So....here are my thoughts

[nosuchthingasapanther]

show me your boobies

are you fuging serious?

[CRA]

Give Luke 1-2 years and he will be good size.

[NanuqoftheNorth]

The end of last season the Panthers had a pretty good thing going on offense. It was entertaining to watch and scored lots of points.

Seemed like we just needed to improve on defense and special teams during the off season and we would be a competitive team.

This year Chud came out with an offense that was significantly different from last year's, much less productive and much less entertaining.

In large part because of our anemic offense we are now on the verge of wasting another season.

Why didn't the Panthers utilize the same offense this season that was so successful last year?

Should we attempt to go back to that offense again or is it too late?

[Snake]

Too many problems crop up in this team. It should be said that John Fox made a team competitive with Rodney Peete at QB. Rivera has twice the QB of Peete with twice the losses. The worst part about it is that I only see a few players playing with fire now and there all on defense. Not a single player has shown fire on offense this season and thats just sad.

[mwright350]

I agree with the sentiment essentially top to bottom (I differ in that I believe that poor tacking endemic to an entire team does stem from poor coaching - but that's not a point I want to belabor).

While I think the writing is on the wall for Hurney because of how poorly the team is built I do think the bye week is crucial to Rivera and whether he will keep this job. He has the opportunity here to either set his coordinators straight, take back some control of the team, or at least try to make some schematic adjustments to help us be competitive in the last part of the season. Even some playcalling changes within the scheme we have installed now could make a world of difference.

[Mr. Scot]

The fundamental thing is what grates on me the most.

I coach some 5th to 7th graders who put more effort into the fundamentals than some of these paid professionals do.

[Marguide]

My thoughts about the team are pretty harsh right about now.

I really liked the selection of Rivera as HC once it became clear we weren't getting Harbaugh. He's a good communicator and I think his influence on draft day helped avoid any major blunders. There were a few things that bothered me last year, like when he kept talking about "managing expectations", essentially telling the team that it was okay to lose. And yes, he made some questionable decisions on game day, but we all probably assumed they would be corrected quickly as he learned. Going into this year, I was feeling very positive in regard to our staff.

What I have seen this year has been a real eye opener. Rather than improve his game day management, it appears to me he has gotten worse. I have been watching football for many years and remember guys like Richie Kotite, Bud Wilkinson, and more recently, Steve Spurrier, be utter failures as HC's. But I can honestly say I have never seen a guy more unprepared to manage games on Sundays than Ron Rivera. People complain about his on field demeanor and how detached he appears. I'm convinced he is afraid to get actively involved as the game progresses because he just doesn't know what he should do, so he just does nothing. When he has had to show active management, i.e. 2 minute drills, decisions on the use of timeouts, decisions on penalties, etc., it has reinforced my sense that he is unprepared rather than lessened it. Ron just flat out does not know how to be a head coach in the NFL. He looks just as lost as the replacement refs did.

Ron has let Chud run the offense, almost like a 2nd head coach. Now that Chud has had some time to put his stamp on things, what I see are players performing worse the longer they are under his leadership. The offense is playing without any confidence at all, with weekly gaffs by vets like Smitty, DWill, Stew, Kalil, and Tolbert. All of these guys are playing much worse than they have in the past. Even more alarming has been the recent behavior of Steve Smith, both when he went off on Cam in spite of the fact that Steve has made plenty of crippling mistakes himself, and then the embarrassment of last week when he was more interested in fighting with defenders than helping his own team. Smith has never been the most mature guy when he is in the heat of the battle, but his actions, along with poor performances by many of our other rock solid guys tells me we have serious, serious problems. Throw a 2nd year QB into this mix with the world's expectations on his shoulders and things only get worse.

We are playing better on defense in some ways and that is thanks to some new guys like Luke, Alexander and Dwan, but also probably due to Ron helping out the game plans on that side of the ball. He does that because he can. He knows defense. He can't do that with Chud. But we didn't hire him to be DC. We hired him to be head coach.

For these reasons, I expect the rest of the year to be pretty ugly. We have enough talent to win a few games in spite of leadership problems, but that's it. Ron's a high character guy and he's smart, but he's not even close to being ready to be an NFL head coach and we can't wait years for him to learn on the job.

Finally, as to Marty. We all know about the recent drafts and the contract problems. Add to that the knowledge that he apparently does not have what it takes to select HC candidates.

It's time to clean house. Get a new GM in here to add a fresh perspective. Put together a team of experienced professionals to help find the absolute best coach we can, and don't let a few million dollars prevent you from signing the best. In one offseason we can add a few critical pieces to the team, and with existing talent and good coaching, I think we can win right off the bat.

[Rubi]

We need to look at our personnel and look at the guys who have been here for a few seasons. We have not been a good team. Instead of finding better players to improve our team Hurney gave guys huge contracts. So we rewarded guys when they have done nothing but have losing seasons.

I used to defend the resigning of DWill and Stew...but I look in the mirror and I can't any more. DWill is an old broken down horse now....The fact that Stewart always has something wrong with him leads me to believe he would never survive a full season by himself...so they both split the load (which isn't much any more) and we shell out $70 mil for them?? It's like our payment plan doesn't match our scheme or playbook if that makes sense...

The Godfrey contract....1 word....stupid. We give him pro bowl SS money when he is nothing close to being a pro bowler.

I could go on. The point is Hurney takes care of our own. Ok great.....but the fact is our team has sucked...so why reward our guys when they haven't been a winning team? Doesn't make sense

[Ivan The Awesome]

show me your boobies

Dude....LadyPanther is one of the FEW chicks on this board that deserve respect. Actually back track, All the women on this board, that post anyway, deserve respect... Except for that LadyPanther89 chick, I think that's Mr. TD posing as a chick but whatever.

[pantherj]

show me your boobies

You sick monster! We'll have no more disgusting talk of "boobies" (how insulting) directed toward my all time favorite poster. Her courage for even coming here is beyond measure, and look how you treat her! Enough!

[Guest]

I believe the Cowboys game will tell us a lot about Rivera. So, for me, there is 1 more game. I am hoping for a great game...for the players, Rivera, Richardson, and all of us.

Nice post LP, thanks.

I agree with your last paragraph there, the Dallas game should tell us all alot, one way or the other.

[Inimicus]

one thing that isn't helping their transition to the NFL is the new CBA rules on contact during practice. tackling is going to get worse before it gets better and not just here.

your comments about having smaller LBs is also true with regards to the safeties. the cover 2 LBs are actually about the size our safeties need to be. TD would be just about perfect.

I couldn't agree more.

Tell Sarena Williams that she cant actually hit more than a dozen balls a week in practice and see how quickly her dominance falls off. Tackling is like any other skill in the game, it needs to be practiced at full speed or the techniques needed begin to deteriorate. I think in the long run the limits are going to have the opposite of their intended effect only instead of guys getting hurt in practice or not recovering between games the increase in injury will come during games as poor technique is replace by out of control brute force.

[SCP]

Is it bad i still think we're going to the play-offs?

Yes. There is no way this team, as currently assembled, is making the playoffs with the schedule we have to face. Get past that pipe dream.

[SCP]

The Dallas game is going one of two ways. It's gonna be really embarrassing with 60,000 Cowboy fans yelling at Panther fans as we leave, or we are going to curb stomp them.