Martin

Any opinions on Kenny Pickett? He’s really turned it on this year. Four year starter.

I agree, the fact that he didn’t nail 100% of his draft picks and free agent signings, and he didn’t find a franchise QB just laying around, and he didn’t fix the defense, offense and special teams in the 8 months he’s been here. What a failure, right?

I’m not sure this class is as bad as people think. Outside of Trevor last year, you had a bunch of close to one year starters with a lot of arm strength (excluding Mac) but a lot of question marks. This year we have a lot of multi year experienced starters that by January people will start to give the proper attention. If Strong checks out injury wise I’d put him behind only Trevor in last years draft, you also got Howell, Corral etc.

No way. He’s accused of +20 counts of sexual assault. What is wrong with you? Unless this is all some weird conspiracy and he his totally innocent (spoiler alert, it is not), I wouldn’t go near him.

The Joe Brady / Sam Darnold combo happened. I was hopeful, but this is brutal.

I missed the game, went apple picking with the family and thought I recorded the game. Apparently I did not. Sounds like it was for the better... I read Michael Jordan played LG. Did Daley get hurt or finally benched? Also, how did Jordan look? Ok ish?

I didn’t take it that way, but I’ve only read the quote and haven’t watched it. But I’m all in for a glass half full viewpoint, so I’m with you!

I thought the combo of Miller and Moton on the right side was good last year. I don’t think they saw this coming from Miller. They gambled a bit with the LG spot. My guess was they prioritized best available in the draft with a plan to really address the O-line in 2022. Scheming around one guard is possible, but not around both. To sum up, the brutal performance from Miller has had a serious domino effect on the whole line and I really hope Brown gets a turn soon.

The biggest issue I see with Sam is the inability to connect on the deep ball. A lot of other stuff have been discussed in other threads. Super hard with the interior pressure in the last game, totally get it, but the lack of that threat allows the opponent corners to sit on a lot of routes. I’m still trying to stay optimistic about Sam, but until he connects on a couple of deep throws, the opposing defense will have a much easier time shutting down the short to intermediate stuff. Did he always struggle with the deep ball? I know he has the arm for it.

I didn’t realize he was a potential LT, thought he was a stud guard. Interesting.

I guess LA Rams is done for the year, everyone can just use the Cardinals blueprint, the Packers season is over, just use the Saints blueprint…

I’ve heard this “…they laid out the blueprint…” a bit. Who else has the combination of Dallas O-line, RBs etc? Also, do you really think we will make no adjustments at all moving forward? We’ve only played 4 games, a lot will change and if we meet Dallas again in the playoffs we will be ready.

Looking at guards and centers for the draft. One name that comes up a lot is Ikem. Any State fans with insights on him?

I feel pretty good about it. Eagles whole O-line is down so our D should feast. I’m worried about Hargreaves vs. our o-line, but we should win fairly comfortably. I expect a big bounce back game even with our injuries.

Anything other that Brady on one side and Moton on the other would be a big disappointment. I don’t really care which side. Would love to see Brown at G as well, but that might be too much to ask for.

The other thing about second half adjustments. This year we’ve had really good first half’s, so how many adjustments do you do? You have to be ready for the other team making adjustments though, but it is not as easy as making adjustments on things that didn’t work. But maybe I’m overthinking it.

One thing that had a huge impact was Burris missing. It looked like miss communication on at least two of their TDs. Burris is not super flashy, but he’s always where he needs to be. It felt like Chinn was trying to compensate for other safeties being in the wrong spot. That’s why they were wide open. But overall the game was lost due to their run game.

So you are finding joy in Darnild throwing 2 ints? What a sad person

I was looking at the player interviews at panthers.com and it was cool to see the common thread. Everyone said the same thing about missing Jaycee, Christian etc. This is not verbatim, but directional: ”The standard is the standard, doesn’t matter if someone is missing” ”Next man up” ”The process is the same, all about going 1-0 next game” There were no hints of excuses or lack of focus, they 100% trust in what they are doing. It also came across as very honest and authentic. It really is a different mentality and attitude that Rhule and his staff have brought and it bodes very well for the future of hopefully building a consistent winner.

He also said they did a lot of work on him last year. He just haven’t spoken to him since then. So the homework was done last year and he would have been our pick if Brown wasn’t there.

Hahaha, you are not wrong. There is so much childish bickering and arguing going on so I wanted to make clear that was not the purpose of my question. I was genuinely interested in his opinion.

Just curious, when you say Manziel but without the drama/personal issues, what do you mean? That was the whole deal with him. Not agreeing or disagreeing, just trying to follow your reasoning.

I agree, the above snapshot is awesome. Nowhere to go for Jamies.

Exactly, they want the backups to be versatile. So if Brown is a one position guy, that makes sense. Would I like to see what Brown can do? Yes. But the logic for the backups is sound

Thanks for posting, good read. I also think this puts to rest the dumb “Panthers don’t care about QBs” nonsense. They do if they find someone they like. They just didn’t love the QBs in the draft this year that were available. I’m going all in on blind optimism and Darnold at this time!