MasterAwesome

Do you consider someone like Joe Burrow to be worthy of the #1 overall pick? He had pretty pedestrian numbers his rookie season before they went out and drafted arguably the best receiver in the league. I think he's probably got the best WR corps in the NFL, with Chase/Higgins/Boyd. Is he truly elevating the team around him? Even in college, his monster season came with Chase and Jefferson, who are arguably the top two receivers in the NFL today. He has never been successful without an absolute dominant WR corps. His o-line has been bad, yeah, but an elite group of WRs can help mitigate a bad o-line. Bryce has neither. I hear the Tua comp thrown around about how Bryce can be successful if you just hook him up with elite WRs, and the predictable response is "why does a #1 overall pick need everything to be absolutely perfect before he succeeds" but Joe Burrow is always left out of these conversations. It's okay to invest in your #1 overall pick QB, I don't understand the notion of him having to put the entire team on his back. Yeah we got spoiled with Cam doing that, but that's not normal.

There are a couple outside factors working against Bryce that have little to nothing to do with his individual performance. 1) People are bitter and spiteful that he was overhyped - on these boards, by the Panthers' organization, and in the general media. That's why you see comments like "But his S2!!!" and "but he's supposed to be the most NFL ready QB!!". It was the discourse surrounding Bryce that have annoyed people, particularly those who wanted Stroud or Richardson and had to listen to all the hype about how Bryce was going to immediately take the league by storm and he was the smartest QB to ever live. Understandable...but it is still spite-posting at the end of the day. 2) Stroud and Richardson's performances thus far. Both seem to have transitioned to the NFL relatively seamlessly and achieved immediate success. If those two have struggled similarly to Bryce, then we'd be a lot more patient on these boards. Although I think the hype around Richardson thus far should probably be suppressed a bit because man those injuries are piling up. Who would've thought the absolute tank of a QB would be the one experiencing an unrelenting barrage of injuries less than a third of the way into his rookie season. Knee/ankle, concussion, and now shoulder. But hey maybe the Colts are just faking it to have an excuse to play Minshew (wink wink...kidding).

Is this not the thing he said immediately after we drafted Bryce and then we were all like "Oh great, sounds like we're drafting all defense with the rest of our picks" and then we immediately take Mingo with our next pick at the top of the 2nd? If so, then it was clearly a smokescreen at the time.

I'd put Jeudy in roughly the same tier of WR as a guy like Chark. Talented, has shown he can be a good receiver, but is ultimately injury prone. And we got Chark in the offseason for a modest price, rather than trading assets. I mean, even their injury analytics (for what it's worth) look nearly identical. Jeudy looks like he's on the road to becoming part cyborg on that left side. And while I'm in agreement on needing WR help, this feels like an impulsive over-correction. Trading away DJ Moore and then quickly scrambling to trade for someone who can maybe replace his role. Feels similar to 2016 when we let Josh Norman go and then scrambled to draft back to back corners in the draft to hopefully replace him. We got fortunate with Bradberry, but it was still a move reeking of desperation.

Just in case I get banned for bullying LinvilleGorge (k00L a@# username btw), I appreciate you brother. I want you to have my stash of crusty Playboys under my mattress if I disappear.

Lol I just saw this cause Linville likes to sheepishly call people out without quoting them, so it's easy to miss it. First off, of course I'm not embarrassed because there quite objectively wasn't anything incorrect about what I said. It's not my fault you can't follow a basic "If-Then" statement. It's not a prediction. The fact that you guys thought to dredge up this comment as an example of me putting my foot in my mouth actually makes me considerably more cocky, not embarrassed. Like damn, this is really what you think you got me on? If your objective was to humble me, you very much did the opposite. But more importantly, why the hell would I want you to take my *username* seriously? That's actually hilarious. I couldn't care less what you think of my username because I myself couldn't care less about my username or anyone's username. That's the point...I made this account a dozen years ago based off my Xbox Live account that I made when I was a teenager Sure it's cringey, much like an adult who critiques internet usernames. If I knew legit 40-year-olds were going to bully me about it then I would've made something cooler like "Fingerblaster69" or something. I know for those who are terminally online and whose very identity is in many ways tied to their username because their lives revolve around this message board, it's hard to wrap your head around that sentiment. I remember seeing a little while back that you were at a UNC football game but the entire time your head was in your phone rage-posting a play-by-play commentary in the Huddle gamethread. That pretty much sums you up as a person. Over 67,000 posts on an internet message board and I'm the one who should be embarrassed...about my username. To that I can only say..."oh wee mayne".

