Mr. Scot

I've seen speculation that they'll rework his contract to split the cap hit evenly across both seasons. It'd work out to about 11.5 million per year. Significantly lower than Bridgewater...

Gil Brandt listed his "best value" picks. Two of them are Panthers. On the flipside...

I feel pretty comfortable saying that Christensen will get run over by Brian Burns, several times. We're talking about a rookie facing an establish, dominant NFL player. Of course that's going to happen. You know who else that happened to some years back though? A kid named Jordan Gross when he was facing a fellow named Julius Peppers. Gross turned out okay.

Possible, but not guaranteed. Don't know that we'll ever find out. When Albert Breer and Peter King made their final mock drafts, both largely attributed their prediction of Fields on the logic that Tepper wanted him. I doubt either of them believed that Tepper would allow the staff to not take who he most wanted. But he did. And honestly, regardless of how you feel about Fields, we should all be happy about that.

Verge and other sources stated that there were definitely people in the building who believed they should take Fields. Those people just didn't include Matt Rhule and Scott Fitterer.

Their new GM has certainly seen an awful lot of Rodgers as an opponent over the years. Interest would absolutely make sense from there.

Tepper's not an evaluator so who he wants and why don't concern me much. That's one of the reasons I was happy to hear Matt Rhule say that Tepper "leaves the football stuff" to he and Fitterer (as he should).

I also agree with the premise that, even if the current quarterback doesn't work out, we're doing a nice job building around that position.

I remember him being a guy a lot of us wanted the year he was drafted.

Related...

We're definitely gonna see.

Yeah, that sucks. Unique situation and all, but damn.

Someone (Florio maybe) suggested that the Seahawks and the Packers swap disgruntled quarterbacks, Rodgers for Wilson. I don't really think that's gonna happen, but I think that's got a way better chance of happening than Rodgers coming to the Panthers.

No way in hell I'd give up that kind of package, especially not for a quarterback that age.

And yes, I'm conscious of the fact that the team I'm calling a mess has an infinitely better record than us over a very long period of time. We'd certainly be a lot better off if we'd been to as many conference championships as they have in the last decade. I guess it comes down to what your expectations are. There does come a time when almost winning it all multiple times just isn't enough. The hard part is figuring out when you've come to that point.

Hence why I say "Green Bay is a mess" rather than just "Rodgers is a dick". Granted, he is a dick. He's also a dick with some legitimate complaints. Picking out who's the good guy and who's the villain in this story is... complicated.

Someone (I forget who, might have been Florio) suggested that Green Bay and Seattle swap Rodgers and Wilson. I don't really see that happening but damn, wouldn't that be interesting?

They've absolutely done some dumb sh-t, with the Jordan Love pick probably being the worst move in recent memory. That said, it's one thing to complain. Covertly doing things to sabotage your team is a dick move.

I guess it depends on whether you'd rather fall just short of the Super Bowl or not even make the playoffs. Some people really hate getting close only to miss out. Probably safe to say Aaron Rodgers is one of those people.

Nope. No one here is crying about it, including me. I'm not so sure that statement would have been true on draft day though. Each time we traded down, multiple hissy fits were thrown.

...is a mess. Heaven knows Rodgers has all the talent in the world, but good grief what an entitled, narcissistic douchebag he's become.

I can agree with that. Mind you, I'd do so while keeping it in the back of my mind that they're probably trying to screw me too.

I don't think anybody would call Christensen "elite". Hell, from what I've read, a lot of analysts wouldn't call anybody other than Sewell "elite" Thing is though, we didn't pass on Sewell. He just didn't make it to our pick. You can say we could have traded up, but I think it's unlikely we were gonna do that for anybody. So now that it's over, I can sit here and scream and cry and whine and b-tch and talk down everybody in the Panthers organization, or I can just say "oh well" and hope for the best. I prefer Option B.

To tell the truth, I'd say the most correct answer is by being good at personnel evaluation. Sometimes that's pro personnel via free agency or trade. Other times, it's college prospects via draft evaluation. Bottom Line: If you don't know what you're doing, the method doesn't really matter.

Again, it's not that smokescreens don't happen. It's just that fans see them everywhere, including a lot of places where they're not. And technically, we drafted a left tackle. We just didn't get the guy I really wanted, or do it in the round I would have preferred. C'est la vie. I'll still hope for the best like I always do. And yes, everyone has a right to their opinion, just like everyone else has a right to an opinion about those opinions. For example, "Darnold might not be good"? Valid. "We've mortgaged the future for Darnold" though? Goofy.