SmokinwithWilly

That's wrong. Funny as hell, but it's still wrong. Awww who am I kidding. Carry on.

That's why I said almost nothing. Fitts panicked. DJ Johnson had the RAS measurables he wanted and was an Evero choice. I've said repeatedly Fitts couldn't read the flow of a draft and he didn't actually know talent, he knew RAS scores. When he felt like he needed a position, he grabbed the best metric player he could. It's how all his drafts look and why I think he was such a horrible GM and team builder. He simply didn't recognize guys that could play football.

I think that was partially on him. Fitts waited to long to go after a pash rusher and wound up at the end of the run with almost nothing left to choose from.

I remember that too. Brock Purdy really ignited the idea that test could tell all but I have never seen so many experts dry hump an unproven narrative, and basically an infomercial at that point, like that. I also remember Stroud saying watch me play football.

Now now. These are 3rd rounders we're talking about. We wouldn't waste those on anything less than a long snapper.

I know it's conspiracy theory but part of this has always felt by design as part of the entertainment aspect of the NFL since the team was forced to be sold. Enter Tepper as the narcissist, impulsive hedge fund owner relying on analytics over an ownership group. His impulsive actions on full display the first 5 years burning through multiple QBs, 4 HCs, 2 GMs. Everything trying to find the newest shortcut to success. Houston needed a new image quickly after the Watson debacle, and Carolina has an owner willing to ignore football guys and go with his analytics. Here comes the S2, along with tons of media coverage that the Holy Grail for finding QBs has been found and Bryce with a damn near perfect score. Then Bryce goes 1st overall, has one of, if not the worst rookie QB seasons ever, and the S2 all but disappears from being mentioned again. It’s all just a bit too convenient for my liking.

There was also a ridiculous amount of stock put into the S2 test and Bryce's results were off the chart and Stroud's private results were "leaked" and he was called an imbecile, one of the nicer thing said about him. The caveat though was that you could practice for the S2 and Bryce had been taking it for a long time. The hype machine was fueled and Tepper along with Fitts & co bought it hook line and sinker.

One of the biggest concerns some of us had was can he see over linemen in a tight pocket. If he’s 1-2 inches shorter than Murray, and he sure looks it, his sight level is 5’3 to 5’4. Shoulder height for NFL linemen in pads is going to be 5’6 to 5’8.

This was easy to call. No QB 5’10 or under has had a long term career as a starting QB in 60 years. There’s been over 1,000 QBs over 60 years. Bryce has a .1% chance of being a success based on that statistic alone. Bryce is not the same height as Murray. Standing side by side it’s obvious he’s shorter. And his physical prowess wasn’t his strength, it was his mental capability. That hasn’t been up to snuff either. The player we drafted had to defy 60 years of QB history. We sold the house and tried to win big at the casino. The odds were always against us winning this deal.

Nobody knew what he would get prior to this year’s performance. If he had come out with 4500 yards and 35 tds, a 50m AAV extension could easily be on the table at the end of this season. To be honest we still don’t know and Tepper is a wild card. We saved some cap space extending Moton, but it wasn’t wholly necessary at the time.

I would have set up some full size cardboard cut outs of offensive and defensive linemen in a tight pocket and said throw from in here and watch what happened.

Bryce didnt fit Frank's QB mold for his offense. Of the 4, Stroud did most. I think Frank thought he was getting to pick his QB to build his offense and team around and when he got stuck with Bryce, he gave up. Look at his demeanor before and after the draft. He was lied too. He towed the company line to get paid.

Its the timing. Icky needs his extension. Also, end of year 3 is when most of the recent 1st round QBs are asking for their extensions. Bryce could very well ask for his. Those 2 signings alone will use our entire cap and more if we go that direction. Before the season we had no way to know how Bryce was going to perform, but you still have to anticipate the likelihood of an extension request.

And how severely are we going to get involved. This has all the feels of a best of Cops episode dragging some guy's drunk ass out of the trailer in skidmarked tighty whities while his girlfriend and wife scream please don't take him before falling over the handrail through an open T top trans am on blocks.

Bryce had a lot of help in college. Bama has the top recruiting classes with mostly 1sts, a couple 2nd and a 5th over the past dozen years. 10 guys from his class were drafted. Georgia had 10 also. He played lesser caliber competition. Yeah he played in the SEC, but the SEC still has only so many 4 and 5 star recruits and draft worthy players. Alabama had the best, other teams didn't. That's just the nature of college ball. Now every team has what would be elite level talent in college. That huge advantage has disappeared and in many cases, he's on the lesser talent side. Bryce benefited from where he played. Nothing wrong with it. But its why you've got to ignore a lot of the game play and look at the physical attributes, footwork, progressions, motions, everything. We, and by we I mean Fitts and company and Tepper, ignored a lot of the simple red flags because they got hung up on the super processor hype. Damn that S2 test.

Battle of the check downs.

We didnt even run a tush push. Ours was just a TE sneak. Bryce and the back just stood there and watched.

Also his mother is his agent

Or they don't think he's going to have a long career as a crash test dummy.

At the time there was no way to make that trade. 3 1sts 3 2nds plus players possibly with what he wanted paid and he wanted the team to build around him. Im sure Baltimore would ask a small fortune again, but you don't trade away franchise QBs away unless there's some serious issues.

Im not getting worked up over anything. I was simply answering your question. I gave a very plausible reason why someone could root for us to lose on Saturday. We have a very reactionary owner who's acted on emotion several times. I don't think it's at all out of the realm of possibility that an Atlanta type game could result in a long term extension. It happens. Tepper's an owner that's gotten it wrong virtually every step of the way for 8 years. It's not a huge leap to think he wouldn't jump at the opportunity to sign Bryce long term after a "i knew it" moment.

Tepper is the wild card in all of this. He's supposedly stepped out, but if we get in and win a playoff game, I could see him getting right back into the decision making because he would feel vindicated. I have a lot of theories and conjecture, but when you lay out all the pieces, it looks like Tepper is still exerting some influence in our GM's office. I can't believe that Morgan, who went against great QBs as a MLB, looked at Dalton's game tape from last year and thought that was good enough. I just can't.

It's not illogical. Say we make the playoffs, one and done, Bryce gets his 5 year extension, yay team. We get the same Bryce, but start losing parts because of that 50m contract and all those close games we won even back out like they usually do. We're back to 5 to 7 wins for the next 4 or 5 years because one feel good game made our FO do something really stupid, AGAIN. If losing Saturday gets Bryce out of the building, some like me view that as a long term win. He is not a franchise QB. Our offense is crippled by his limitations. He's UDFA QB production that's being given more chances than he's deserved based on draft position. Getting him out of the building is a win. Unfortunately, I don't see an avenue of winning playoff games that doesn't keep Bryce in the building. I want long term success for this team. I think the biggest problem for us is Tepper chose Bryce to lead this team and as long as there is any sliver of hope he made the right choice, even with mountains of evidence to the contrary, he'll hang on because "he knew it". You asked how can anyone root for the Panthers to lose? I ask, how can you root for them to win if winning likely means 5 more years of Bryce Young as your QB? This isn't a fan problem, it's a FO problem, and we have a history of FO yes men doing very stupid things.

Ruined the perfect season for Brady. He should get an honorable mention at least just for fugging him over.