CPantherKing

What would you give to have the talent evaluation of Buffalo and Washington?

I feel Bryce and Evero stans are trying to blame Canales. Canales has shown offensive improvement. It's always been Bryce and Evero who have held back the team. Canales shows promise, but he has to free himself from Bryce and Evero.

The other games every Sunday remind me how much better fans are at evaluating talent than the Teppers front office.

Ekwonu gets crossed up and beat on stunts immediately. He's bull rushed inside eliminating the pocket in under 2 seconds. Same issue for Bryce and Dalton. His failure to switch on a stunt or waist bend after 1 second with edge rushers has nothing to do with any QB.

Week 2 - 3Q 8:20 3rd & 6 This is constant. Young and Dalton have suffered at the end of their drops because of Ekwonu. His foot work gets crossed up on a switch and he gets bull rushed into the QBs lap. No leverage. They've been targeting Ekwonu in pass pro every week because of this major weakness that gives up the pocket to the inside. For Ekwonu failing to disengage to switch on a stunt in a critical situation, Week 4 - 4Q 4:35 3 &10 Happens every week. Ekwonu is definitely a targeted weakness in the opponents defensive game plan. More that are not difficult to find.

Seifert had a good 1st year rebuild and had a decent 2nd season with all the injuries and internal coaching drama. 2001 was an implosion from the injuries, coaching drama and the Jeff Lewis investment. Imagine Patrick Jeffers, Muhsin Muhammad, Steve Smith, Wesley Walls, Tim Biakabatuka and William Floyd if they were to stay healthy with a solid QB. Dameyune Craig was the best option at QB in 2001, but he was before his time.

I'll tune into the Smitty & Cam show giving their opinions/views. That would be entertainment.

Clowney, Robinson, Jackson, Woods, Tuttle, Scott, Hill, and Harris all won with their previous DCs. Led teams to the playoffs. Then there's Horn who had better success with Snow, Holcomb and Wilks. Ray & Wallace have only been at the command of Evero. Evero is the only key defensive piece that hasn't had success in their current role for multiple teams. I think it's safe to say all the other DCs of the current Panthers starting defenders would be able to win (and have won) with them. They'd definitely keep them from giving up 30+ points consistently. 32 losses in 3 seasons with 11 of them being 30+ points. He's the Bryce Young of DCs. He needs to go back to coaching safeties and prevent defenses.

Panthers only need to significantly improve pass blocking now. 5 guards on the OL has resulted in good run blocking.

Have you seen how much GM and coaching experience Washington has? No way the Teppers would go for that.

GM Morgan: Poor. Keep due to Canales relationship. They are a package deal for me. If one goes, they both go. HC/OC Canales: Promising DC Evero: Fire. 3 consecutive year DC failure. Can't get average production out of reserves with Dom Capers in his ear. Worst Panthers DC. Marshall, Snow and Wilks/Holcomb did more with less. Injuries are never an excuse for a DC allowing 30+ points per game consistently. OL: LT Bakhtiari, LG Ekwonu, C Christensen, RG Hunt, RT Moton (Lewis, B. Turner, T. Turner, L. Collins) QB: Dalton, Rush, Ridder, Glass (prepare and rotate them with a clutch redline for next. See who holds onto the job) if no one does, then release 2 and add 2 every year. You'll find the franchise QB in 3 seasons at most. RB: Brooks, Frank Gore Jr, Mingo, Ezra Gray WR: S. Diggs, Johnson extension, Thielen, Legette, H. Renfrow, C. Conley, J. Vann, J. Ezzard TE: Z. Kuntz, Sanders, C. Latu, Matthews, S. Surratt (35 defense) DL: D. Brown, Tuttle, O. Odighizuwa, S. Ika, E. Ogbah, Q. Jefferson Edge: Clowney, D. Fowler Jr, Barno, J. Moon LB: Thompson , J. Sanborn, Jewell, Ja. Houston IV, J. Kearse, Wallace CB: Horn, M. Jackson, S. Gilmore, Hill, A. Samuel Jr ST: Piñeiro, Hekker, Jansen Draft is still being evaluated. Add competion and stay away from luxury picks and project players on day 1 or 2. These types of picks will turn a rebuilding team into a farm team for the playoff contending teams. Use the draft to fill the roster for players above who couldn't be signed for contract/cap reasons or refuse to play for the Panthers. I'd focus on EDGE, TE and LB in the draft to improve the roster. All other positions will fall into place with a good draft strategty/system.

The Saints exploited Ekwonu's pass blocking. Blitzed over him on both sides. Bull rushed him into the QB. Moved Bryce off his spot with speed rushers leveraging Ekwonu’s waist bending, slow feet and lack of balance in his kick step. G1 1Q 7:20 3rd & 6 G1 2Q 13:10 3rd & 11 G1 3Q 7:10 1st & 10 G1 3Q 5:00 4th & GL G1 4Q 12:20 3rd & 8 G1 4Q 6:55 4th & 6 This can be shown over every game and we know he's waist bending still. He's very inconsistent in beating the edge rusher with his kick. It's too easy to move the QB off his spot at the end of his drop. Edge rushers have easy angles on any 7 step drop and some 5 step drops. This was the reason for Dalton's critical interception against the Bengals. The Panthers have a player I believe could be the best OG in the league playing LT. Average at best as a LT. We all know a LT is judged by their pass blocking over their run blocking. When a QB has to worry about their blindside for at least 20 to 30% of his pass plays (including every 7 step drop), you know a change needs to be made.

