grimesgoat

I just don't see the follow up. If the genie is out of the lamp and it worked, then yeah - there would be leverage for coaches. But right now it looks to be a bust. An experiment gone horribly wrong and not to be repeated. Oh well. Agree to disagree. I'll reconsider if someone else gets a stupid deal like this.

How did hiring Rhule reset the coaching market. If anything, Rhule is a cautionary tale. If you overpay for a lemon, it doesn't mean everyone else will suddenly rush out and overpay for a lemon. And after seeing seattle get that haul for Wilson and Rodgers get 150m, I can't imagine what we have to pay for Watson will be significantly more insane.

Think of this as an investment. Best case - he makes us competitive and gets us in the playoff conversation for the next 5 years. or - we are not able to build anything of note in 3-4 years and decide to tear it all down again and start fresh. Dude will probably still be worth 3 first round picks at age 32. I think people see the 3 first rounders going out and forget we now have an asset that could probably be flipped for 3 first rounders in the future. We're not permanently losing the draft capital - just moving it into another asset (although realistically, that asset could get hurt and be worth much less at some point). Tepper is a hedge fund guy. This is probably how he is looking at this.

I thought Darnold, DJ, and 3 firsts and a future 2nd would be enough, with Watson and a 3rd coming back. But if another player is going out, I bet it will be Brown. Brown is seriously underrated around here and will be seriously missed. Plus the cap hits on the Texans will be miniscule as we will eat the dead cap bonus. Time for Nixon/Hoskins to step up. I think CMC goes out in a different trade, because we desperately need some draft assets. Burns is safe - Houston will pick one of the edge rushers at 3. Horn is safe - Houston will pick sauce at 6. Chinn is safe - Houston already has a very good ss on their roster. What they need is a DT. If Brown is added, maybe they will send another late pick back. They already have 10-11 picks (not including ours). I could see one of their 6ths coming back.

Making room for a cmc trade is my guess. CMC trade will cost 18m in dead cap.

here we go again. Every time i post, here comes toomers with the same old schtick. Still hanging around for some reason Russian-bot style. Regurgitating his greatest hits like it's some fresh take. I always try to couch my opinions and speculations as conjecture. What is hilarious to me is that you are convinced you know so much more than the experts in the building. "signing the two worst OL in the NFL". What is your criteria for this statement? What is your background? How many years of coaching NFL offensive lines are we talking here? How many hours per week do you watch tape of every lineman in the NFL? Are they good at pass blocking? Run blocking? What scheme do they fit? What schemes have they played in the past? Is the scheme where they had the most success the same scheme the coach and OC want to run? What other FAs might be available? How much money can we devote to the line this year? What does the draft look like this year? Will there be any help there? What other teams will need the same sort of guys we are looking for? what is the market like? This is the tip of the iceberg. There are probably hundreds of pieces of data they are looking at that I don't even know about. And why is flexibility a bad thing. You know guys get hurt right? This is tackle football. How often does an NFL offensive line remain intact for a full season with no injuries? If your assets are limited, flexibility is important. Only on the huddle is flexibility a negative. A guy that can play guard and slide over to center in a pinch takes up fewer roster spots. Your solution - take all the money paid to two flexible players and give them to 1 guy that can only play one spot. Pray he never gets hurt, even though he's running around at 300 lbs and is forcefully running into another and wrestling another 300-pound human being 45 times a game, 17 games a year. If he does get hurt, too bad, because there is no more money and no one else that knows how to play in that spot. The very thought that a guy that is capable of playing more than 1 offensive position can't be any good is some special stupid. And now you're putting decisions on which free agents to target and how much to pay them on the cap guy? seriously? come on dude. get it together. Bottom line, Rhule has certain types of guys he likes and wants on his team. But he doesn't know everyone in the NFL. He has to rely on his GM and support staff to find these guys and bring them in using whatever assets are available. I don't think Hurney was doing him any favors with his incompetence. I get a very different vibe from Fitterer.

That has crossed my mind. Tepper holds onto Rhule until the Watson thing shakes out. Why hire someone new if you don't know if the fancy new QB will like him. If Watson comes, Rhule is out. If Watson does not come, Rhule is tank commander.

