Rookies

[electro's horse]

3 minutes ago, MHS831 said:

Who intercepted Baker at the end of the game?  Did you notice that Jackson was playing NT?   I was under the impression that Tmac caught a few balls.  I think Evans caught a pass and broke a tackle.  Hmmm.  Etienne had a solid return or two.  Our kicker was clutch.  While he made a stupid mistake, Princely played a role. Jimmy Horn had a sweet reverse for a big play.   Not sure what about that you missed.   When I see our rookies catching passes, interecepting passing, running or returning the ball effectively, and kicking the game winning FG--I think, "Yep. That's Scourton for ya!"

First of all no reason to get upset. l

Again that’s not a strawman argument. He’s not setting up an easily knocked down argument to make a tangential. It’s irrelevant at worst, it’s contextualizing at best (the thing so many people here struggle with)

Ransom was sitting in a medium zone and baker threw it right at him. He didn’t make a play, he caught a pass. Like i said, everyone but Mike Jackson makes that play.

princely played a role? Wow huge.

I’m not impressed by a roster spot going to someone who’s there to run 1 end around a game.

the same people ooo’ing and aww’ing after beating a team that’s lost 6/7 were crying doom after last weeks loss.

Tmac id a oroty candidate. Scourton has flashed in a couple games but has largely been invisible. Kickers are kickers.

everyone else is forgettable in the grand scheme of things.

you don’t have to take this personally. 

[SmokinwithWilly]

46 minutes ago, Bama Panther said:

“You can’t say how much Dan did or didn’t influence decisions that were made,” and “You’re making a lot of assumptions,” both said while disregarding your own assumptions to imply that Dan must have had a lot of influence in the decisions that then-GM, Scott Fiterer, made. Can’t make this stuff up. 

The only thing I said was he was part of the staff that made part of the decisions, and that I am judging the decisions made by that group as a whole. As assistant GM, you can pretty much guarantee his input held more sway than an intern or the guy that takes coffee requests. Fitterer didn't operate in a vacuum. Neither does Morgan now. While Fitterer did have the ultimate decision, to say that Dan had no input in ranking boards, evaluating FAs, trade offers or anything else would be asinine. We all know he did. Otherwise what the hell was his job as assistant GM? He wouldn't have been kept for 3 years if he was arguing every decision Scott ever made. 

 

41 minutes ago, Bama Panther said:

The OP in this thread stated Morgan had done a bang up job in the draft and free agency.
 

SmokinWithWilly’s quoted a post which simply said Morgan is not Fitterer. SWW concluded with, “Not going to crown him a GM god after a year.”
 

That’s a classic strawman, as no one said that Dan Morgan is, or should be considered, a GM god. 

And the actual quote was "Morgan has done a bang up job in the draft and FA. Compared to what the last guy did, he is kicking ass and taking names."

So is XL kicking ass and Brooks taking names from last years draft or did I get it backwards? We took Wallace over Payton Wilson because he was an injury risk after trading up for a RB with a torn ACL? Which one of the kicking ass and taking names was that? 

Maybe we should review the thousands of gameday posts calling for XL to get off the field because he's a bust and can't catch a cold. We could review the posts about Brooks but... And Wilson. He's at 118 tackles this season vs 36 for Wallace. 

I gave credit to Dan for a good draft this year. But I'm also not ignoring last year's draft either since he did that one after the last guy too. 

That's not a strawman. 

[DaveThePanther2008]

50 minutes ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

And you can't say how much Dan did or didn't influence decisions that were made. All I can look at is what's happened while he's been part of the organization. And there's no way to know why he was hired either. You're making a lot of assumptions. From what I've seen from Morgan as GM alone, 1 horrible draft and FA period, one good looking draft and FA period. Not going to crown him a GM god after a year. Sorry. 

You're assuming just as well.  

Morgan and Canales were hired 3 days apart.  I believe it was partially due to their connections in Seattle.  i believe Tepper wanted some familiarity with his GM and HC. 

It is so easy to sit back and arm-chair QB over draft picks.  You don't know what the philosophy was going into the 2024 draft.  I believe Canales and Morgan were drafting for the future.  XL and Brooks point to that philosophy.

Name me one GM that is 100% on draft picks.  Just one.  You're not going to find one.   

I think year one picks weren't for what can you do for me now but Potential.  

XL hasn't lived up to the hype of a 1st rounder.  I think we all can agree on that. However, there still is hope he comes around.  What I believe they saw in him was his speed after the catch.  He needs to get more consistent but when he gets the ball you kind of hold your breath just a second because if he gets free, he's gone. 

The Brooks pick was a signing for the future, and no one could have guessed he would re-injure the same ACL.  This makes the pick look bad but Dallas was ready to draft him later that same round.  IMO we'll have to see what happens next season before we can call this a bust.

Wallace has improved each season and for a third rounder has done well. 

Sanders has shown flashes and considering the pick in the 4th round it wasn't a bad pick.  His sophomore season IMO was a little bit more productive. 

Smith-Wade has been a good addition and has played well.  For a 5th round pick to get as much playing time as he has.  Most picks below round 3 should take a couple of years to get up to speed.  He's been a decent player. 

Crumedy, no comment

We turned Barrett into Jackson.  This was an amazing move and basically got a starting CB for a 7th round pick.  Pretty shrewd if you ask me.

Coker, maybe the best Free Agent signing of the 2024 draft class.

So, in short, you can't say that the draft was a bust.  It isn't a home run but all but one are still on the team and outside of Brooks have made contributions to wins. 

2025 draft class has been much better with almost every pick making contributions this season. 

Now take Fitterer's two years and compare them to Morgan and tell me that they have the same philosophy. 