It definitely looks like internal disagreements on game plans to me. Saleh is wanting to play ball control and field position while leaving the game to be determined in the final drives of the 4th quarter. Resulted in a loss on a missed FG against the Broncos and a slow comeback to tie the game against the Vikings. I have no doubt we'll see more offensive production now from the Jets in their game planning with Saleh out. Saleh is a good DC and a poor HC.

Replace Evero now like Wilks & Holcomb replaced Snow's problem coaching and see immediate improvement with this roster. Is there a capable DC on the staff? Maybe Cooley? Look at the defensive coaching staff Tepper forced on Canales. I'm not sure how involved Capers is with play calling and game planning now.

There's no excuse a team can't be competitive and average with injuries even with reserve players. Remember the promise of 2000 after the wild improvement in 1999? John Kasay, Patrick Jeffers, Wesley Walls, Tim Biakabatuka, Natrone Means, William Floyd, Clarence Jones, James Dexter, Bryan Stoltenberg, Chuck Smith, Deon Grant, Eric Swann, Jason Peter, and a few more backup players were all lost early to mid season. Steve Beuerlein continued to play with an elbow injury. He would have been on IR with that injury in 2024, and it led to Jeff Lewis taking over the offense in the 2001 offseason. While these injuries led to a total collapse for the Seifert era offense going into 2001, that 2000 team still went 7-9 while facing the Rams,49ers and Packers. Swept the greatest show on turf, beat Favre and took care of the Jerry Rice/Terrell Owens combo for 5 of those wins. 2024 has yet to reach the 2000 level of injury disruption. Lester Towns was a slow 7th round rookie starting at MLB with 40 year old defensive players around him and bust DTs in front of him. Good coaching will shine through with a devastated roster. This is why I have hope for Canales and ZERO hope for Evero.

If Nicole Tepper gets her way, the Panthers will be the worst billionaires social club in the league. No sign of football championship, but great dinner conversation at every fundraising table for the next city project the Teppers will can.

Teppers bent on being the Steelers defense with more data driven decisions. 34 isn't going anywhere. Closest we'll get to a 43 again is a 33 or 35 stack like Snow ran.

It's the management which would be the Teppers and their analysts. Keep Pounding scouting culture as a core element was gutted going into 2019 to a support role. The prime years of the 2011 rebuild was wasted by failing to develop the core leadership and culture of the team. The championship players were ridden with few long term leaders added (also poor core player career projections like Smitty, Gross, Cam, Kuechly, CMC). 2017 was the big blow with the loss of McDermott and Beane in an apparent front office implosion. Hurney managed a respectable save for 2017 leading to the Panthers last playoff game. Then came the Teppers following the 2018 draft and you could see the culture shift in the organization going through that season. Hurney & Rivera were cut-off from football control in the 2019 offseason and visibly battled Tepper's data analyst hires to make football moves. Since then, there hasn't been much of a scouting department factoring into roster building and big boards that could override the Teppers project picks and sports data teams with Rhule being fully on board for years. Panthers scouting now is just data collection and personality tests for the algo engineers. The scouting focus now is on diamonds in the rough and their most important interview question is "Do you like football?" Seems they just work for the AI prompt engineers.

Just pointing out the next priority problem I see until they're replaced, the culture is fixed and the Panthers are playoff/division contenders again. The faster we move through this list, the more we can focus on competitive improvement instead of self sabotage. Saw the problems slowly building over the last decade. 1. Was Young (corrected) 2. Evero 3. Pass protection 4. Run defense on DL 5. Draft/Scouting/Roster building strategy

Injuries and level of talent are not excuses to be a bottom of the league DC. DC is the most important person on the defensive side of the ball as they put players in position to make calls and plays. Evero could have top 10 talent and he would field an average NFL defense. Young was holding the offense back and Evero is holding the defense back. People are willing to hold onto these franchise destroyers for years before admitting the obvious. Snow was terrible and he did more with less in 2020 than Evero has done in 2023 or 2024.

This is what happens when you spend 1st round draft capital on luxury and development picks like Vernon Butler, DJ Moore, Brian Burns, Derrick Brown, Jaycee Horn, Ikem Ekwonu, Bryce Young and Xavier Legette.

Canales mistake was leaning on Evero with a lead to keep the game close and wait for Caleb Williams to make a mistake. Until the Panthers find a better DC the game plan should always be focused on scoring 30 points

Dalton has looked consistent and good when allowed to attack. Last week were dropped balls and poor pass blocking. This week was a complete collapse by the offensive and defensive game plans. They got the lead and thought they could slow play the rookie QB. Evero failed to hide defenders and trick Williams into mistakes. It looked awful for an NFL DC. The game plan was to lean on Evero with a lead to wait for Williams to make rookie mistakes. Evero can't be trusted to keep a game close. Dalton was asked to be a game manager with the lead this week, and Canales waited too late to let Dalton attack deep. Canales trusted Evero to handle a rookie QB, and Evero tanked it by the end of the first half.

Taking luxury picks and project players like Burns, Horn, Ekwonu, Legette, Young, Butler and Brown will wreck a roster. Add in trading away draft picks and key offensive players and there is no roster depth. Mix that with rookie defensive coaches like Snow and Evero and you have zero defensive culture that will be respected by proven NFL veterans. Breaking all my rules with pass rushing specialist, 1st round QB with zero pro pedigree, 1st round CB, 1st round incomplete T that can't pass block. Above are 8 to 9 1st round picks - an entire decade. Greg Olsen made it known today while announcing for another game how hard its been to watch the Panthers struggle for so long.

Luvu and Chinn knew better than to stay with Evero. Horn trying to work his way loose now.