AU-panther

Good and bad are relative terms, so unless you are watching every game of every team your "eye test" is incomplete. All you are doing is comparing them to an artificial standard that is being applied in a vacuum. Answer this, If a team is one of the top 10 teams in the league vs the run are they really that bad???? At the very least you have to admit they aren't one of the worst like some would have you believe.

I don't remember saying we had a good run defense. My point is that relative to the rest of the league we were not as bad as some around here would have you believe. Compared to the rest of the league where do you think our run defense ranks?

You just started an entire thread based on stats posted by Ellis. That doesn't seem to fit the narrative that we have one of the worst run defenses in the league like some around here would claim.

I'm curious to what our defensive rank vs the run was in total last year?

What are everyone's expectations for the defense this year? Notable players we lost: Reddick, Gilmore, Jones? Player gained: Horn, Woods, Henderson (maybe) here are some some random stats from last year: 2021 NFL Opposition & Defensive Statistics | Pro-Football-Reference.com We were 2nd in yards allowed. (Most reasonable fans don't think we were a top 2 defense) Also, yards per game can be misleading because you can play really slow on offense which reduces the number of possessions for the opposition, but .... We were 3rd in yards per play. That stat surprised me a good bit. We were 21st in points allowed. At the end of the day points are the only thing that matter, which would put us a little below average, but not in the bottom 10 which some would have you believe. We were 27th in turnovers. Turnovers can be a bit of an unstable metric. The fact we were kind of in the middle 1/3 on points allowed but that bad with turnovers actually makes the defense look better. We were 32nd in starting field position for the defense. Our offense definitely made things hard on our defense. We were 15th in points per drive. Points per drive is sometimes a better measure than points per game because it takes offensive tempo out of the equation. Rush Defense A lot of talk about how bad our run defense was. We were 18th in rush allowed for the season. A bit surprising based on the narrative around here. Maybe teams ran less on us but had bigger runs?? But... We were 8th in yards per attempt. Teams actually didn't have much success running against us on a per rush attempt bases. They just decided to run more often on us. This can often be a product of your offense. If you are always behind in games other teams run more to kill clock. I don't expect us to be an "elite" defense, but with some better luck in the turnover department and better play by the offense this defense could easily be in the top half, maybe top 10 of the league.

Tackle totals by themselves aren't really that great of a stat, even in regards to run defense. The same year he led the team in tackles, Boston was 3rd, does that mean Boston is great against the run? What if he made the tackle a yard later than an average player would do? that's bad, yard sooner? that's good. If you really want to see how stupid this LB vs S argument is go look at his snap counts by position the past two years.

2 freak plays that might never happen again in his career regardless of his position. This is the difference between fans and coaches. Fans judge players based off of a few splash plays(good and bad), coaches watch every snap. Go watch game film and focus on him for every play. Your opinion of where he should be playing might change.

Based on what?

Why not?

He can't possibly be a bust, people assured me by not trading down and staying put you were guaranteed one of the elite talents that were a sure thing. All kidding aside, just by getting on the field his first-year fans automatically think he is playing great, goes for most rookies. Second year they play about the same and fans think they have regressed. Honestly, he probably wasn't as good as most people think his first year, and not as bad as people think his second year. Based on his draft position I'm sure most were hoping for me, this year should tell everyone a lot. It's not crazy for players to improve from year 2-3.

So other teams scores 7 points, we score 10, defense allows another TD and you lose 14-10 but it's the defenses fault???? I'm not saying our defense was great but the the above stat by itself is very incomplete. Also you keep on trying to argue with all the people claiming the defense was great and those refencing the yards allowed per game but I really don't remember that many people saying that. I agree that a few times some of the announcers referenced that stat but most reasonable people know that yards allowed alone doesn't tell the full picture. I doubt that many people here really think that we are the #2 defense in the league. If you look at points allowed we were 20th, if you look at points scored we were 29th. Even if you look at some of the advanced metrics that takes in account your opponents. NFL Football Stats - NFL Team Points per Game | TeamRankings.com Neither unit was stellar but by most reasonable stats our defense fell somewhere in the middle third (often towards the end of the middle third) and our offense was bottom third.

