SmokinwithWilly

So if Bryce could have come to Carolina with the same advantages he had every year at Alabama he would have been successful. Good coaches. Top recruiting classes far better than the opposition. Defense able to bail him out if he has a bad game. Still doesnt change anything regarding footwork, mechanics, drop backs, reading the field, poor placement or any of the other myriad of issues that are still present in year 3. Bryce wasn't ready to be the day 1 starter. There's nothing wrong with that. Dalton was clearly the more capable QB, as evidenced by what happened in Seattle in the rain, under extreme pressure. Same players, same coach, same terrible offensive line. Two different offenses. When you look at Bryce and what he's done in game over the course of 3 years it's not pretty. He has moments of good, but there's been a lot more WTF. But saying Bryce would have been able to lead a team to the playoffs? Based on what we saw from him, he probably would have spent a good bit of year one on the bench holding a clipboard.

For me, it's because we needed a center, Frazier was sitting there, and we traded up for an injured RB that wasn't ready for TC as promised, or the season opener, then until mid season, then has another tear and is out all of year 2. Year 3 we hope he'll be back, but just judging by his history, that's no guarantee. We drafted Etienne so who knows if he's in the future plans or if he's just another Eric Shelton. With so many needs on this team, taking an injured RB was a luxury pick we didn't have the luxury to make. I have nothing against the guy, don't know him. Hope he does come back and can contribute. At this point, my angst is with the FO, not Brooks. It's just another one of those times when the lowly Huddle was right, again. It just gets old, and really seems to be a pattern under Tepper.

The situation here was the doing of David Tepper. Frank Reich didn't want Young, he wanted Stroud. Stroud fit his QB mold better than Young. So yeah, he didn't design an offense for him. He was lied to by his boss and he didn't want to be here. Would you? It sucks for Young, but as I said, that has nothing to do with his terrible footwork, poor mechanics, his shitty drop backs, fumble issues, not bothering to look off the Atlanta safety that turned into a pick 6 by his own admission. Those were all things that had nothing to do with Frank, the OL or the rest of the team. And Houston wasn't a complete team. They had the 2nd pick in the draft because they sucked. They built a team and had a damn good HC that I wanted here but he refused Tepper's interview. Young has been protected in ways no other QB has. Dalton has been kept because he has never been a threat to take the job from Young. We signed him to a 2 year deal this offseason when it was clearly evident we needed an upgrade. For 2m more per year we could have and should have looked at Brissett if we didn't go after Howell, Russell, Winston or anyone else. Anyone else other than Dalton would have been a serious risk to take Young's starting job. If Young hadn't been the 1st overall pick, and been a day 3 pick instead, he would have been cut as a rookie. If he were on any other team as a starter, this message board would be laughing like hell at whoever was starting him for 3 years. That's why this team gets murdered when Young doesn't play. He's been sheltered from ever having to worry about his job and the QB room proves it. I've been extremely critical of how this team has been constructed the past 3 years, especially on offense. But this whole narrative that Bryce has always been good enough and it's everyone else's fault that he's not succeeding isn't matching up to what he's been putting on the field week in and week out.

Kinda had to. Was in response to Bryce would have duplicated Stroud's rookie season if he hadn't been drafted here.

You can't say that with any certainty at all. Bryce played the worst football of any rookie ever. His mechanics and footwork have nothing to do with Frank, DC or anyone else. All those ints and fumbles, yep, those are Bryce too. Bryce and Stroud are 2 different QBs. Just because Bryce had one complete game in year 3 vs Atlanta doesnt mean he could have led a team to the playoffs his rookie year.

Ive only ever heard Cowturd say one intelligent thing in regards to football. Find your QB. Protect him Get him weapons. In that order. Everything else is pretty much bullshit.

I think the huge deciding factor is going to end up being whether or not we do a 5th year or if we offer an extension, and if we do an extension, what value will that extension carry. 45-50m AAV. I don't see how we can. A lesser value, maybe. It all depends on that number.