Yeah...I was about to say, we're talking about a sample size of 3-4 passes at this point. This is where a tiny bit of critical thinking goes a long way. One of the prevailing criticisms here has been that Young isn't attempting deep throws (which is valid). Depending on who you ask, Bryce has attempted somewhere between 1 deep pass (according to LG) and 4 deep passes on the season. Now we're saying Bryce is one of the worst graded deep throwers in the NFL. Both can be factual...but just take a second and think about the interaction between those statements. If Bryce is 0 for 3 on deep passes for the season, then of course he's going to be graded extremely poorly. Also, most of us agree that Bryce's deep throw to TMJ in Week 1 would have been on the money if he hadn't slowed down on his route. But I imagine PFF doesn't operate on hypotheticals like that and simply record that as an inaccurate throw. I'm pretty sure their assessment is more of a "catchable" vs. "uncatchable" ball. Clearly that pass was uncatchable. It's like saying after Week 1: "Yo Josh Allen is on pace to throw 17 TDs and 51 interceptions!!". Technically true...but yes, sample size does matter.

Did you need me to highlight the key word in my post for you? (Hint: it’s right in the beginning)

There's a 15-page thread dedicated to literally just that one play, so it's wild that you feel compelled to derail this thread to singularly focus on that one play again when there's a whole host of new insight and perspective being shared. Your disagreement with his characterization is well noted, you don't need to relitigate this silly trivial argument.

Can you key in on D'Shawn Jamison and give your general impressions? I'm curious about him because for me, the eye test was much more positive than his PFF grade, which had him as our worst rated player on defense. Also Doc Throck at RG.

I actually was pleasantly surprised with D'Shawn Jamison, considering he was an undrafted rookie that we asked to cover the best receiver in the NFL one-on-one (who is 4 inches taller) on multiple snaps lol. Even on the touchdown he gave up, he was right there step for step. But maybe he was getting constantly smoked on plays where the ball wasn't thrown to his side.

How do we know Carr went to the hospital after the game? Oh right, because Dennis Allen said so...and like you said, coaches lie all the time. Did we get footage of Carr in the hospital? Did we get his hospital bracelet at least? Here's what I think happened...Carr was on a short leash after a lackluster start to the season (25th in the league in scoring). He wanted to give Derek Carr one half of football to see if he could pick it up. Then when Carr struggled to put up points again in the first half against the Packers, he waited until he took his third sack to have an excuse to soft bench Carr and give Jameis the opportunity to see if he could move the ball any better. "Oooo that sack looked kinda gnarly, no one will bat an eye if we say he got injured. *in his earpiece* Hey Derek! Stay down and writhe around in pain a little bit. I'll explain later". Unfortunately Jameis was kinda meh too which is why Allen is still non-commital on which QB he wants to use moving forward. So in the meantime while he's buying himself time to decide, he faked that Carr went to the hospital. He got his doctors to lie about it and pretend they did X-rays. And now he's putting Carr through practice and designating him as "Questionable" until Allen decides who he wants to play. *I don't actually believe any of the above, but hey it's pretty easy to come up with a theory. And this one is just as valid and credible as yours. Can you disprove anything I said? If not, then sorry but it's the truth. Sorry, I mean it is my educated guess.

I'm expecting top-notch analysis from you, so I'm paying you your beer in advance. But I WILL retract it if it's not up to standard.

I just can't buy into Scenario 2 at all...that seems like the quickest way to destroy Bryce's confidence. "Hey we're gonna pretend you have an ankle injury so we can get your trash ass off the field". It's very possible that it was such a minor sprain that he could have played last week but they chose to play it safe and sit him, and maybe a part of that is because of a hostile environment, an outmatched o-line, etc. but to outright manufacture an injury for him is an awful thing to do to Bryce's psyche. I don't think even Rhule is that dumb to think that would be a net positive.

Lol yeah I was expecting him to be at the top of the list before I even clicked the thread. People were saying during/after that game that we signed the wrong Bengals safety, so that might have been premature if Bell turns out to be really solid for us. Bell feels like probably the more consistent, but less flashy player. Bates seems like more of a gambler who will make some big game-changing plays but potentially also give up some big ones if he takes a risk jumping a route.

