AU-panther

There is a very good chance that our 6th receiver won't be active on game days so special teams ability is kinda irrelevant. A lot of last year we only had 4 receivers active on game day. I don't see us having more then 5 this year. Personally I don't see us keeping Cotchery to fill that role. If he makes the team I expect him to receive substantial snaps, especially early in the season. As the season goes on his role might diminish as the young guys develop. I would expect that 6th spot to be used on a younger, cheaper receiver that you might not want to expose to other teams.

If our biggest weakness on the team is our 4/5 receiver we are in pretty good shape. When you factor in Olsen our 4/5 receivers will actually be 5/6 in team catches. If we actually throw to our backs some they could be even lower. Whoever gets those last roster spots will probably be lucky to have 30 receptions on the year. If we assume that KB, Funchess, and Brown become our starting 3 that might only leave 2 roster spots active on game day. Funchess might not start the season as a starter, since he is a rookie, but I think most of us expect or hope that is the case by later in the season. I would think Ginn has a very good chance of making the team because of PR ability, so that leaves 1 game day roster spot. With the last spot, who would you activate on game day? Cotchery, Hill, Bersin, or one of the other young guys. Hill might give you potential but Cotchery or Bersin might give you dependability. Whoever wins this spot might see the majority of their limited action in 3 or 4 receiver sets on 3rd down. Cotchery might start the season as the #2 and transition into this role later in the season. Or the team might decide to go with Bersin or Hill from the start and save some cap space. Either way there is a lot of time left to evaluate players before the final 53 is decided. Someone like Byrd or Boykin might show out in the preseason games.

I hated stats in college so I look at this differently then some have explained it. Feel free to correct if I'm wrong. Based on the odds presented by ESPN I can expect 91 points if I try 100 PATs. If I try 100 2 point conversions I can expect 94 points. 3 extra points over the course of 100 TDs doesn't seem like enough incentive to sway most coaches. I'm not saying they shouldn't, just seems like most coaches like the safe play. Less likely to be second guessed that way. If a team could get to around 65% success rate on 2pt conversion that would increase the potential gain to around 39 points. If we assume 3 TDs a game it would take roughly 33 games to realize this extra 39 points. Here again I don't expect many teams to make the 2 pt conversion their default choice.

Accounting? No I just take the time to Google. I'm sure there are aspects to it that I don't understand, but the basics really aren't that hard if you find a good source to learn from.

We rolled over roughly $5 million dollars from last year. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/cap/ If we had $9 million of unused cap we would have had $9 million rollover. The reason we had $5 million in rollover is because we restructured CJ's contract during the season and freed up about $5 million in cap. We actually used up most of our excess cap during the season. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/charles-johnson/ Offseason cap numbers that you usually see for teams are based off of the top 51 rule. During the season you have to add in players 52 and 53, the practice squad, and IR. This is the reason that most teams go into the season with a some extra cap space. For example we have around $7 million in cap space right now according to the top 51 contracts. Two more roster spots plus the practice squad will count for around $2 million. That leaves us around $5 million, which you can easily use a chunk of that on IR during the season. We should get back some cap space after June 1st because of DWill($2m), but I don't see DG spending it just to spend. With that being said, we should have enough of a cushion to leave ourselves the option of going after a player if someone was to become available during preseason cuts. Most likely though it will be used to extend some of our own players over the course of the next few years.

I have my doubts that he makes the 53 but the punt return hate is a bit misdirected. I didn't see anyone else stepping up to the plate to do it better?

I'll be honest, after Humphries came off the board I was hoping we were trading down to the top of the 2nd. If we could have picked up a third we could use that pick to move up our original 2nd. At this point we would have had two picks at the beginning of the second, which could have possible landed the two players we ended up with. Fortunately these type of scenarios tend to work pretty well from my couch, for the front office maybe not so much. For all we know we tried to trade back and didn't find a taker. Also anytime you start to trade back you run the risk of not getting the player you really want.

For some? Yes And if they do look it up, they have to do math...

This, and the included link, should be required reading for everyone. Even if you felt like a better player was available this will at least help you understand why the pick was made. This wasn't just a BPA pick, there is more "need" to this pick then most realize. Like others have said you should start a thread with this.

