Blue podcast episode

[Icege]

Summary

• Austin Corbett being named a starter already might be strategic because it allows the team to have Cade Mays compete to play LG if Damien Lewis continues to have shoulder issues going into the season.
• Brady Christensen is most valuable to the team as the sixth-man/swing tackle for the OL and having him start a game at guard only to have to kick out to tackle (should there be an injury) is less than ideal. Was the weakest link on the OL when he was the starting LG and though he has short arms he is too athletic and so good in space that playing him at tackle is better. RT makes more sense as it's brawn-on-brawn more than it is on the weakside where somebody like Princely Umanmielen can out-athletic him.
• Cade Mays provides similar versatility that Christensen does, but can stick to the interior while Brady stays on the outside (unless, Lord forbid, there's multiple injuries that requires Mays + Christensen on the interior and Nijman to takeover at OT).
• Kaye thinks that the only keep two QBs on the roster and while he's seen some of the angst that Andy Dalton caused from the preseason opener but through the first two weeks of training camp he looked like he could be in the conversation if there was a competition for QB1. Not because of any lacking one Bryce's behalf, but just based on the great looks he's given the second-team defense. He's lofted balls into the endzone including a big TD to Coker. Also threw about 45yds through the air to TJ Luther for a TD. Zietlow empathizes with the fans because they can't see anything from training camp.
• Mike has the team keeping three RBs with Raheem Blackshear as the odd-man out with Etienne set to take over as one of the two returners. Former Ragin' Cajun and Horned Frog Emani Bailey has looked good running the ball in the last couple of practices as well as during the preseason opener. Likely priority practice squad candidate.
• Thinks that the team should only keep six WRs in order to take an extra OL or DL into the season, but summoning his inner Eric Eager Kaye doesn't see how they justify not keeping seven WRs without a trade. Doesn't think if it's a failure if a trade can't come to fruition to move that seventh WR if they do that. Loves what he's seeing out of McMillan, Coker, and Legette. TMac is starting to surge and Jimmy Horn Jr might be the lead punt returner. With the team being so light on quality special teams players, David Moore might be somebody that they can cut and bring back. All of the WRs further down the roster are also making plays (lists Tremayne, Luther, and George).
• Alex likes their initial numbers: two QBs, three RBs, and seven WRs. Mike points out that with seven WRs there's no way the team takes four TEs. Will Tremble be healthy and if not who makes the roster while he recovers? James Mitchell has looked good and like it might be him if that's the route. Poses the question of do they take 10 OL? Probably going to have eight active on game day but with DLew's injury, TMo's history, Hunt getting dinged up recently in practice, Corbett's back-to-back season ending injuries creates a legitimate conversation about whether or not they go into the season with ten OL and then try to stash one on the practice squad afterwards.
• Couple of minutes of debate over the classification of the word hero...
• Don't have LaBryan Ray, Shy Tuttle, nor Akayleb Evans on their final 53.

Quick intermission as they bring on The Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Alexander (formerly of The Charlotte Observer where he was once the Panthers' beat reporter).

