Mr. Scot

I remember Matt Rhule's pressers. Man, is it different now.

When he was asked about Ejiro Evero, Reich said "I hired a man, not a scheme." It's the same here. He's not looking at a method, he's talking to a player.

Talked about Matt Corral getting limited reps last year

Panthers social media...

Fitterer said Tepper sat down with he and Morgan before the coaching search and said "I'm tired of this. What do we need to do to build a championship team?" That's good to hear.

Pretty sure Reich said that about Carr. For what it's worth, Reich sounded more positive about Carr than Fitterer but that's probably not a shock given their roles.

Highest rated category... A+ TIED FOR 1ST Players rated their training staff very highly and believe that they significantly add to their personal success.

Tuning in to WFNZ now to hear Fitterer talk to Kyle Bailey

Also, fire Marty Hurney

The full set of team grades can be seen here The Panthers report card is here What it says... CAROLINA PANTHERS REPORT CARD 12TH OF 32 TEAMS Overview The Carolina Panthers are ranked 12th among all NFL teams in our guide. Overall, players feel the facility is older than most, but is still functional. The most pressing issue players reported is upgrading the pool room, a key tool for player training and recovery. Players feel the floors in the pool room are unsafe and there have been complaints of a slippery surface with players falling regularly. The good news is that there has been recent investment into areas of the facility, like the locker room; and they recently hired Frank Reich, who was rated as one of the most player friendly and respected coaches in the league by the Colts last year. The players hope to continue to see more money being put into the necessary upgrades as 92% of respondents believed that David Tepper was willing to invest money into upgrading the facilities, ranking him 18th in the NFL in that category. Here's the breakdown by category... More details on these grades at the link...

Yep. Coaching matters. Sometimes it matters a lot. (when your previous coach was Urban Meyer or Matt Rhule, it's one of those times)

Side Note...

Make it six...

Mentioned this elsewhere, but I'll say it here as well... The impression I get is that this weekend is "crunch time" for the quarterback discussion, at least as it relates to Carr. They'll take the next several days to discuss what they want to do so that when when they speak to Carr on Monday, I expect they'll either make an offer or tell him they're going another direction. If I'm right, Monday or early next week's likely becomes "sh-t or get off the pot" time.

I expect that to be a big part of the discussion. Fitterer mentioned that if you really like a quarterback, you need to go get him. But then also said that if you're going to make that kind of commitment to a quarterback, you absolutely need to have conviction on him, not just general belief. So like I said, I think those discussions happen over this weekend and next week becomes "sh-t or get off the pot" time in regards to Carr.

Throw in this... That makes me think the Panthers are going to take through this weekend to digest what they saw at the combine, whether or not they believe anyone is worth trading up for and basically what to do at the quarterback position. Once they call Carr, they could either make him an offer or tell him they're going in a different direction.

I can tell you what I got out of the presser... 1) Both Frank Reich and Scott Fitterer like David Carr. Between the two, Reich sounded more eager and effusive but that's kinda to be expected since it's not his job to worry about what he's getting paid. 2) Fitterer might have tipped his hand a little bit on one thing: If They did sign Derek Carr, they're probably not going to use their first round pick on a quarterback. If they draft a player, the vet would likely be a bridge type. 3) Perhaps most important, those decisions haven't been made yet, but they're being discussed. It could end up going either way.

Yeah. If you can listen with headphones and turn up the volume, it helps. And if you're not able to do that right now, you can revisit it later.

My thought when he was talking about the hiring of the coaching staff was that he sounded like a kid telling everybody he got a PlayStation 5 for Christmas or something.

Also said they're talking to Bozeman and Foreman

Specifically said Samir Suleiman is "brutally honest"

He is, but that's kinda the point. Newton's not a reliable source because he has a tendency to interpret things incorrectly. I never go by what Newton says unless it's corroborated by others.