It's one thing to say Rhule has total control, but how his desires are carried out makes all the difference. It's about creativity and getting the right price. Hurney was terrible at this, but Fitterer has demonstrated some talent in this regard. Recall, Fitterer came along in January 2021. This was after Teddy, CMC's extension, the Boston signing, the Okung trade, the KK contract change, and the Weatherly signing. I don't know who Roberts is. We don't know about Robby yet. He's still got two years left, although he is certainly off to a disappointing start. I didn't like it, but he was coming off a 1,000 yard season, so i can see the logic. They may have had some concerns about DJ costing too much going forward so they wanted to lock Anderson up and get Marshall in as well. We'll see. Erving and Elflein were decent signings. I don't see those as much of an overpay. You can't find vet FA guards for much less, and they are flexible. Had Sewell dropped one more spot, the line would have looked much different. I also think our OL coach and OC were terrible, which hurt the line play overall. They needed to be replaced. We'll see how they do this year with hopefully better coaching. I liked the Thomas re-sign. A guy with experience with his teammates and coaches that has shown some positive flashes in a non-TE focused offense. Let's see what he can do when the TEs are actually used as receivers in a real NFL offense. I think we'll find his contract is about where it should be. Not sure there were viable TE options available in FA this year. Plus we don't burn a comp pick signing someone else that might be slightly better or burn our 4th rounder on a rookie that will not be able to contribute anything for a year or two.

Dead serious. But i'm talking about since they changed the management, bringing in Fitterer/Morgan and the cap guru. I should have made that clear. Not talking about hiring Rhule or anything Hurney did. We all can agree the Rhule hire is not working out and Hurney did not draft well and overcompensated certain positions. I would have moved on from Rhule this year, but I can understand giving him one more year to implement his program. I think the guys they drafted last year are all solid. We could end up with 5-6 starters including a shut-down corner and a long term solution at LT in one draft. They didn't sign any free agents for ridiculous money. They got something for TB even though he was damaged goods. They got EJ Henderson, a top 10 talent, for a 3rd. The Anderson extension looks bad when Sam was QB, but will look much different with a legit OC and Watson throwing the ball. Jury's still out on most of this. But again, the only truly damaging miscalculation was the Darnold option. Move that contract with this deal and we may be ok.

Negotiations are always a two-way street. Houston runs the risk of getting nothing but a 35m cap hit for a guy they will not play. Houston wants those picks + burns just as bad as Tepper wants Watson. Tepper is a businessman. He knows a fair deal when he sees it. And he will walk away before he is trade-raped. Everyone just assumes the Panthers are just a bunch of dummies, but I don't think that is the case. I believe they are looking 2-3 moves out and will make sure we have something left over to use to build. The only really stupid thing they have done is pick up Darnold's 5th year option. Trading for Darnold was a calculated risk and not that costly. Extending him was a boo boo.

I hate the idea of Watson being the face of the franchise for obvious reasons. But if we gotta do this, Darnold better be going out with those 3 firsts. If Burns has to go, so be it - but we need to get something back - like a 2nd or 3rd. If we dump Darnold's 18m and re-cast Watsons 35m base salary to some sort of bonus, we may be looking at 30m in cap in addition to the 30m or so we already have. We can then eat CMC's hit in a trade to buffalo for some additional draft capital. If we play our cards right, we could walk away with Watson, a second, a third, and 40m in cap. We can build something with that.

my prediction. 3 firsts, 2 seconds, DJ and Darnold for Watson and a 3rd. they have to dump darnold to free salary to cover the cost of trading CMC to buffalo for 2 2nds. they will then free salary by converting Watson salary to bonus, freeing 20m sign a solid fa guard. Move Christensen to LT. Draft a lb in the 2nd. A DE in the 3rd. A guard in the 4th. WR in 5th.

I’d rather fix the line this year, then take my chances with the QBs coming out next year. Grow organically.

I think if we really did offer 3 1sts, 2 2nds and a starter on the defense, Houston would have already grabbed it. They can't possibly think they can get more. My guess is the real offer is the 6th, next year's first and second, and Darnold. The panthers are not as stupid as many folks believe. But they will roll the dice on occasion. Everyone points to Darnold as a dumb move. Trading for him was certainly a risk, but a calculated risk. He's had his moments in the league. Panthers thought they could get something out of him and keep the 8th pick. The move may have looked a lot better had Horn stayed healthy. Who knows, maybe the Panthers win the Eagles or Minn game with better corner play. If Horn plays the whole year, the season may have turned out very differently. We would still have this year's third rounder as well. Horn getting hurt really made the trade look much dumber.