• JA thinks that some of the critique of CJ's game last season was overblown but also understands that folks want to see growth from year one to year two rather than regression but he still had some good moments. Still had a decent TD:INT ratio (20:12) and was listed at #39 in the recent NFL Top 100.
• Texans were dealing with a lot of injuries early in the summer: Joe Mixon has a foot issue from an off-field injury, Nick Chubb is returning from a season ending injury and recently came back from a concussion as well, Dameon Pierce who is coming back from a quad injury and just recently practiced in full for the first time, Dare Ogunbowale is their do-it-all guy (including emergency kicker), and they drafted Woody Marks out of USC in the 4th round of the 2025 draft. The team might even try to sneak five RBs on to the roster. Chubb isn't a guarantee to make the roster with how much they like Pierce, Dare, and recently invested a 4th in Marks.
• Talked issues in the secondary after CJGJ's injury and Jimmie Ward's felony assault charge. CJGJ injury was really tough even though he'll come back at some point during the season. Stingley and Lassiter provides them with two lockdown outside CBs. Kaylin Bulock is a ball hawk that struggles in the run game but Jaylen Petri is one of the best hitters/blitzers at the nickel position in the league (though he gives up some in the pass game). They're still going to be strong in the secondary even without CJGJ.
• DL is one of the best in the league. Will Anderson Jr and Danielle Hunter on the outside with a deeper DT room. DL + secondary are the strongest areas of the defense.
• Houston WR room has a lot of names that even casual football fans know of (Nico Collins, Christian Kirk, Tank Dell, John Metchie III, Braxton Berrios, both of the Iowa State WRs, etc). Main four are Collins, Kirk, Higgins (Iowa St), and Noel (Iowa St). Open competition for the remaining two to three spots depending on what Berrios has done since coming back from injury. If Berrios is good to go, they could keep seven. John Metchie III, Xavier Hutchinson (a former Iowa St WR himself), and Justin Watson (former Chief) are all competing for those remaining spots with Berrios.
• Rookie contract guarantees have been getting deeper and deeper every year, so when Higgins was drafted the Texans didn't want to deal with the back-and-forth so they just guaranteed the full deal.
• Asked about what the external view of Bryce Young is outside of the Carolinas. Jonathan says that the league respects Bryce and the Texans do especially. CJ and him are close, Will Anderson is close with Bryce, Henry Too'too is close with Bryce, Metchie is close with Bryce. Whenever they're asked about him they show nothing but love, including saying that he was going to turn things around in Carolina. Folks around the organization and others outside of Carolina around the league feel like the Panthers didn't put the necessary tools around Bryce in his rookie season. They gave him the tools in his second season, but it was all about his confidence then. They think he's going to be one of the better QBs in the league for a long time.

End of Jonathan's segment. Back to just Mike and Alex.

• Roster bets! Can't be guys that you know are going to be on the roster or win jobs. Outside of the kicker competition there isn't too many positions up in the air. Of the guys in the 45 - 55 range, stake their claim on who they think will make the roster.
  • MK starts with Jaden Crumedy, last year's sixth-round pick. Likes what he's been doing in the run game, feels like he complements DB well. A'Shawn Robinson is complemented by Turk Wharton and Bobby Brown III is complemented by Cam Jackson. AZ points out how Crumedy played in five different defensive schemes in college.
  • AZ goes with Ja'Tyre Carter. He had a solid rest of the game after giving up his initial sack which wasn't exactly egregious. This training camp has shown how important OL depth is and with how much has been invested they're going to want to make sure to keep the strength a strength (especially with three of the five starters already dinged up). Could make the roster as OL10. He's serviceable and part of a group that needs as much depth as possible, so sees the logic in keeping him.
  • MK's next pick... Thomas Incoom. He's been terrific at practice on defense and was solid against the Browns on special teams. Doesn't see why DJ Johnson would be kept over Incoom as the latter is a better pass rusher and a much, much better ST contributor (doesn't hurt that he's outperformed DJ Johnson in every which way). Pointed out a play where DJ Johnson froze up on a reverse when he's supposed to be a good run defender. They've put a lot in and while Evero was pro-DJ Johnson, he was ultimately a selection of the previous regime. Pointed out Brandt Tillis' comments about not cutting Turk Wharton because it would lose the team trying to stash him rather than fielding the best 53 players. Morgan + Tillis don't benefit from storing a player that they didn't draft, and Incoom brings so much on special teams while also providing a pass rush despite needing to improve against the run.
  • AZ's pick... Nick Scott. Both agree that he's a special teamer and a back-up, but Scott also brings a legitimate leadership quality to the team that's well-liked by everybody. Both agree that Ransom and Richardson deserve reps over Nick Scott, but he provides a great locker room presence that benefits the team. If he can be the defense's version of David Moore then he provides even more value than he does as a starter. Ransom has been one of the best defensive players in camp and Richardson showed that he is a very capable defensive player at safety.
• End.

