Mr. Scot

Not John McClain though. The template he laid out said otherwise, and McClain is one of the best Texan sources you can find.

We've heard from our resident insider that a big part of that push came from Marty Hurney though. With Marty gone and Fitterer on board, I'm not sure we can still say that.

I agree about Tepper. The staff, not so much, especially given that we just got a new GM who's way more qualified than our last one was. What I really hope to see is Tepper trusting his staff and not being another Jerry Jones.

Understand. And I'd love for our GM to be able to trade lesser value for greater value as well. We all would. I'm just not so sure it's realistic.

I'd agree. Gotta remember another team isn't going to look at our players the same way Panthers fans would. They'll have a much more critical eye.

Technically Rivera has a better W-L record, but what's your argument?

I think if I were putting this scenario together, I probably would have put Smith with Delhomme. They had a lot more and longer of a connection than Smith and Newton did. Flipping Smith and Moose makes it a more interesting question to me.

That's fair.

It's a hypothetical mix of good players.

No disrespect to Gross-Matos, but if you're coming from the perspective of trading away a player like Deshaun Watson (while needing to replace a franchise legend like JJ Watt) and I offer you a rookie rather than a guy like Brian Burns in return, are you taking my offer seriously?

It happens. Figured you'd want to know, though.

Coaching questions on this give me pause. John Fox would have absolutely no idea what to do with Cam Newton and would use an OC that wouldn't either. That likely blunts Newton's impact. On the flipside, while Norv Turner could probably work well with Delhomme, Jake wouldn't have the ability to save a game the way Rivera frequently needed Cam to.

To be fair, he did sign off on Newton. It's also true that he put a lot of faith in John Fox, who said that he didn't believe in franchise QBs.

Saw this retweeted by our buddy Ellis... Which combo do you choose?

I'd agree. Don't expect them to change their ways though.

To be fair, they built around Alex Smith first, likely with the understanding that Smith was not a franchise QB. Neither is Cal McNair, and that's a big part of the problem. Any scenario depending on the idea that Cal McNair will suddenly wise up has some risk.

He might be. Some folks think Nick Caserio will be taking a page out of the Bill Belichick playbook, though.

Isn't that how Kansas City did it, though?

What if it's Brian Burns and Jeremy Chinn? Or Burns and Donte Jackson? The Texans are believed to want defensive starters in any potential trade.

LaCanfora is like Brett Favre as a passer. He can be perfectly accurate, or he can be wildly off the mark. And to be fair, we have heard these things before from Verge and others. The vast majority of this article is just LaCanfora finding different ways to say that David Tepper has big balls and wants a franchise quarterback. Also have to admit the part where he says future first round picks are "just burning a hole in his pocket" is another one that made me cringe.

Yeah, pretty much Joking aside, I'll be one of the first to acknowledge the Texans are stupid but even I don't think they're that stupid. Could easily see them asking for Burns and Chinn, or at the very least Burns and Jackson. And while I'm not the biggest Donte Jackson fan, that still makes me wince.

Less relevant to the current situation, but near the end of the article LaCanfora seems to hint that Tepper was more than ready to move on from Cam Newton in part because he wasn't "his guy'.

John McClain believed the asking price would include two defensive starters. I know some folks are thinking the Texans would settle for somebody like Shaq Thompson but that doesn't really sound logical to me.

Nah, I think it's possible. Though gun to my head, I don't think he'll be traded. And even this article admits there are people with better resources to do the trade than us. As to LaCanfora, he's very hit or miss. He was pretty spot on during the Cam Newton saga but was way off more recently in some of his reporting on the GM search. This is probably one of those cases where his reliability is judged by whether he's saying what you want to hear. Even David Newton becomes reliable under those circumstances.

I did, and wasn't a fan of certain parts, like this one... I suspect the Panthers will be willing to get quite creative (including emerging pass rushing force Brian Burns in any package may be even more attractive than McCaffrey)