MasterAwesome

No clue what you’re saying….my question is specifically about you calling the team “stupid” if they win enough to drop out of the top 10. That implies that they have control over that outcome and could do something to ensure that they tank their way into that Top 10 pick. And that’s what I’m asking you about - what you would do to ensure the tank. Otherwise it’s like…”ugh the Panthers are such idiots for losing out on the chance at a top 10 pick” ”Oh what would you have done differently to get the outcome you wanted?” ”Beats me, I dunno…but they’re still so stupid for not doing it” Is that actually what’s going on here?

I feel like we’ve already got a ton of young guys getting a good number of snaps. We’re even using Cade Mays at FB to get him on the field haha. So in the case of Cade Mays for example, who would you bench in the finale to squeeze him into the line-up? Like just move a healthy Corbett or Bozeman to the bench and start Mays? I know teams will do that to preserve starters for the playoff if they’ve already secured their playoff seeding going into the season finale, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a losing team deliberately bench a quality starter in favor of a rookie just to get them some snaps. Maybe it happens, and I could entertain the idea that a coach would do something like that. I feel like it’s weird particularly for o-line though cause their job is to protect the quarterback. So knowingly starting a worse o-line just for the sake of getting a young guy reps and consequently putting your QB at heightened risk of getting destroyed seems almost unethical lol.

What would be your proposal to ensure we secure a top 10 pick? Bench Burns, Horn, DJ, etc.? Kneel the ball on 4 straight downs every possession? Cause saying we'd be "idiots" for dropping out of the top 10 would suggest there's some course of action in our power that we should be taking to secure that top 10 pick. I'm just curious what that would be at this point in the season, in your eyes.

Oh I know, I'm not disputing that it's a thing. I'm only questioning the rationale behind it.

I'm not saying this to you specifically, but I see this argument all the time about teams not wanting to trade within their division and I really don't understand it. No team makes a trade they think they are losing out on, within the division or otherwise. Either you think it's fair and balanced or you think you're getting the better end of it. Trades are simply an exchange of assets and if you think you're getting more valuable assets from your trade partner than what you're giving up, then wouldn't you be more inclined to trade within the division and essentially "screw over" a rival? If I'm the Saints, I'd love to take two of the Panthers' 1st round picks off their hands unless I actually think Payton is worth more than that. In which case, I wouldn't trade him to any team for the same reason. Like what is the unique logic applied to trading within your division that doesn't apply to trading outside of the division? Is it something to do with said player/coach having inside knowledge? Cause you could more-or-less get the same thing from signing some Practice Squad guy or some vet FA bum who previously played for that team. Is it because that player/coach is gonna get some kind of motivational boost to try and stick it to their previous team?

Just curious…are we thinking it’s a coincidence that the D has played lights out these last couple games after Donte Jackson’s injury? Maybe too early to say, but worth keeping an eye on.

I wonder what Miss Laura thinks about this lol.

Here's a thread about a mock draft specifically revolving around us moving up to #2 overall to take Zach Wilson, giving up multiple 1sts and 3rds. Many people were on board with it. If you're disputing that people were losing their minds in here over Zach Wilson leading up to the 2021 draft, you're either being dishonest or your memory is quite poor. Lots of Zach Wilson boners.

There you go dumb dumb, that was after 10 seconds of scrolling through the threads he linked. You now gonna ask for video evidence of a table physically being slammed or what?

So if we were 0-12 and on track for the 1st overall pick, then the rest of the league would respect us. Got it…good call.

Love seeing our rookie DE Barno blazing down the field as a ST gunner. Dude is super athletic.

If Darnold starts, I'll take the over. He's guaranteed to put up more points than Baker, or throw enough pick-sixes to run up the scoreboard.

See: Pete Carroll + Geno Smith.

I've yet to see anyone here articulate why Sam shouldn't play. At the very least you have to be able to argue why playing Baker over Darnold is worth downgrading a draft pick.

That's a pretty disingenuous spin...I'm pretty sure that was specifically for the people who wanted us to lose from the start of the season just to facilitate Rhule's firing. They would rather us have lost, because winning would have made it more likely that Rhule would keep his job. Then it just basically boils down to the same "tanking" vs. "rooting for wins" argument that people are having for the draft, i.e. "would you actively root for your team to lose in hopes that it might produce a better long-term outcome down the line"? And that's a reasonable philosophical debate topic right there. Not "if you don't root for Matt Rhule, you're not a true fan!!!" like you're suggesting lol.

I feel like picking high can be a double-edged sword cause you're pressured oftentimes to take the "safe" pick rather than shoot for the stars with a somewhat flawed but uber-talented prospect...and the latter prospects often times can be the ones who end up as superstars. A GM might be terrified to take a "boom or bust" prospect at #1 or #2 overall but picking a little later in the 1st might be that sweet spot where risk meets reward. I do think Cam was somewhat of a bold pick for 1st overall because he did have a lot of question marks as a prospect. He was by no means a "safe" pick...if anything, that might have been Gabbert that year so let's be grateful we did shoot for the stars with Cam.

How is that a compelling argument when Peppers got us as far as Cam did? Cam was a legit franchise QB with an incredible MVP season and we still have 0 championships to show for it. It proves that it's never as simple as you're trying to make it out to be.

That’s my cornerback

I've never tried Talk to Text before GET OFF THE ***** ROAD WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO DRIVE let's see how well this works!