[TheSpecialJuan]

That was terrific. The kind of in-depth Panthers analysis that we rarely get 

[LinvilleGorge]

Tough to call those last 10 roster spots or so simply because I have a feeling several of them are guys who are currently on other rosters.

[SOJA]

If Alex or Mike are reading this I want to sincerely thank them for this podcast. It's awesome. 

[jb2288]

I’m confused on the Wharton comment. Is he saying he isn’t one of our best 53 players? If so, that sucks with how much we paid him to come here 

[LinvilleGorge]

2 hours ago, jb2288 said:

I’m confused on the Wharton comment. Is he saying he isn’t one of our best 53 players? If so, that sucks with how much we paid him to come here 

Plenty of us were scratching our heads about that signing at the time. Especially with our 3-4 defense. Wharton is kind of a one trick pony situational five tech DT. He doesn't have the beef to hold up against the run and he doesn't have the juice to shift outside. He's basically a situational pass rusher DT. If we paid him $40M+ and he can't start for a historically inept defense then holy poo...

[lumbeecheraw75]

3 hours ago, jb2288 said:

I’m confused on the Wharton comment. Is he saying he isn’t one of our best 53 players? If so, that sucks with how much we paid him to come here 

Brandt's comment about Wharton was from his KC perspective when Wharton was a UDFA rookie.

 

"it goes back to the anecdote that Brandt Tillis had when he was in Kansas City. And it would be so easy to just cut Turk Wharton in 2020 when he was an undrafted rookie from a division two college in Missouri. It would been so easy to cut him because then he would have cleared waivers easily. No one knew this guy. They didn't have any joint practices, didn't have a preseason. Would have been so easy to cut him and bring him back on the practice squad and let him continue to build from there. And Brandt essentially said, "No, he's got to make the 53man roster if we're going to have any sort sense of credibility with this team."

 

 

[jb2288]

5 hours ago, lumbeecheraw75 said:

Brandt's comment about Wharton was from his KC perspective when Wharton was a UDFA rookie.

 

"it goes back to the anecdote that Brandt Tillis had when he was in Kansas City. And it would be so easy to just cut Turk Wharton in 2020 when he was an undrafted rookie from a division two college in Missouri. It would been so easy to cut him because then he would have cleared waivers easily. No one knew this guy. They didn't have any joint practices, didn't have a preseason. Would have been so easy to cut him and bring him back on the practice squad and let him continue to build from there. And Brandt essentially said, "No, he's got to make the 53man roster if we're going to have any sort sense of credibility with this team."

 

 

Thank you. Knew I was missing something 

[kungfoodude]

6 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Plenty of us were scratching our heads about that signing at the time. Especially with our 3-4 defense. Wharton is kind of a one trick pony situational five tech DT. He doesn't have the beef to hold up against the run and he doesn't have the juice to shift outside. He's basically a situational pass rusher DT. If we paid him $40M+ and he can't start for a historically inept defense then holy poo...

I think we will end up starting him. I don't think A'Shawn Robinson was bad last year but he also wasn't very good. And we invested heavily into Wharton. It would make so little sense for him not to be a starter.

[Icege]

Oops, nm. Folks already clarified the Turk story was from his time in KC with Tillis.

Edited Thursday at 12:19 PM by Icege

[shaqattaq]

22 hours ago, Icege said:

AZ goes with Ja'Tyre Carter. He had a solid rest of the game after giving up his initial sack which wasn't exactly egregious. This training camp has shown how important OL depth is and with how much has been invested they're going to want to make sure to keep the strength a strength (especially with three of the five starters already dinged up).