Frank's malpractice was he didn't want Bryce. Frank didn't get to choose his QB like he was told before he was hired. Tepper chose for him and Frank checked out. He didn't want to design an entirely new offensive system when he was lied to. He towed the company line and said what Dave wanted him to say, but his body language said it all. That's all speculation on my part but it makes perfect sense looking back.

This is what we have to know by the end of the season, playoffs be damned. If we offer a huge contract and Bryce turns back into a pumpkin, this franchise is set back another 4 years in our 7 year rebuild.

Its to the point now that it's better just to draft from wherever you're at for a QB unless it's moving a spot or 2. The price is too high to spend years developing and hoping when these guys aren't ready and are making almost or more in college as they would be in the NFL anyway.

Like I said in another post yesterday, the handling of the offensive line by Fitterer and mostly Morgan has been crazy. We've spent way too much money(Lewis and Hunt) to keep Bryce upright instead of using our picks in the 2nd round on JPJ and Frazier. Could have kept an injured Corbett at guard, Brady at swing, and still taken Maye as a backup, sorry Zavala. We wouldn't have taken XL, but XL hasn't been as advertised anyway, and Brooks hasn't contributed anything. Moton's extension with it's signing bonus made him uncutable. Icky's contract was due at the same time Bryce's 3rd year ended, and we all know it's extension or 5th year, and if we're going to do a 5th year, he's going to want the extension. To me the whole thing is just ridiculous. Right now, depending on if Tepper decides to keep Bryce, it feels like we're going to have to choose between Icky and a Bryce extension. Maybe he plays on the 5th year, but I think he'll want the big money guarantee. JMO, but if you took a look at how the contracts could potentially fall, the writing was on the wall that this could be a cash flow nightmare. Too many contract guarantees, not enough rookie contracts to offset the upcoming paydays.

Would you pay him 40-50m AAV based on half a season? We saw him improve last season then fall off a cliff to start the year. It's a conundrum for sure.

They could, but it's not likely his agent will let him play on his 4th year. Most rookie QBs don't. Daniel Jones is the only one I can remember playing the final year of his rookie contract. He'll either request an extension(before) or trade(after) if we decide not to exercise the 5th year.

Lot of truth to this. Hard to concentrate on blocking the edge when there's someone blowing by your inside shoulder all the time.

A lot of people have been slobbing all over this last draft but I hate the way that Fitterer/Morgan have built this offense since drafting Bryce. Anyone with eyes knew our IOL was crap but we didn't invest there and instead took project receivers and an injured RB. If you want a lesson in how build for your QB wrong, IMO, this was it. Draft him, protect him, THEN get him weapons. Its pretty much a rule, draft interior linemen, pay tackles. We're paying everyone. We had the opportunity to draft a center instead of Brooks, or perhaps instead of trading up for XL, trade back and take 2 guards/center. We could have paid Lewis and still drafted 2, but Hunt at 100m was just an overpay. And it's not like the guys many of us were begging us to draft were long shots. They're solid starters from day 1. Injuries happen. That's why all your starters can't be high value players. You need rookie contracts mixed in to be able to absorb those inevitable losses on the line. An offensive line playing an entire season together is an abnormality. Factor into that also paying Moton 44m this offseason with a huge signing bonus when we didnt need to do right now to do him a "solid". Now we have to sign Icky and possibly Bryce and it's a mess with more money tied up in the offense, inevitable cuts and dead cap coming. That's not even factoring in shifting Corbett to C last year after major injury to start at a position he's never played for an NFL season. It's all stuff that was foreseeable and pretty easily avoided. The $$ and picks we've spent trying to surround Bryce outside of Tmac (Mitchell and Horn are TBD) have been used inefficiently IMO. Smarter drafting and FA with the line could have let us get more reliable weapons than XL and Sanders in FA. It might not be popular opinion, but I'll take a Bersin with hands that can get 6-8 85% of the time vs a big play XL with greasy fingers. The part about hitting guys in stride was more about placement, which Bryce has struggled with. Obviously not every route is run to be hit in stride, but they do need to have the ball placed well to give the receivers a chance to do something after the catch. I just used Hill as an example because he's the biggest YAC threat I could think of over the past 5 years. Receivers can feast on dink and dunk if it's schemed right. But to make it work, that vertical threat has to be there, if not the deep pass then the high speed routes that can spring someone for the huge YAC to keep the safeties from cheating into that 20 yard box all game. I hope DC and Bryce can keep up what they did in the last game and it isnt just an Atlanta thing. But no matter what, I really want to see some better long term strategy coming from the FO.

