Mr. Scot

Yeah, that's weak It's also false given that even per Rivera's own account, Tepper just made a comment like "maybe you could try going 3-4". He didn't dictate that they switch. And as we all remember by watching, Riviera didn't really switch anyway. If you want to go from that to saying "he told us who to draft", yeah sure

This strikes me as one of those times where either a team or the quarterback himself is trying to make a point that he can win as a passer. One, that's just about always a sh-tty strategy. But more to the point, if you have to go to an effort to try and prove something like that, it probably isn't true.

Funny you should bring up the Commanders. Remember after his firing, Jay Gruden told the story about how Daniel Snyder would essentially tell them with the draft picks were? Tepper has fired two coaches and one GM. The team has also parted ways with a high level executive in Pat Stewart. Has any one of them come out and made similar accusations about Tepper? Hell, even inveterate excuse maker Matt Rhule hasn't suggested anything like that.

Watching a pro day doesn't equal telling your people who to draft. Hell, if I were an owner, I'd go to The Combine , pro days or anything I could. But I'd also be smart enough to know I'm not a professional scout. (Tepper has said that too)

Yep. Did my fair share of damage to myself over the years. I know a while back we had a thread where we talked about old sports injuries. Seems like a load of us were walking wounded

Worth a shot 🫥

He strikes me as one of those heroes that you're better off not meeting.

My best friend growing up was also a football teammate up through middle school. As I recall, he'd had arthroscopic surgery on both knees by the time he was in the eighth grade. He didn't play high school ball because he just couldn't anymore.

Hey now, that can be a real b-tch

Repeating what I said elsewhere: What a young quarterback needs most is a guy like we drafted in the fourth round, protection. People here used to praise the Colts for surrounding Andrew Luck with weapons, but they never invested in protecting him. You saw how that worked out. There's time to add weapons, but making sure he was protected first is the right call.

Very much so...

I get it, I just can't sign onto it. Reich and company your franchise QB was to be had this year, and they did what was necessary to secure them. It's going to be a long time before we know whether that worked out or not, but I don't disagree with making that choice.

Yeah, there aren't any legit NFL reporters out there I've seen pushing the narrative that Tepper is controlling everything. That's just you. Plenty of reporters with no Panthers affiliation have confirmed stuff that happened while Rhule was here, but again you deny that because it doesn't suit the narrative you want. As for me pushing a positive version of Tupper, yeah...

He also used to say that other denominations grew by church planting, Baptist churches grew by splits.

Skip doesn't really "report" anything. I'd need to see it from a better source before taking it as gospel.

One of my old pastors used to say that it was funny how when someone got "called" to a different church, it always seemed to be a bigger church with a higher salary.

My word, it is all your fault. I can't believe I didn't see it before

This is your other tactic, suggesting that the people who say something other than what you believe are just parroting the team narrative, etc. There have been plenty of times where what I thought happened turned out not to be what happened. No I could have stubbornly (and stupidly) said "nuh uh, I was still right anyway" but that'd be kind of silly. The bottom line is you believe what you want to believe, facts be damned. You can accuse others of doing it all you want, but in reality that's just to make it easier to justify doing it yourself.

You forgot "dresses like a slob".

The whole "wait till next year" debate has been around for a while. At some point, it actually has to be this year.

I get the impression that's probably happening anyway. Fitterer and Reich are both "consensus" types and they seem to work well together. That alone can buy you a couple of years...at least. The fact that we're also just starting out with a brand new quarterback also lends toward patience. So despite the emotional screaming, I get a sense that our current braintrust might be around for a while.

What if your alternative is Matt Rhule, though?

I think so Mind you, the original post in this case isn't exactly someone known for starting thoughtful, substantive threads.

The most important supporting cast for the quarterback in his first season is the offensive line. We've got that. The skill players come next, but I don't expect those to be further addressed until next season unless something surprising happens.

Not entirely true... Between insider reports and behind the scenes video, we've been able to piece together certain items. The Thomas Fletcher pick for example was Rhule, the decision to take Darnold's fifth year option was Fitterer, etc. Last year's Camp Confidential pretty well documented that the quarterback draft scouting owed a lot to Ben McAdoo. Corral was the guy McAdoo preferred. Not much was said about Howell. As far as the actual trade up, video of Rhule telling Fitterer he thought it was time to trade up, and even making the call to broker the deal himself. Tepper agreed, while Fitterer just kind of looked uncomfortable but ended up signing on. Is everything out there? No, but there's a lot.