If the first round talent drops off like some have suggested there might be a lot of teams looking to trade back. You can want to trade back all you want but if you can't find a partner it doesn't matter. If anything it might be cheaper to trade up this year then other years.

We seem to have a few armchair GMs around here, especially when it concerns wide receivers in this year's draft class. Here is a list of receivers that seem to elicit varying opinions. What round do you think they will be drafted in? Not when you would draft them, but where you expect them to actually go. Not really looking for people to argue over everyone's choices but more of an "on the record list" that we can look back on after the draft. I've included my very uneducated guesses. Breshard Perriman - Late 1st Jaelen Strong - Early 2nd Devin Smith - Late 1st Nelson Agholor - Middle 2nd Phillip Dorsett - Middle 2nd Dorial Green-Beckham - Late 2nd Sammie Coates - Late 2nd Justin Hardy - 3rd Chris Conley - 3rd Try to be a little specific in the first two rounds. (early, middle, late)

Who do you consider as the 1st round receivers that will be gone by the time we pick? Sent from my iPhone using CarolinaHuddle

How much game tape does the casual fan really watch on these college prospects? 40 times, along with height and weight, is pretty much all they have to go on to act like they know what they are talking about.

How many drops did he actually have? How does that compare to KB or some of the FAs out there such as Jennings or Crabtree?

What fun is that? If you don't think that our "#2" receiver is our biggest problem what would you consider our biggest issue offensively.

The visit list might give you an idea of what positions we are trying to focus on but maybe not the round. He seems to be looking at certain positions throughout the draft. This would fall in line with value based drafting (trying not to call it BPA so we don't get that started). For example we met with Parker, who probably won't be there at 25, but of the top 3 receivers he would be the most likely to fall. But we have also met with receivers that would be there in later rounds such as Montgomery or Lewis. Would be interesting to take that list and assign draft grades to each player. Some patterns might appear.

I would probably take Peat just because tackles seem so hard to find. To be honest though my knowledge of both is limited to a few highlight videos. Hopefully our coaches, scouting department, and GM will have a better evaluation of both since they have probably actually watched tape of every snap they took in college, talked to their former coaches and possible even interviewed the players.

It is easy for a lot of fans to point at certain players to explain deficiencies with their particular team. It use to be LaFell, now it's Cotchery. Here are the yardage totals for the third leading receiving options for the 6 NFC playoff teams according to espn.com. 580 - Cotchery 621 446 322 367 696 I'm not saying we shouldn't look for upgrades. I will take an upgrade at any position, but these numbers might illustrate what Magnus is referring to as opportunity cost.

I would be renting, not buying, if I was some of these guys. Special teams contributions, future potential (age), and practice squad eligibility might all factor into some of the final decisions.

I would expect us to keep 5-6 receivers on the 53 man roster. Of those on the roster right now I feel like KB and Ginn are pretty much guarenteed roster spots. That leaves the following receivers to compete for the last 3-4 roster spots: Corey Brown Bersin Cotchery Boykin Hill Presley Mike Brown Lucas Potential draft pick Potential free agent (Jennings)

So all year people claimed that "anyone" would be better than what we have, but when we sign "anyone" they complain. For those that aren't happy with this or the Oher signing who would you have signed? I didn't really notice many quality tackles hit the open market. Sent from my iPhone using CarolinaHuddle

If we are going to use a 1,000 yards as a benchmark for a quality player, Cam had two 1,000 yard receivers and Tannehill had none.

Between the franchise tag and increased risk of injury waiting to become a free agent in the NFL is a lot riskier then the NBA.

So you don't think Cam's side has thrown out a number at all? I would guess they have, it just happens to be crazy high. Maybe they are waiting for Luck and Wilson to provide leverage to get that number. But I could be wrong. Maybe Cam is determined to be the highest paid player in the league. What if we offered 6yrs/150m? Would they still wait for Luck and Wilson?

I have actually said he needed more help in the past. My point is with some posters there will never be enough "help". All I heard in 2013 was that Lafell was the problem. I guess Brady didn't get that memo. Our offense was about as bad in 2013 before the great WR purge and Bell/Chandler experiment. I'm not saying it is all Cam's fault but I have my doubts that fixing our offense is as easy as signing some "2" receiver. I think it is a combination of QB play, surrounding talent, and coaching.