The team has done a lot to make Bryce look good. You list the receivers but let's not forget the most expensive offensive line in the league that's also got its LT on a rookie contract. Are the receivers all pro or pro bowl caliber? With the exception of Tmac possibly making the pro bowl depending on the rest of his season, no. But that doesn't have anything to do with hitting guys in stride Sunday which is something he hasn't really been able to do all season. 250YAC is crazy. It's why guys like Tyreek have always been so deadly at near full speed when it hits their hands. I think if Bryce can do that with much more consistency, and we have the occasional real deep ball or 30 or more to keep safeties honest, Bryce could turn the corner and so could some of the receivers.

This list is terrible.

I think a large part of it falls too on the sheer volume of injuries to receivers and TEs. I can't remember a year when so many players have gone down to injury. It's been a numbers battle since week 6 it seems like.

Better question. Can you consistently make the playoffs while paying him 45m a year for the next 5 years?

Grasping at what straws? Yesterday Bryce got credit for the comeback but how much of that was really Bryce? If we're being honest, he threw a 5 yard pass that Tremble took and obliterated the Atlanta defense with, followed up by handoffs to Dowdle to set up the game winning field goal. Was that Bryce willing the team to victory making play after play, or was he the QB that threw the pass to another player who made an amazing effort that put the team in position to win? I hate the term GWD because it's rarely a QB actually putting the whole offense on his back and leading a team down the field with pinpoint pass after pass. So let's be realistic and give Young his credit where it's due. In how many of those games where he had a GWD, do you feel he was playing well enough the entire game that you would feel 100% confident he could lead the team from the 20 80 yards down field in under 2 minutes to score a touchdown? Yesterday might be the only one I could say that about. That's not being a hater. That's just what I've seen watching him play.

Elite speed matters but you have to have hands too. Ted Ginn was the perfect example of this for the Panthers. Elite route running was always AT's game and he was as fast as an angry turtle but damn he could get open and his hands were glue. TMac can move, but like all receivers, he does best when you can get it on his hands in stride.

He'd have to do a hell of a lot more to be in that conversation. This was a great game, no doubt, but there's been a lot more I'd rather forget than remember.

I can't throw away his rookie season. He played it. It'd be like throwing away Stroud's because he was a rookie. He's learning the game, but so much has been spent on him to even get him to the point he's at now. Not everything can be blamed on receivers or the FO. At some point, Bryce has to make the plays and he hasn't done that on a consistent basis. It also doesn't appear he's worked on his footwork much if at all on his own and that's still a glaring issue that has nothing to do with anyone else. It's also easy to say that guys aren't getting YAC but it's just as easy to say Bryce hasn't been putting the ball in place to do so as well. Defenses have been playing that 20 yard box daring us to go over the top. Yesterday we did, and they finally got burned. Opened up the underneath stuff because they couldnt cheat up. The contract thing is a huge problem because at some point you have to give the defense something. It's not fair to keep pouring everything into the offense and expect the defense to get by on scraps. Bryce has to be able to elevate those around him. For the money he's going to cost, that's what his value is going to have to be. Finally seeing this game this late into year 3 is troubling. We should have seen it year one or early year 2. As a fan, I still say we need another legit vet QB to compete and a drafted QB, one that fits what we want to do, but it doesnt have to be a high pick. We need to improve our QB room, with our without Bryce.

Bryce has proven he can have a game here and there. He hasn't proven he can have any type of consistency whatsoever. The people you're calling clueless keep saying the same thing. Bryce needs to play consistently for an entire season. That's it. Bryce had a great game today. He's also played some of the worst games I've ever seen this year. You can be a football fan and recognize in what is realistically a contract year we need consistent play at a higher level to determine if Bryce is worth 45m a year. It's pretty simple really.

There was no way they were letting him have a losing Super Bowl record. 1-3 was never in the cards.