Mr. Scot

I liked Ioannidis, but I don't know that the Panthers want him back. Hell no to Bridgewater Peters? He's talented but he can be a head case.

And lemme just add that anyone who suggests any form of "Richardson Stadium" should be shot...then banned

How about Levine? Not originally from here so I'm not as up on what's locally famous. Belk is a Charlotte thing, isn't it?

Yeah, saw that. Don't remember when that was instituted but it sounds like a dumb idea.

To be clear, I have seen it posted by other people but no one that's an official news source. It's possible zkunkel pulled it because he found out the story was bogus, but I haven't seen a definite indication of anything like that yet.

Don't make me shoot you

Will Kunkel is reporting that Bank of America is not going to renew their stadium naming rights deal with the Panthers. Edit: Or at least he was. When I posted the link to his tweet, it disappeared

The Hopkins saga over? (and ending similarly to how the Jackson one did?)

He might. For my part, I do wish the NFL owners would actually invest in somebody that would be willing to call them on their bullsh-t. I also wish wings and pizza constituted a nutritious meal

No argument there. I just kinda didn't expect to see the Panthers social media posting a "f--k around and find out" meme

Hang on... Panthers social media actually posted this clip? Yeah it's edited, but still...

Albert Breer is a great Twitter follow. From what I've read, a lot of the information he gets during the process of things like this, he doesn't leak until the stories done. That's why NFL people feel like they can trust him. He's had pretty extensive behind the scenes stories on just about all of the major Panthers transactions over the last several years.

@Basbear Can't find anything official on it, but Rhule's guy Jeremy Scott still lists himself as the Panthers strength and conditioning coach online and is still retweeting Panthers content even as of April 20th. His link is @JScottStrength If you wanna check it out.

There's still nobody listed Now with that said, the special forces guy they hired isn't listed on the staff page either. Maybe they just haven't updated the website yet.

I've read stories on Jeff Ireland, Brandon Beane and others. Some of them were literally part of football as children.

Headed to the Island of Relevancy? (my wife hates those guys)

You forgot current member of Broncos ownership. And yes, she's been talked about for the job.

Making the call... At the end of the next week, on April 20 and 21, the Thursday and Friday before the draft, Fitterer and the personnel staff again met with the coaches. They didn’t spend a second on the top quarterbacks, going through every other position, because the GM didn’t want his decision to leak out. They started the meetings with the Day 3 quarterbacks, then went to the receivers and the linemen, never doubling back to work over the top signal-callers. The next Monday, Fitterer and Reich called the coaches in. And after that meeting, quietly, the GM and coach nailed down their decision. A small group that included the Teppers, Morgan, VP Adrian Wilson, Reich and Fitterer were in the know. No one else really was. Even though, really, by then, everyone did know.

The height question... By the final days, all those boxes were checked, for better or worse. On the latter, there was the one flaw in Young’s file—his height and weight, with the questions similar to the ones Fitterer and Morgan had once seen Russell Wilson face in their time as Seattle personnel men. From that experience, they knew one question to ask was how the shorter quarterback would see the middle of the field. Panthers analytics chief Taylor Rajack helped take care of that one, creating a heat map and coming up with statistics that showed Young was among college football’s most accurate quarterbacks in the short areas, over the first eight to 10 yards, over the middle, with a completion percentage to match. It showed that in the forest of linemen, and with all the traffic in the middle of the field, Young could create vision through movement and awareness, the same way Drew Brees once could. So with all that work complete, there was only one thing left to do.

Regarding the trade down option, it was indeed a real possibility but Young convinced them not to consider it... By then, the idea Fitterer had once floated—that he’d be willing to move off the first pick and go back down a spot if there were multiple quarterbacks he liked—had melted away. When Fitterer first raised the idea, it was with the insistence that it’d take a lot for him to consider moving off the first pick. The Panthers had actually gone through an exercise to prepare for what they’d do if a Godfather offer came while they were on the clock. Turned out, the price would’ve been more than just a 2024 first-round pick. But instead of someone else convincing the GM it might be worth looking at his options, Young’s steadiness in holding his lead firmly planted the Panthers’ feet in the ground at No. 1. After the 30 visit, it was essentially over. Let’s take the guy we have conviction on, Fitterer said in one draft meeting.

Testing Young's intelligence and processing... The quarterback met with the team’s sports science people and player engagement people, then Fitterer and Morgan together in the GM’s office before heading into a meeting room to sit down with Reich, Brown, Caldwell, McCown and young assistant Parks Frazier. The coaches started drawing concepts and plays on the board. It was easy to tell Young was in his element. “They start putting things on the board. And they’re teaching them different plays and different concepts, just to see how much he really knows,” Fitterer says. “And he’s totally grasping it and he’s soaking it up. He is as impressive as you would think in terms of learning and retaining—and he’s kind of unflappable, too. Even someone talking in his ear the whole time, trying to distract him, he can talk and write and kind of keep his focus.”

Don't thank me. Breer did the hard part

From Albert Breer... “[Tepper] is all about process,” Fitterer says. “He’s not about the evaluating. He’s not going to sit there and say, Hey, listen, I think this guy’s got a great arm. That’s not his world, and Dave’s smart enough to realize that. He doesn’t want to influence it that way. He just wants to make sure that we’re looking at it from every viewpoint and challenging ourselves, and that we have the data behind our decisions—that we’re not just looking at it from a scouting standpoint, that we have all the back-checks that we can use that are out there.

Tidbit from Albert Breer from the other thread... Young’s 30 visit was scheduled for April 11, and there’d be no dinner on the Monday night before. The quarterback was delayed flying into Charlotte, and scouting intern Caden McCloughan, son of former Washington and San Francisco GM Scot McCloughan, picked him at the airport between midnight and 1 a.m. McCloughan reported back to Fitterer that Young, upon arrival, was all smiles—thankful and respectful, and looking forward to the next day. If you don't remember the name, Scot McCloughan was a scouting guy with the Seahawks who was said to have a big part in the phenomenal draft that helped build the fabled Legion of Boom. He would later end up as GM of the then Redskins and proceed to drink himself out of the job. McCloughan was said to have a scary good ability for scouting talent. He just let his personal issues get in the way. If he could get those things under control though, he'd be an asset to any team's scouting department. That plus his prayer relationship to our top two personnel people is why I find it interesting that his son is an intern with us.

Tepper's role... Her husband, of course, would contribute, too, and in an interesting way—it wasn’t so much about what he thought as what he knew. And what he knew was that his team would have its best shot at getting the decision right with as thorough a process as possible. So as sure as most of the crew might’ve been after Young’s pro day, there was still work left to be done. “[Tepper] is all about process,” Fitterer says. “He’s not about the evaluating. He’s not going to sit there and say, Hey, listen, I think this guy’s got a great arm. That’s not his world, and Dave’s smart enough to realize that. He doesn’t want to influence it that way. He just wants to make sure that we’re looking at it from every viewpoint and challenging ourselves, and that we have the data behind our decisions—that we’re not just looking at it from a scouting standpoint, that we have all the back-checks that we can use that are out there. “Are we doing enough? Are we testing these guys enough? Do we know enough about their psychological makeup and competitiveness? He just keeps asking questions. And he’s not challenging us. He’s just making us think. Are we thinking about this properly?”