With the way these QB contracts are going up it just further increasees the value of drafting a QB. Any team that can find a top-10 QB in the draft has a 4-6 year window where they basically have an extra $30m to spend on the rest of the team per year.

Careful using facts around here.......

and your point is? OT could have been their biggest need but that doesn't change the fact that they had higher grades on other players. Need doesn't factor into a players grade, it factors in when you pick them. That is two different things. Is that board a list of the order in which they would have drafted players or the ranking of the players grades.

Second round grade but 15th on their list. He didn't go far from where they had him ranked. Teams usually don't have 32 players with 1st round grades. They had him 9th and he went 6th, not really that big of a difference. Also, regardless of what people say need factors in. From a pure grade perspective we might have had some of the same guys higher than Ickey but OT we a bigger need.

I would love to see Cam end up in a good situation for himself but the fact is teams really aren't beating his door down. If he only wants to be part of a winning team he might greatly increase his chances of not being on a roster this year.

"building around a rookie being the right way to do it" is a bit of a matter of fact statement that almost any GM is going to make. Its like a coach saying he likes to draft O-lineman that are tough...really? Fans read too much into coach/GM speak. If Fitt is interested in Jimmy G or Baker is going to run around stating that we have a great desire to sign a vet QB???? No, he is going to say the opposite. At this point who knows, I could see us going into the season with Sam and Matt or I could still see us trading for someone like Jimmy G and shipping Sam off and letting Matt be the backup. Also all this talk about who has final say and who made what decision is kind of pointless. Unless any of us were in the room I doubt any of us really know. For all we know Fitt could have been the one that pushed the hardest for Sam last year? Maybe he convinced Rhule that Sam plus Horn helped the team more than just a QB at 8. Maybe that is why Rhule is so quick to discard Sam. Maybe both Rhule and Fitt wanted to push hard for a vet, maybe Tepper said "no more", after the wasted resources on Sam and Teddy. The fact is most people around here are going to push whatever narrative they want.

If you have a chance to get one of the better coaches in the history of the game you really don't care about connections. The thing that might make Fitterer the most nervous though is Sean might get final say, I'm guessing if he was to ever sign with another team he would have a good bit of leverage. Either way, its seems like a long shot.

Two different LBs asked to do different things in different defenses. Both all-time greats. If anything, Urlacher and Luke are probably more similar in what they were asked to do.

Not sure if you can really make that assumption. Corral really wasn’t asked to process in college, large part of the reason he fell in the draft. That doesn’t mean he can’t, just means he hasn’t.

sounds like excuse making for him. Fact is from clean pockets he has been one of the worst QBs in the league over his career. Also cherry picking makes it sound like that is a small sample size and in reality its not. His no pressure plays are probably greater than his pressure plays.

because his line didn't play bad every snap. You can go back and look at the plays when he did have protection.

There is actually history that shows us how he plays from a clean pocket. Panthers QB Sam Darnold's clean pocket and red zone numbers are troubling (msn.com) He is one of the worst in the league. Maybe this year will be different but this idea of using it as an excuse for him is just wrong based on past history.

Thank you People are treating this like Madden and just looking at throw power and run speed. Both players have enough physical tools to play QB in the NFL. If you want to break down the physical differences its probably something like: Sam has the better height and wight. Matt is the better runner. Sam probably has the stronger arm. Matt the quicker release. Matt is probably the more accurate overall. At the end of the day though both guys have enough tools to play QB in the NFL Biggest issue with Correll is the system he came from. Sam did pro things in college, Matt not so much. Things like looking off safeties and going through progressions. Fans need to be patient with Matt, just like everyone was saying Willis would take longer to develop than Pickett, Matt is probably closer to Willis in the regard.

There was talk that he liked Fields more than the coaches. You are making it sound like Tepper specifically said to take Sam instead of Fields because he was only interested in winning as soon as possible. Things don't' usually work that way. Owners set direction. Tepper wants to build a winning team, that is what everyone wants. Staff decides Sam + keeping pick 8 helps the team more, both in the short term and long term than picking a QB a pick 6. That isn't necessarily an impatient move, it might be a wrong move, but that doesn't mean its an impatient move. It means your football people choose wrong.