This is my guy. Trade back and get this guy.

No gaslighting. No one said anything about coaches. We're talking about free agent players. I think the key ingredients most of these 20-somethings are thinking about are money, opportunity to play, girls, friends/family/teammate relationships, fun things to do in town. A coach being around more than a year is not on the radar. And if the kid is good, he may think he can make a difference in how that coach's future plays out anyway.

You're in your mid twenties. You are offered millions of dollars to play a game you love in a fun city with thousands of beautiful southern women running around. You are about 3 hours from the beach. Taxes are reasonable. The weather is nice 10 months out of the year. The facilities are nice. His teammates are important. Does he already know guys on the team? Anyone he played with in HS or college? Maybe he's from NC. Maybe he played for a NC or SC school. Maybe he has family here. If he's got some pride - maybe he sees this as a challenge. He wants to make a difference. The coach may not be around past next year, but the next guy could be better. He's had multiple coaches in HS, college, NFL. What's one more? The possibility the coach is a lame duck is probably 10th on his consideration list. That argument is a complete joke. The only people that will not consider us are the ring-chasers. Hopefully we're not interested in those guys anyway.

there's not enough pie in the world for this response.

I will not enter the fray about the moral aspects of trading for Watson until we know more on Friday. This is for those that say it is too costly. I don't know if it is a reasonable offer - but here goes. Darnold + DJ + 3 1sts + 2nds for Watson. Houston gets a lot of draft capital for building and can absorb DJ/Darnold with the savings from trading Watson. Moving Darnold and DJ in a trade frees 29m. Watson will cost 35m, but we can convert that salary to bonus and drop the cap hit to 10m or so in 2022. Next we flip CMC to Buffalo (or similar) for a 2nd and a 2023 second. This will cost 18m dead. We come out with Watson, 50m in cap, and picks 2,4,5,5,6,7 in 2022. In 2023 we'll have a 2 (from buff), 3,4,5,6,7 plus comp picks for Reddick, Gilmore, etc. (maybe an extra 4 and 5). In 2024, we won't have a first or second, but could be decent by then with good investments. Putting aside the moral aspect, will we have enough cap and capital to build around Watson? (and for those who's only contribution will be "panthers will probably just draft poorly and overpay the wrong people", consider not saying these things this time. we know who you are and we know how you feel)

I for one appreciate the effort. It's what I've been saying since the news came out. But changing the huddle hive-mind from "Panthers dumb, contract dumb" to something more enlightened will be tough.

my preference. trade back with philly: 6 for 16, 51, 83. Greene (G) or Penning (T) at 16. Strong at 51. Tyler Smith (T) at 83.

I was ripped too. Some folks told me we'll have to give up a pick just to get someone to take him.

Only way they trade DJ is if they can't get a new deal done. He may be looking for something like 5 years 100m and we offer 3 yrs 40m. I'd rather trade him for a second and change, than have him walk next year for a comp 3rd not available intil 2024.

Totally expected. converted base salary to bonus, which spreads the hit out. Shaq is probably next, then an extension for DJ. They may get another 10m from these. Hopefully this is for a solid FA G and not for a vet QB. If Christensen is ready to start at LT, we pick up a good G in FA, then trade back in the first and draft another G, our line should be vastly improved with some decent coaching. Use the trade-back for a developmental QB in the second and we're truly building for the future.

No one can possibly know exactly what the production will be. They don't pay someone for past production - especially if it does not line up with what they think the future production will be. They think he can be a weapon and are paying for that belief. He showed potential when given the opportunity. But football is a tough life played by large people. He could put up 50-500 or he could get hurt in training camp and miss 3 years. That's why you don't fully guarantee all the money - so you can cut bait if things do not work out as you thought. In this case, if they are wrong - they can save 5m of the 16.5 and move on. In hindsight, salary often is out of balance with production. If you have a way of traveling to the future and find out if their belief is wrong, let us know. Otherwise you can wait it out like the rest of us.