[DaveThePanther2008]

1 hour ago, Bama Panther said:

“You can’t say how much Dan did or didn’t influence decisions that were made,” and “You’re making a lot of assumptions,” both said while disregarding your own assumptions to imply that Dan must have had a lot of influence in the decisions that then-GM, Scott Fiterer, made. Can’t make this stuff up. 

Exactly my point. 

[electro's horse]

The panthers traded back into the first for XL. Thats not a player “for the future;” thats someone you need to contribute right away. Especially at the position for the panthers at the time.

they just fuging whiffed 

[shaqattaq]

2 hours ago, electro's horse said:

XL feels like Dave to me and I can’t really explain why. 

IIRC, Bryce was lobbying for him. After selling the farm to get BY, Dave was wiling to do whatever he could to save face. No a bad gamble on pick #32, it just didn't hit. There's still time for him to turn it around. And hopefully Dave is out of the decision making business and in the check writing business.

[electro's horse]

2 minutes ago, shaqattaq said:

IIRC, Bryce was lobbying for him. After selling the farm to get BY, Dave was wiling to do whatever he could to save face. No a bad gamble on pick #32, it just didn't hit. There's still time for him to turn it around. And hopefully Dave is out of the decision making business and in the check writing business.

I meant Canales not tepper. 

[Jon Snow]

12 minutes ago, electro's horse said:

The panthers traded back into the first for XL. Thats not a player “for the future;” thats someone you need to contribute right away. Especially at the position for the panthers at the time.

they just fuging whiffed 

It happens all the time. But this team has a propensity to whiff more than others. I’m hoping the new scouting staff and those other nerds Tepper hired will cut some on that. 

[SmokinwithWilly]

40 minutes ago, DaveThePanther2008 said:

You're assuming just as well.  

Morgan and Canales were hired 3 days apart.  I believe it was partially due to their connections in Seattle.  i believe Tepper wanted some familiarity with his GM and HC. 

It is so easy to sit back and arm-chair QB over draft picks.  You don't know what the philosophy was going into the 2024 draft.  I believe Canales and Morgan were drafting for the future.  XL and Brooks point to that philosophy.

Name me one GM that is 100% on draft picks.  Just one.  You're not going to find one.   

I think year one picks weren't for what can you do for me now but Potential.  

XL hasn't lived up to the hype of a 1st rounder.  I think we all can agree on that. However, there still is hope he comes around.  What I believe they saw in him was his speed after the catch.  He needs to get more consistent but when he gets the ball you kind of hold your breath just a second because if he gets free, he's gone. 

The Brooks pick was a signing for the future, and no one could have guessed he would re-injure the same ACL.  This makes the pick look bad but Dallas was ready to draft him later that same round.  IMO we'll have to see what happens next season before we can call this a bust.

Wallace has improved each season and for a third rounder has done well. 

Sanders has shown flashes and considering the pick in the 4th round it wasn't a bad pick.  His sophomore season IMO was a little bit more productive. 

Smith-Wade has been a good addition and has played well.  For a 5th round pick to get as much playing time as he has.  Most picks below round 3 should take a couple of years to get up to speed.  He's been a decent player. 

Crumedy, no comment

We turned Barrett into Jackson.  This was an amazing move and basically got a starting CB for a 7th round pick.  Pretty shrewd if you ask me.

Coker, maybe the best Free Agent signing of the 2024 draft class.

So, in short, you can't say that the draft was a bust.  It isn't a home run but all but one are still on the team and outside of Brooks have made contributions to wins. 

2025 draft class has been much better with almost every pick making contributions this season. 

Now take Fitterer's two years and compare them to Morgan and tell me that they have the same philosophy. 

No GM hits 100%. I'm well aware. But what a GM has to do is look at the roster, what's available, and future contracts and go from there.

XL was a one season wonder in college. He has speed. Who cares. He body catches and his hands are bricks. Speed doesn't matter when you don't actually have the ball. There were other receivers available with better resumes. XL was a project. Fitts loved projects. You don't have the luxury of projects when you just traded away DJ for a QB. 1st round WRs need to contribute now. 

Brooks was a luxury RB pick we didn't have the luxury to make. Who cares if Dallas was going to pick him. We had holes all over our defense. We just inked 150m interior line and then centered it by moving a guard to center that had suffered 2 season ending injuries. The most critical area on our line was being held together by a bandaid and a prayer. No surprise when it didn't work.  

Wallace is getting better but Wilson was sitting there waiting to be taken. DPOY for college football right there for the taking. That was a gimme pick. If you're going to take a risk on an injured player, the 3rd round for Wilson made a whole lot more sense at a position we were rest stop TP thin at. 

4th round and on aren't going to be heavy contributors unless you're lucky.  He did well on the trade for Jackson. Coker, I believe he offered the largest guarantee. He actually got more than some late round picks make. 

Those 1st 3 picks, IMO, were straight up whiffs. 

Looking back at Fitterer's picks, I think he tried to plug holes because we had a ton of them. Problem was, he wasn't very good at it and he loved RAS scores and developmental players with a coach that couldn't develop a Polaroid. He tried to do too much. He was impatient. His other problem was he panicked during the draft and couldn't read or understand the flow of how drafts tend to go. DJ Johnson was the prime example. We needed an edge rusher and he jumped in at the end of the run instead of starting it. 

Morgan's first year looked exactly like Fitts to me. Lots of projects. 

2nd year looks better. 

We'll see how 3rd year goes.

FA also plays into all of this as well but that's a whole different topic of how it played out and planning with regard to drafting. 

Edited 1 hour ago by SmokinwithWilly

[electro's horse]

Wallace is not getting better lol

[DaveThePanther2008]

14 minutes ago, electro's horse said:

Wallace is not getting better lol

FOS