top dawg

Yessir!

That's possible, but that may be due to politics and making divisive decisions as HC. But, then again, he is still relatively young so the possibility of him getting another opportunity as OC (or even HC) wasn't exactly dead.

Escalation of commitment

This isn't putting lipstick on anything. We don't have to make up narratives that don't exist to cry and whine about Tepper making the decision to let Rhule run things. Being out of a job a couple years hardly makes you an outsider. That's ludicrous.

As for McAdoo being an outsider and unemployed, he was anything but according to his article. https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/lists/cowboys-coaches-panthers-oc-ben-mcadoo/ Sure, he didn't have a traditional role, but just the fact that he was respected for his knowledge by McCarthy and Quinn should tell you something. And though they ultimately failed (thank goodness ), the Cowboys had the most prolific offense in the NFL this season. We don't know how much of that can be attributed to McAdoo's pre-planning but he was employed for a reason.

Our offense was ranked 28th with inexperienced guys that never held the position and frankly shouldn't have been OCs. Hell, you had a writer who seemed to understand some concepts better than they did. That's what inexperience gets you. Sure, McAdoo has his work cut out for him, but he had his work cut out for him before and the Giants made gradual improvements. I don't expect us to be in the top half of the league this year, but I think that we can certainly get out of the bottom 25 percent with the weapons that we have on offense, notwithstanding our O-line.

Not buying what you're selling. Basically Tepper is still trying to figure it out. The current state of the team has nothing to do with a conspiracy and everything to do with allowing an inexperienced NFL head coach make bad decisions. It's on Tepper, and not the league. As for Ben McAdoo, he's not an outsider, he just wasn't a very good HC. He's a decent hire, considering our options, who should make our offense at least functional based upon his NFL experience alone. And lastly, owners can pay coaches what they want. There really is no scale per se. Tepper didn't "blow up" anything (except possibly the Panthers' status as a serious destination for the top coaches and free agents, but that's another story).

I mean, that's all good and all, whether you draft the guy or acquire via trade, but you have to make a good pick, develop the guy, and a lot of things must go right. There have been a lot of busts. https://thelistwire.usatoday.com/lists/42-first-round-qb-busts-in-the-super-bowl-era-josh-rosen/

If that's the case, then anyone would have been a bad hire. Given the situation and who was available, McAdoo was the best hire we could've made (even above Gruden).

Yeah, but no one has yet to give me any rational reason why it's a bad hire considering our circumstances or his body of work as an OC.

We have a decent core on offense and defense, even if we have to make some moves and trade a couple of pieces away. Feel free to believe the folks saying that Rhule doesn't know how to draft, but I don't believe it. I think his issue is with O-line and QB evaluation. I think we can turn it around relatively quickly with more competent coaching and game day personnel decisions.

Do you think Tepper is dying or something? I mean, neither he, Rhule, McAdoo or Fitterer look particularly healthy...

Yeah, we know. Someone already suggested the same thing.

I guess that's a stretch perspective. You never really gain picks back when you deal them because you're losing out on the opportunity to stand pat and make picks at your current higher position. Can you do well dealing picks? Sure! But that doesn't mean you wouldn't have done even better staying where you are or keeping a player that you have. The Darnold deal was a bad one.

I was thinking that it's a shoe-in for Daboll. Personally, I think he'd be a smarter hire than Flores considering the familiarity.

At some point, you have to figure that a QB is not a starting QB in the NFL. Darnold has had four years to get it together. Even more, franchise QBs, which are coveted even more, come into the league and give evidence that they are franchise QBs notwithstanding bad O-lines and other suboptimal conditions. I would genuinely give your suggestion more credence if it hadn't been Sam's fourth year in the league of doing the same things, some of which he did in college. I'm fairly certain that I remember a stat which indicated that he was at the bottom of NFL ratings even when he had a clean pocket. In my opinion, it's time to move on from the thought that he's anything more than a questionable backup.

I mean, I get it; there's probably nothing short of firing Matt Rhule that will excite the fan base at the moment, but this doesn't mean McAdoo is automatically a bad hire. He's had some results as as an OC. I'm more interested in his philosophy (queue @Mr. Scot)! Somebody did give evidence that he wasn't a fan of Sammy before Sammy became Sammy, so that speaks to some competence in QB evaluation (just to make you feel better).

It wasn't just that one. https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/lists/twitter-panthers-matt-rhule-ben-mcadoo/

Well, being a prick doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a bad OC. In the long run, it may not make a difference anyway. We'll see.

Develop him into being what? They may as well go out and get the Red Rifle, because that's about what I see his ceiling as. These are dark times.

Is it truly lack of confidence, or is it just not being easily given into knee-jerk reactions? Or, possibly just ignorance or arrogance? Tepper and a lack of confidence just don't seem to go together. I certainly don't believe that a lack of confidence is the reason that he hasn't canned Rhule.

Do you think Rhule really means that, or is he just spouting coach-speak to save face?

Well, that's essentially a different argument, and it surely didn't preclude the reset button being reset once Rhule was hired. At either point, a reset was logical (and that's before hindsight making Huddlers appear smarter).

I would argue that the area they've shown that they've done a poor job without question is Teddy's contract and Darnold's contract. Though some disagree, I don't think that fact automatically means that if Rhule and company ever decided that three firsts, or something akin to it, is worth a legit franchise QB, that automatically means that the deal is bad.

Those were more swings and misses due to being in a less than optimal situation. I'm not so sure anyone thought off them as surefire franchise QBs. What made those decisions so eye-raising and utterly bad was either the draft compensation, the structure of the deal or both. Teddy is a higher profile backup at worst and a journeyman stopgap at best. We signed him for too long and for too much money. He should've been on a one-year prove-it deal. If he wouldn't agree to that, we should've let him go to the Bears. We tried to kind of fix it by dumping some of his salary, but then we went batshit crazy again by giving up too much for Darnold (I thought a 4th was about the highest we'd go). What should've been a one-year prove-it deal was inexplicably extended. TLDR: it wasn't the evaluation of the QBs that really did us in, per se, it was the overpayment in draft compensation and money that screwed us. I think where the QB evaluation--in and of itself-- will really be telling in the coming years is the passing up of Justin Fields. On an off note, I remember distinctly telling you that just because Rhule and company weren't high on Fields or Lance didn't mean they were right. And now you're calling Rhule and company all kinds of dumbasses (albeit for different reasons).