t96

I literally made the point predraft multiple times that Bryce seemed too “California” to me and got poo’d like hell.

Me too. Wanted Steichen and Stroud

It just dawned on me that Reich got paid $36M for 10 months of (subpar) work. Sure getting booted after 11 games is embarrassing but dude can sit on his ass doing nothing and earn ~$25k per day for the next 3 years. Amazing

I'm not really convinced Flores is an incredible coach who will win a SB, but the dude would step in here and immediately set a tone and culture that I could get behind. Although we could've just done that with Wilks (and still could but he'd probably tell tepper to fug off). I like Johnson and Bieniemy as options, also would be cool with Harbaugh. The others, no interest.

Not a very inspiring presser. rambled on about nonsense for half of it when all that matters in this context is the product on the football field. Tepper shouldn't have final say or any say at all in "the process" of scouting and drafting, I don't really care about the other details of what went down with the choice because they don't matter. Tepper needs to trust the people he hires to do their damn jobs and not involve himself at all. Until that changes I don't have any hopes of this team getting better. Also Tepper dodging the Q about using an advisor is a bitch move. He's gonna go ahead and try to do everything himself again this offseason and fug it up again, surely.

don't care honestly

John Lynch was Millen part 2, and he's done pretty well

On a team void of franchise players, Brown is our closest thing to it. But he's a DT who doesn't rack up sacks like Aaron Donald (or prime KK). If a new GM and HC decide not to pay him big long term, I wouldn't be upset.

@TheSpecialJuan

Yeah I never expected anything different from Frank. He’s a good dude and wouldn’t throw others under the bus or air the team’s dirty laundry. Rhule would, and kinda did, but not Frank.

Look at our roster and tell me who Chuba being better than is an impressive feat. He could be our offensive MVP this year and it doesn't mean poo, and it definitely doesn't mean he's better than last season. He was very solid last year, decent vision and good at picking up chunk yards. Nothing has changed this year and the stats are no better, maybe even worse, than last year. He has very little flash or big play ability/ability to create yards or positive plays out of nothing, which is why he's at best a backup. I don't know why you're dying on this Duce hill right now, yeah he got a lot of hype for some of those videos coming out of Lions camp. But our RBs have not improved at all with him as RB coach.

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/chuba-hubbard-player-stats?category=receiving&seasonType=reg He went from 1 drop last year to 0 so far this year. The improvement as a receiver was between his rookie year (when he dropped 7 passes) and last year, not this season. Last year he averaged 12yds/rec, this year averaging 6. Yes offense struggles is a part of that and he's had a larger sample size of receiving this year but no stats, rushing or receiving, suggest improvement from last year. Stats aside, my eye test is that Chuba hasn't been any better this year than last and he's really no more than an ok backup RB. Very replaceable and nothing that Duce should hang his hat on with regards to his coaching job this year.

I don't disagree nor was my post saying otherwise. Plenty of legit die hard fans will be turned off of the team when they are this bad for this long of a period of time with absolutely nothing to be excited about. I'm a die hard Panthers fan but I've also chosen to do other things than watch this team a few times the last couple years. In years past I would know the full 53 man roster out of camp and every single transaction that happened, now I have no clue who some of our starters are (that guard who we cut a week or 2 ago, had no clue who he was until he was released lol). Level of interest may be affected to varying degrees but fans like us will keep coming back. I mean seriously how many regular posters on the huddle won't watch week 1 next year and have some level of excitement about a new coach? Even with how bad we've been under Tepper. If it quickly turns to poo interest will waver yet again but we'll come back. The fairweather fans, which is really a significant portion of any team's fanbase, will only really watch when the team is known to be good. They won't be tuning in week 1 next year. And that's fine, I don't blame them. This is entertainment after all, and most people are just entertained by winning and exciting plays, which is fair. Many here, like myself, are more into football as a sport and being there to follow and see the full development long term of a team. We didn't win it all in 2015 unfortunately but I can tell you right now I enjoyed that run so much more than many of the fairweather fans. Being a long term fan and seeing the development of the franchise from the first SB, Jake imploding, Clausen to Rivera/Cam coming in 2011 then Luke, following along with TD and his 3 acl tears and rooting for him all the way to come back made the culmination of all that and success of 2015 so much more fun to watch than if I had not followed closely at all and just started watching the wins pile up that year. I would bet you agree. And neither of us are gonna jump ship and switch to another team just because we stop following the Panthers as closely as we used to

Chuba isn't really improved over last year. He just seems better because of how bad Sanders has been, but I haven't seen any development from Chuba. He's our best RB but the cupboard is pretty damn thin.

I mean yeah, he's averaging like 5 yards per attempt. That would've been terrible 20-30 years ago let alone in the modern NFL where all rules favor offense and particularly passing. Sure part of that is the offense and lack of weapons/protection, but a lot of it is still Bryce and his inability to threaten downfield. Plenty of other QBs throughout the years have done better with just as bad of a supporting cast and coaching.

you trust Tepper to evaluate those things?

