top dawg

I don't know, man. I think you'd be an even bigger fool to let the man waste five more years ruining whatever goodwill there's left from wavering fans, and whatever pride that's left from a once-respected franchise. Fix your mistake, don't double-down on it. We have too much of that.

I just can't see making any judgment of Marshall besides maybe being injury prone (which is a problem), but I can't even say that with any surety because I don't trust Rhule.

LOL @ people intimating, if not outright declaring, that TMJ is a bust. How can you see the retrogression of the offense, and how Rhule disregards rookies, and make definitive statements about TMJ? There's a disconnect somewhere. Don't complain just to complain and throw the babies out with the bathwater.

Perhaps, but being that the players' scores are all over the place, that may easily suggest that there is really no correlation and that ultimately the test means nothing.

Check the Wonderlic scores of star players throughout NFL history, and some QBs in particular. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Big Ben, Cam. These dudes did not even score 30 out of 50 points. Even the GOAT scored 33. A Wonderlic score might be good for something--measuring IQ for some fields--but playing football at a high level doesn't appear to be one of them.

I'm not giving up on Tepper yet. Even if I do, it won't make any difference. I don't think he's as clueless as some are suggesting. The honeymoon is over, but his ownership is still relatively young.

It was unnecessary anyway. It didn't inherently speak to a player's ability to succeed on the football field. They can learn, execute and succeed at their jobs without it.

I think some people have noticed that Matt Rhule just doesn't care for Cam Newton and coddles Sam Darnold. The situation is so miserable with the O-line, and Cam--who some suspect is better than Sam at the end of the day--has given Rhule just enough rope with inconsistent play (perhaps due to jumping on the sinking ship too late) to favor Darnold and not look incompetent for doing it. All that aside, Anthony Rizzuti has at least put it on record that Rhule is a little sketchy with the way he has handled both QBs and Rhule's reasoning for it. Rhule basically blamed the lack of protection for all of Sam's woes this past Sunday, and threw Cam under the bus after week 14. You can read what Rhule said, but my focus is on Rizzuti's contention, and he's probably right. "Man, that’s a lot of posturing for a performance that went for 132 passing yards, an interception, a lost fumble and, oh, zero touchdowns. Over his last seven games, Darnold has thrown for an average of 159.9 yards per contest with two scores and nine picks. And that sentiment on his quarterback’s play in Week 17 was a lot different from the sentiment on his other quarterback’s play back in Week 14." https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/2022/01/04/panthers-matt-rhule-excuses-sam-darnold/

We love company.

Sh¡t! Sounds like he knows more about running an offense than Nixon and Brady. That should be a deafening wake-up call for Tepper (who seems to want to keep hitting the damned snooze button).

You do realize that Tomlin is a big reason for that. He has been given a lot of power. I believe that most NFL analysts would say that Tomlin is much more than just "OK". I've heard more than a few sing his praises.

Rum is almost the Huddle swami at this point.

Remember this? It wasn't exactly right about us if course, but it was damned close. We didn't suck enough and the other bottom feeders weren't good enough to lan us the first pick.

That's fine. If the reports of keeping kingpin Rhule and the status quo intact, we'll likely never know whether I'm right because you'll likely appear right by default. Another year of this sh¡t and the franchise will likely be blown the hell up anyway. Whatever talent we have will be diluted or washed away maybe permanently. It's unfair for those youngsters that would've had more success with a better foundation at the beginning of their careers, but it is what it is.

Exactly. The NFL was full o' sh¡t back then. Still is now to a lesser degree. The media is as full o' poo as it ever was. T.O.'s performance in the Super Bowl didn't even shut down the decidedly stupid narratives about him. He largely just wanted to win.

The Packers have already locked down the top seed. The fight now is really about the second seed which is still valuable.

I'm with T.O. Comparisons between he and A.B. are just really off base.

To be perennial contenders is the goal, obviously. We want to be in that top echelon of franchises. But, as you noted yourself, we're a ways from there. After this season, just being competitive seems like a premium, and we certainly have to meet the one standard before getting to the other. I mean, we have guys actually believing that Alabama can beat us, much less the Jags, Giants, Jets and Lions of the league. We got beat by a Giants team with third team receivers and RBs. The WFT game was almost as bad. Hell, we let a Falcons team beat us with third stringers and a TE. We let a dolphins team drag us with no RB and a rookie WR. There's no excuse. That speaks to coaching, not a lack of talent.

Obviously, but a coach who knows what he's doing can get us competitive by 2023.

Our FO made the wrong personnel decisions on QB, especially as it pertains to draft capital, and was just foolish about the O-line. Unfortunately the draft capital is gone. There are opportunity costs we will never get back. Indirectly included in that is our QB situation, but I KNOW we can field a better line for next year. If we could get Jim Harbaugh in here, you'd see a marked change.

"Contender?" Maybe. Competitive? Should've been this year. I disagree wholeheartedly about showing "anything."

Don't stop at them. It's almost criminal not having TMJ more involved. Shi should've seen more snaps also.

If you notice, I didn't say sh¡t because I was skeptical.

I can respect that. But, I do think that it's especially easy after the fact, after all is said and done, to say that we aren't talented after the coaching clusterfug that has gone on this season. Though not perfect, we've seen what D.J. Moore can do. We've seen Robby Anderson flirt with 1000 yard seasons and surpass them. Believe it or not, TMJ came into this league talented (and I dare say had he gone to New Orleans, or anywhere other than here, he'd have markedly more productivity), Shi Smith showed enough in college and preseason to be moderately excited about, and even Tremble came in with some higher expectations from national talking heads. For goodness sake, CMC was the consensus number one pick in fantasy football for a reason, and even though Chuba hadn't (hasn't) shown the hands we'd like, he has shown some ability to make tough runs and is a low-key homerun threat. We'd even seen Matt Rhule and company get more out of a team than anyone expected in 2020. Now, if you or anyone is telling me that you saw such a retrogression coming of players minus an ill-conceived O-line, I'll think you're lying. If you tell me that you had serious questions about the O-line even up to the point of destroying any offensive success then that's a little more believable. But, I still don't think anyone saw the sum of all fears as a realistic thing. The O-line sucks, the coaching sucks, CMC is hurt again and Robby (especially) got the dropsies, Rhule refuses to play rookies for any substantive amount, much less get the in the flow of the offense, Brady gets fired...If you or anyone saw all that, then that's some Nostradamus-level sh¡t right there. And, honestly, I still think our offense should be better than it is, but it will never get there with the lack of coaching on display this year, and stocking up an O-line at a garage sale. We STILL don't know the upside of our offense (or the defense). Defensively, we have demonstrably more talent, and I don't think there's any question to that, but the injury bug hasn't been kind, and, again, I can't say that we've gotten the best out of what we do have, but I know we're a long way from bottom-barrel players here. I could be wrong, but, on paper at least, we would be at least .500 with coaching that's worth a damn, and that's with a bad O-line.

I've listened to all the interviews now, and to be fair Miller was just frustrated at answering the same question. He had already said that at the end of the day they get paid to protect the QB and that when they don't do that "it hurts" to see their QB "under duress" or "on the ground" as Person put it. It appears too me that this is a classic example of the media trying to make something more it of it than it is, or at least trying to take things and frame it without the full context.