I apparently need to brush up on my NFL safeties because I legit haven't heard of half of these guys.

It's *Eddy* Pineiro, put some respeck on his name! He might be our best player

Footage = game tape from Weeks 1-3. I'm not talking about college tape. I'm talking about the footage that shows our o-line being manhandled, receivers being blanketed and/or poorly executing on their routes, questionable playcalling resulting in a lot of 3rd and longs, etc.

You can make any declarations you want. It's just meaningless...I can make a preseason declaration that Jonathan Mingo was going to break the single season receiving record and catch 47 TDs and win League MVP. I just don't get to point to it 3 games into the season and say that it still holds up because I said it. I.e. making a preseason declaration that Bryce was going into the best situation of all three rookie QBs doesn't necessarily make it so when we actually have footage to review. The former is speculative, the latter is empirical.

Huh? You've genuinely lost me...I'm literally engaging with you in discussion right now. So I don't know why you're acting like I'm wanting to censor these kinds of discussions. First off, can you point out anyone who is saying that Bryce has played better than Stroud or Richardson so far? You like to call people out for mischaracterizing others' positions and tell them to quote people who said X or Y things. So I'd like you to point out who is saying Bryce has played the best out of the three QBs so far. Rather, people are attempting to rationalize Bryce's struggles. I.e. he's a rookie with 2 starts, his o-line has been awful, his receivers aren't getting separation, playcalling has been uncreative, etc. You and others wanting to strawman this into people claiming Bryce is playing awesome so far, is just dishonest. I understand why you do it because it's such an easy slam-dunk claim to debunk. He objectively has not been playing good. We know that. The difference is in how much blame rests on Bryce's shoulders and his long-term career outlook. The whole "it's just 3 games" argument - this is specifically in response to career projection/long-term outlook. People saying "it's just 3 games" are saying it's too soon to tell who is going to have a better career between the three of them. Do you actually disagree with that? I hope not...that shouldn't be a contentious position. But you can still evaluate Bryce's supporting cast and our team's performance in 3 games. Hell, you can do it 1 game. Again, that goes to my previous point about rationalizing Bryce's struggles. It makes sense to say "it's just 3 games" when judging whether Bryce will ultimately pan out or not. It doesn't make sense to say "it's just 3 games" to completely disregard how each team's supporting cast has been performing thus far. Does that clarify things?

^ his post in reference

This seems to align with what @TheCasillas said when he was in the process of reviewing the All-22 game tape for Week 2. Playcalling wasn't bad, just awful execution in a lot of cases. (miss you buddy, the Huddle is a dark hopeless place without your sage wisdom)

That's fine. I will join you in saying that I am merely making an educated guess when I say you are a conspiracy theorist. Not my fault if you can't handle that people are going to call you that when you're constantly proposing nefarious alternative outlandish explanations for everything, that have zero evidentiary backing. It's becoming a bit cartoonish and I think if you were a bit more self-aware, you would realize that. Everything is you just "reading between the lines", which combined with an inherent distrust of the organization whose lines you are reading between (i.e. the Panthers in this case), this is exactly how conspiracy theories are formed and gain momentum. I'm not going to go into the parallels with the real world because that's obviously a topic more suited for the Tinderbox. At the end of the day, this is just football so these are relatively harmless conspiracy theories so it's whatever. You do you and I'll do my best to not engage and just roll my eyes and keep scrolling.

What is the relevance of what our situations looked like "going into the season" when we're heading into Week 4 and actually have empirical evidence to evaluate? Going into the season, Icky was our stalwart LT...now he's unfortunately resembling more of a turnstile. Which impression do you think is more relevant to current day? Going into the season, we had a pretty strong ILB duo. Now Shaq and Frankie are both injured. Going into the season, Chuba was considered a joke on these boards and most people didn't even want him on the roster. Now people are saying he's our best RB and want him to get more carries over Miles. One more, and I know you'll love this one: going into the season, Bryce was considered the most "pro ready" QB with the easiest transition. Now going into Week 4, he has struggled more than either Stroud or Richardson. Do we favor the pre-season perception or should we favor the actual game tape this season? You're right about the perception of us vs. the Texans before the season, but historical perception does not often equate to current reality.

What a weird argument... Bryce Young was drafted 1st, CJ Stroud was drafted 2nd. Checkmate! Bryce > CJ