Mr. Scot

How do you square that with the report that they were offered a first rounder by somebody else and turned it down?

I'm not convinced the "Watson at any price" thing was ever really true, especially not after Fitterer balking at what the Dolphins wanted for number three. I don't doubt that we were interested. I do question whether we'd have given up as much as people think.

Months ago when Fitterer was hired. Rhule himself acknowledged it, but said he wasn't going to act like a dictator.

The Jets wanted to do all of their draft prospect evaluations before deciding whether to trade Darnold or not. We patiently gave them time to do it while also exploring other options and deciding that none of them were worth it. Then ended up actually finalizing the terms of the trade at Justin Fields pro day. How you take that as proof that they weren't really that interested in him is beyond me. There's no logic to that at all.

Riiiiight Good luck with that. You could turn out to be right, but personally I'm more interested in talking football than trying to be Miss Cleo.

See above.

That's your logic? You think if you really want a guy you'd just talk about it once and then give up? Seriously? You do remember that the Jets weren't initially willing to trade him, right? Yet we kept talking to them.

Yeah. Verge's statements that were not likely to take a quarterback at #8. But even with what Verge says, I'm acknowledging that none of us really know what the Panthers are going to do. You're talking as if you have complete inside knowledge.

And again here, you have no source on that other than your own opinion. You don't really know what the Panthers think of him. None of us do.

Am I making predictions or am I talking about what I think we should do? Think about that for a minute. Guys here are making a lot of bold statements as if they know what the front office is thinking. They don't.

It has nothing to do with what we traded. If they really believe Darnold has that potential, they should build around him. If they genuinely don't, then whatever.

So you're firmly predicting that not only are they going to draft another quarterback, but they're also not going to pick up his fifth year option? Again, do you have any source other than your own opinion on this?

Do you have any actual evidence that the front office has such a low opinion of Darnold (other than that it's your opinion which doesn't mean anything)? Again, public statements made during draft season don't necessarily mean squat. And Verge, who actually does have some level of inside insight, doesn't believe we'll take a quarterback at 8.

And here's why you're getting it completely wrong... I'm not convinced. I have no idea whether Darnold is going to be good, great or awful. And despite your strong statements, neither do you. As far as the draft, the same is true about Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Trey Lance or any other quarterback prospect you want to throw in there. None of us knows. What I do believe is that since we traded for Darnold, we need to do the best possible job of supporting him and building a team around him. Otherwise, we're no better than the Jets. You're talking players. I'm talking process. That's the part you fail to understand.

There's a big difference between knowing how a player is going to play in your system vs how they played somewhere else. If you question that, take a look at our free agent signings.

You can't always be brutally honest if you're an NFL head coach or GM.

And if he turns out to be a franchise quarterback, that's instantly going to become the best trade this franchise ever made.

See above.

That's the thing. Do we actually know for sure whether or not we have a franchise quarterback? With all due respect to our resident armchair GMs, we don't know that. Even if you take a guy in the draft, you do so because you believe he could be one, but even then you don't know. A lot of people in favor of drafting another QB high say so based on their belief that they already know Darnold isn't going to be good. I don't buy for a minute that the team believes that or would have traded for him if that were true.

Again, you think we could have traded for a guy that we don't believe in. I really have a hard time buying that idea.

The idea of a mock draft is it's supposed to be predicated on what teams think about certain players, not what the guy doing the mock thinks. That, to me, is where Simms fails.

If we hadn't already traded for a starter, I'd be completely on board with him. Of course, if that were the situation, he probably wouldn't fall to us because that's just how things go in Pantherland

It's very possible they take one. It's also very possible they don't.

No argument. I wouldn't want Jones either, but truthfully I'm not so much looking at particular players as I am particular positions. I think drafting a quarterback high in our situation is dumb, but that doesn't mean I'd be on board with drafting a linebacker or a runningback (i.e. the Marty Method).

If I thought they made a decision on a position as important as quarterback because "well, we've gotta do something", I'd completely lose faith in their decision making. And Lord knows teams never say things they don't really mean during draft season. I'll grant that the smokescreen thing is overrated, but it definitely isn't non-existent.