pantherj

Evan doesn't look as good as in college because they changed the landmark he has to get to so he is coming out more horizontal than vertical in pass pro. He is basically struggling sometimes to get to his third kick step because he has to move faster when he would rather be more vertical. The thing is that if he gets that footwork down pat so that that third kick step is set before contact then he's basically a wall. When he got to his landmark on time he had his way with the Titans from what little I saw. He tossed one Titan rusher right to the turf.

First I'm just a fan and not in any way an expert. I went to look at his pre-season games because I wanted to see why people were saying he looked bad. DEs were doing a technique where you grab the pads of the tackle and pull down to throw him off balance. They were doing that to Neal and he wasn't ready for it and sometimes he would even fall down. The refs were letting them play, and Neal got a lesson from the vet DEs. Check out this video of Neal in his first game. Watch his kick step and hands and balance. Yeah he's overstepping but you can fix that. That is a LT imo. I know a dancing bear when I see one, but he is too green. He'll get better. And preseason.

Ok now I really can see what went wrong. Baker is flying through his reads way too fast, and he's not recognizing which receivers will be wide open in a matter of seconds. He's lacking the mental ability to anticipate which player should be wide open in a few seconds even when he's looking right at that player. If Baker had played better we would have had a 50 burger. Also Baker's pocket awareness is poop sometimes. He must have been in full on panic attack at times in that game. He's got to calm down and stop rushing. Relax. Look. Think. Another problem is Ian Thomas anytime he's asked to be involved in a run play. Good grief. Also Ian got gassed badly and started to clearly run slower and lose strength in blocking. Pat is not as bad as he looks on regular camera angles. He's actually somewhat stout and rather intelligent in spotting stunts. The problem with Pat is that he really lacks power in run blocking. He's just not strong enough. DJ and Robby were carving that Browns secondary to pieces, and Shi to a lesser extent. A better QB would have completely destroyed that secondary. I wanted to draft Evan Neal over Icky and this game really reminded me why. Evan had beautiful technique in college, his kick step was elite, and his hands were powerful, quick, and precise. Icky was out there trying to pass block by shuffling around like we found a random dude out of the stands. WTH? The o-line coach had to be crapping a brink when he saw the footage of that game. CMC is insanely good. That was otherworldly. Never seen him from that perspective. Like a rabbit dodging and bursting through a pack of wolves or something. Crazy.

Yeah if Rhule goes then Fitt should follow. Darnold and Baker are the most important decisions Fitt has made, and if this season is poop then Baker is largely to blame. That means Fitt blew two QB decisions and I don't want him making a third. My thinking is that we clean house, and have a new GM select a QB with our top 10 pick in the 2023 draft. Spend the 2nd round pick on further upgrading the o-line because it got slapped around against Cleveland. Build from there. But that's assuming that Bake will continue to poop the bed. He could turn this around if he stops panicking and pretending to be calm, and comes to an understanding that not even looking at CMC on passing plays is idiotic. Even Sam knew he was usually open and a home run threat.

"Is that you Whitehead?"

A fan reminded me the other day of every single game we ever lost to a backup QB off the top of his head. It was crazy.

I've always enjoyed how wonderfully accurate opposing kickers have been against us. What a joy to be a Panthers fan.

Yeah I've lost my steam for this topic. On to the next game/disaster.

We don't have a DE who is built like either of the Browns DEs, and that is hurting us. Even so, you can win a lot of games if your o-line holds up well and you have a good QB.

Fitt and Rhule spent picks on the wrong defensive players, but you could blame Hurney for Brown.

I didn't want the Panthers built this way. I didn't want to be this far into Rhule's era starting a rookie LT. The o-line should have been the FIRST thing we built. NOT that defense. O-line FIRST. Defense later. We did it backwards.

Basically the Browns have two Pro Bowl DE freaks of nature, and a 1st round pick veteran DT, and a 3rd rounder next to him. We had poopy Pat in the middle, and a rookie LT. It just wasn't a good matchup for us.

We wanted to attack the Browns weakness imo, and that clearly their secondary. Running against that d-line was exactly what the Browns wanted. Even though we upgraded our o-line from last season we're still not good enough in that area. The Panthers staff probably looked at the match ups between our o-line and their d-line and concluded that running a lot was a very bad idea. They know ahead of time how the trench battle will go and game plan accordingly.

Even with all of that we nearly won. The Browns secondary was being exploited badly by our veteran receivers, but there was too much chaos in the pocket to get it to them.

Icky just can't handle that kind of speed and athleticism. You have to chip Myles, but that reduces the offenses effectiveness. That's why elite DEs go in the top 5 picks generally.

When you face a really tall and powerful d-line, you had better hope your QB is tall. 6'1 was not enough against those monsters, but you can still win. Poor Baker looked 5'8 at times out there against that pack of werewolves.

Yeah Pat is trash, and that Browns d-line is elite.

The Panthers coaching staff certainly knew that our o-line was going to be outmatched against their d-line, and they put together a quick passing attacking. Get the ball out fast, and go pass heavy. The plan failed because Baker was told to hurry ahead of time, and that led to him dropping snaps. Then Baker further got frustrated when passes were being batted down. To make matters worse we couldn't use CMC as much to gash them with runs because their d-line was beastly. Look how tall they were. Good lord. Monsters.

Baker couldn't get through his reads far enough to make it to CMC. Also their d-line was better than our o-line, so running was going to be mostly ineffective. Add to that drive killing batted passes and you've got trouble. Sadly we still need further upgrades to our o-line to stop this from happening.

CMC and the second half adjustments. That game was so weird because Baker wasn't looking for CMC on passing plays. Hell I'd look to him more than useless Darnold used to.

We're basically playing the worst teams we'll face this season early in our schedule. If we lose the next two games then 0-17 is on the table. These next two games are super easy.

Yes I think we will squeak out a win against the Giants, but I thought we'd win a close one against the Browns as well.

When your offense does nothing in the first half, and you're up against an excellent opposing o-line and man beast of a RB bad things are gong to happen. On the other hand I've never liked this defense. Our defense looks like it's been built by someone who doesn't understand how to build a defense. We're too light up front, and Brown is a bust when going against a really good o-line.

The plan was to throw a lot of passes, but that plan clearly wasn't going to work. Baker is only 6'1, and the Browns d-line must be taller than average, so they managed to bat down 4 passes in just the first half. To make matters worse our o-line was unable to win at the LOS. Pass blocking was poor and so was the run blocking. The receivers did a good job of getting open, but with batted passes and near constant pressure it didn't matter. Baker got jumpy as any QB would in that dangerously unstable pocket. When your o-line losses badly up front it's a wrap usually. However, our receivers were winning down field, and the Browns secondary was getting confused as well. There were opportunities down field, and we needed a plan to protect Mayfield and go deep coming out of halftime. We had one, and some deep strikes got us back into the game. We could have won the game had certain players not committed bone headed penalties, and had the refs not called the game ultra tight against us (ticky tack to decide the outcome of the game) in our own f-king house. Overall the biggest problem facing this team is pass protection. I would have drafted Slater, or Evan Neal in our past drafts, but we have who we have and the jury is still out. We just played one of our easiest games this season and lost. If this level of play continues, especially the poor o-line play, then we're looking at 5 wins or less. That puts us in a position to upgrade the o-line further, or draft a top 10 QB to replace the less than stellar Mayfield.

Panthers - 20 Browns - 17 This one might be ugly.