I was really hoping that Luke Kandra was going to step up. He was my UDFA crush this year until Thornton started playing with the 1s. He was a stellar RG and the Panthers have been trying him at center as well. Carter has stood out several times not in a good way. As far as I know...I haven't heard Kandra's name at all.

[shaqattaq]

WR had been talked to death, general consensus is Moore and Horn are fighting for WR6... buuuut we might keep 7. Not trying to beat that dead horse. The reason I bring it up is because it affects how many we keep at TE and OL.

Icky, Lewis, Corbett, Hunt and Moton are obvious starters. That's 5. For the backups we have Christensen who plays LT, RT, LG, RG, in that order. As they bring up in this podcast, he is the 6th guy in jumbo packages and, IMO,  the only b/u tackle we have. I'm not sure Nijman makes the team over another team's veteran cut. That's 6. Mays is likely going to play center at some point given Corbett's history with injuries, and I'm OK with that. He did great last year and I honestly don't see a drop off if that happens. He also can play either guard spot. His natural side is on the right, but he'll be starting at left this weekend. That's 7. Obviously Zavala if he's healthy. That's 8. We need another b/u tackle (even if it is Nijman). That's 9. That's a solid OL room.

On to TE. Sanders is a lock. James Mitchell and Mitchell Evans are neck and neck from what I've seen/heard. I really like Tremble if he's ready to go by game 1, but he's not doing himself any favors from the sidelines because Mitchell and Evans are making plays. Does he start the season on PUP? Do we carry 4 TE's? Maybe, if we only keep 9 OL. What are the chances Mitchell or Evans clear waivers? TE, IMO, has become the biggest roster battle on offense.

[Icege]

37 minutes ago, shaqattaq said:

WR had been talked to death, general consensus is Moore and Horn are fighting for WR6... buuuut we might keep 7. Not trying to beat that dead horse. The reason I bring it up is because it affects how many we keep at TE and OL.

Icky, Lewis, Corbett, Hunt and Moton are obvious starters. That's 5. For the backups we have Christensen who plays LT, RT, LG, RG, in that order. As they bring up in this podcast, he is the 6th guy in jumbo packages and, IMO,  the only b/u tackle we have. I'm not sure Nijman makes the team over another team's veteran cut. That's 6. Mays is likely going to play center at some point given Corbett's history with injuries, and I'm OK with that. He did great last year and I honestly don't see a drop off if that happens. He also can play either guard spot. His natural side is on the right, but he'll be starting at left this weekend. That's 7. Obviously Zavala if he's healthy. That's 8. We need another b/u tackle (even if it is Nijman). That's 9. That's a solid OL room.

On to TE. Sanders is a lock. James Mitchell and Mitchell Evans are neck and neck from what I've seen/heard. I really like Tremble if he's ready to go by game 1, but he's not doing himself any favors from the sidelines because Mitchell and Evans are making plays. Does he start the season on PUP? Do we carry 4 TE's? Maybe, if we only keep 9 OL. What are the chances Mitchell or Evans clear waivers? TE, IMO, has become the biggest roster battle on offense.

It feels like Blackshear, Horn Jr, Moore, and Mitchell are all competing for those final spots... though I can see the team potentially taking a 7th DL or a 5th S if they land a guy like Kyle Dugger.

[shaqattaq]

7 minutes ago, Icege said:

It feels like Blackshear, Horn Jr, Moore, and Mitchell are all competing for those final spots... though I can see the team potentially taking a 7th DL or a 5th S if they land a guy like Kyle Dugger.

yeah... I currently have 54 on my roster (55 counting Mwansa), and 1 of them is NOT Blackshear. I also think that we'll be all over the waiver wire for a RT, FS, and CB. I like our starters and 90% of our backups, but we have some glaring weaknesses even if the new guy ALL hit.

9 OL, 7 WR, 2 QB, 3 RB, 4 TE.

6 DL, 5 OLB, 6 ILB, 6 CB, 4 S.