In his defense, he also has the second highest pressure rate out of any QB which will almost definitely lead to a higher percentage of bad throws. I’d also guess a lot of those bad throws came in the earlier part of the season vs. the last few games. He’s not a finished product by any means but I don’t know how you can’t feel optimistic about him at this point.

Yeah on the surface it sounds odd, but you'd have to account for injured QBs and their backups who have played less games (and thrown less passes) than Fields who will kinda counteract the fact that Fields throws less passes per game, since Fields has started every game so far. Baker is one of those - also guys like Ryan Tannehill, Cooper Rush, Zach Wilson, and Joe Flacco. Flacco is the only one who you could maybe question due to that small sample size of 3 games (although he threw an insane 155 passes over those 3 games lol); the others have played at least 6 games. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/passing_advanced.htm

I was looking at total drops but I just checked for drop percentage and he's 18th there. And that's only considering eligible QBs, like Baker is on there at 10th worst but PJ Walker isn't even listed - I looked PJ up manually and he has a 6.7% drop rate which would put him at 4th worst in the entire league. Yet how many times have people in here jumped to PJ's defense about receivers dropping passes? How many compilation videos are out there about dropped PJ passes? It just seems, statistically speaking at least, that the dropped passes narrative is way overblown for Fields. Other elements of his surrounding talent like his o-line protection, wide receiver separation, etc. might be legitimate but those are more difficult to find data on. And maybe the guy who made that video should have invested his time making a compilation video of Fields' o-line giving up immediate pressure or something if that were the case. Touchdown passes has nothing to do with the video I was discussing in my post. I'm not making some grand judgment about Fields as a QB, I'm simply saying that video I just watched was extremely unconvincing as a defense of Fields. I can't imagine anyone who is truly on the fence about Fields, walking away with a more favorable impression of him after watching that video. I think it did a disservice to him more than anything cause you're kinda left thinking "wait that's it?". Hand-selecting clips that were completely inconsequential like the 3rd and 16 and 4th and 16 drops, as well as padding the run time to get to 2 minutes by including Special Teams clips of muffed punts is what makes it come off as a bit desperate and biased. If someone made a compilation video of Sam Darnold and trying to convince us that he was a great QB getting screwed over by his team, and then proceeded to include a clip of his running back dropping a checkdown on 4th & 30 as 5 defenders converged on him, I'd roll my eyes lol. Hyperbolic example I know, and I'm not trying to compare Fields to Darnold (like I said I'm excited about Fields' development as of late), but it's the same sentiment with regards to that video.

Good thing we've got a pretty solid o-line to protect the poor guy!

Don't you think you could do the same thing though for teams who lucked into the better QB because they picked later and the guy they would've taken was already gone? Who thinks the Bears wouldn't have taken Zach Wilson if they were picking #2, over Justin Fields? I wonder if the Dolphins wish they were one pick later where Tua was already gone and they were forced to take Herbert instead. How about Lamar Jackson? Do you think the Ravens would have necessarily used a Top 10 pick on a gamble like that rather than at #32 where the value was more reasonable? Now if you expand this beyond QBs to every position, think about how many busts teams were able to avoid simply due to a team ahead of them already drafting that particular player. This probably happens dozens of times every year. You can say it all boils down to the competence of a team's GM/scouting, but sometimes players that should be great inexplicably end up busting, and others that should be busts inexplicably have great careers. Objectively speaking, of course having a higher pick is obviously better and anyone arguing otherwise is delusional. But I just think there are countless examples every year where teams happen to luck into a better outcome because they picked later. If you had a direct irrefutable correlation of higher pick = better draft then yeah sure it'd be much more tempting to be all in on the tank. But when you factor in the crazy randomness of the draft every year where tons of high picks bust and tons of later picks flourish, then it muddies the waters a bit to where I've adopted more of a nihilistic approach of "let's enjoy the season...whatever happens, happens...let's hope for a good draft wherever we end up picking".

I dunno about this one...if you were to separate your fandom from the equation and just evaluate this objectively, would you truly argue that this is a super compelling compilation video of Fields getting screwed over beyond what every single QB goes through? As a fan of entertaining football, I'm excited for Fields' development and trajectory and watching him play, but this video seems egregiously homeristic lol. The very first clip is of a 3rd & 16 drop that would have been blown up for a 4-5 yard gain. They were in field goal range so you could maybe argue the impact of that drop....if the Bears didn't go on to make the FG anyways on the next play (they did). So this is "literally irrefutable" evidence of an entirely inconsequential drop. There's another similar type play of a 4th & 16 drop that clearly would have been short of the sticks as the guy was in the process of getting tackled simultaneously as the catch was attempting to be made. Then there are two clips of muffed punts which, sure you can argue that they take away a QB's number of opportunities to put up points, but still a pretty big stretch to include in a compilation of drops. You might as well make a 45-minute compilation video of every 1st down the defense gives up because those are also limiting the QB's opportunities. If you trim the fat above, you're left with maybe a one minute clip of legitimate drops including a few damn impressive throws. But again, that goes back to my original question of putting this within the context of what every QB has to endure. I feel like it'd be pretty damn easy to come up with a one minute compilation video of receiver drops for every QB in the NFL. Hell, the statistics I looked up puts Justin Fields tied at 18th-23rd for most drops in the league despite playing at least one more game than all of the QBs above him except for 3.