Every fanbase has a ton of fairweather fans and if the team sucks they won't be interested or will turn their fandom elsewhere. But those fans will come back if the team is good again. Look at the Hurricanes -- win the Cup and have several great years, great fanbase. 10 years of missing the playoffs and the fanbase seemed extinct. Now sustained success with 5 straight playoff appearances and a few deep runs and the fanbase is bigger than ever. I don't think we'll see a significant impact in the sense of current fans leaving for another team outside of those fairweather fans who will come back. But what we will see is less young fans being developed which will impact the fanbase 10-20, etc. years from now.

Yeah completely understood but sometimes that growth does take time to manifest itself. Of course it's a balance with no exact answer -- no team these days is going to give a coach 5 losing seasons and a .500 season before finally winning (like Tom Landry) on that extreme end of the long leash spectrum. But 11 games is really just too short of a time to properly evaluate a coach. I didn't like the idea of getting Reich in the first place and obviously he's sucked so I'm happy we're moving on, but sending a message to candidates that the leash can be that short just isn't good. Maybe it won't wind up mattering and we can land Ben Johnson or whoever but we probably should've waited until after the season. I'd also have considered just keeping Reich and Bryce next year to give them a last chance to turn things around or alternatively (more likely) be some excellent tank commanders for our '25 pick. '25 would be a better time to hire a coach for this franchise too. This team since Tepper took over has been simultaneously rebuilding and trying to compete and flip flopping between the two, which has us in this terrible limbo of suck. In years where we should be rebuilding we've traded away draft capital for win-now players like Gilmore, and then Tepper decides we have huge expectations and want to compete immediately this year, after having just traded away DJ and McCaffrey -- who would probably be our 2 best players on the entire team right now if they were still here (maybe Brown has an argument over DJ, but no other player is in the discussion). Just further evidence of Tepper having no idea what he's doing

yep. sunk cost fallacy. Tepper is going to go all in on hiring someone who thinks they can save Bryce's career so as to not make Tepper look like a fuging moron (well more than he already does) for influencing that trade up and the pick. When what he needs to do is clear house from top to bottom, hire an advisor to run a GM search and then let that GM hire the HC and treat it as a full clean slate -- not a single player, scout, coach, etc. is "safe." Some may be brought back if new GM/HC decide they want them but absolutely no stipulations should be in place. GM/HC coming in, if they're any good, will likely see that Bryce was a top pick for a reason and has talent/upside and is probably worth more on the roster than whatever he could fetch in a trade, but they should still be looking for ways to upgrade at QB and if a Mr Irrelevant comes in and outplays him then that should be it. Imagine if the 49ers stuck with the Trey Lance mistake instead of moving forward with Purdy... The way Tepper is trending, he would force us to keep sticking with Bryce rather than letting another option beat him out in a competition. With how bad Bryce has played this year, QB needs to be a wide open competition starting in OTAs next year. I'm doubtful we will acquire a QB who will beat him out but handing him the job, as Tepper seems to want to do, is a huge mistake. All this assuming Bryce doesn't flip a switch the rest of this season, which he almost certainly won't. But if Brown/Caldwell without Reich somehow work miracles and Bryce somehow averages 300 yards a game, 7.5 yards per attempt, 2 TDs a game and only a couple picks the rest of the year, yeah he'd be safe.

I get the sentiment but sometimes it does take time to implement systems, get players on board and most importantly, get the right players on the roster. Whatever HC takes over next year is inheriting a group of largely mediocre players without a single legit "star" on the team. No one on this team on either side of the ball is irreplaceable. I can't think of another team for which that is true. A good HC should be able to do better than Reich has done with whoever the players are, yes. But that said this team needs a full rebuild and there will need to be lower expectations because of that. Would anybody be surprised if whatever coach we hire next year is fired because of a 3-11 start to the season? Or a 2-15 season? Andy Reid started 3-11 his first year in Philly and Jimmy Johnson went 1-15 his first year with Dallas. Plenty of HC candidates understand the reality that it takes time to build a team that will have sustained success. We've seen a handful of coaches come in right away and start winning/make the playoffs but many of them fizzle out. Most of the HCs that have had staying power had some early struggles. Sure there are some exceptions but those are mostly guys who took over for highly successful teams where the HC retired rather than crappy teams where previous coaches were fired, like our situation.

Unbelievably embarrassing look for Tepper and the organization.

it's an idea but I'd be shocked if he was fired. Allen is more of an issue there than McD and even if they miss the playoffs, that's an awfully short leash for a coach who's had a ton of success for a team who before him hadn't made the playoffs in like 2 decades...

That's the hope but the Jags got somewhat lucky that Pederson was available at the time and interested. What SB winning HC can we get to save us?

technically bill belichick was with the jets for like a day

Pretty sure he interviewed with Houston and Indy. Only declined to interview here. "Pulled himself from consideration" for the other jobs and said it was because he wanted to stay in Detroit and continue to build another year but everyone knows his agent had already gotten word that he wasn't going to get either of those jobs. The last 10 months certainly won't help us convince him to interview this go around.