Mr. Scot

@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?”

I'm a big fan of short stories

I wouldn't. Eason is a guy Reich had with him from the Colts. He knows the system well and he's looked decent in limited action. To call Corral's action "limited" would be an understatement. Add to that the numerous rumors we've heard that the Panthers were looking to ship him out. I don't doubt that Eason will be given a legitimate chance to win that third spot. And yes, he just might do it.

Some details on the "long super.impressive answer" we've seen referenced before... On March 22, the Panthers’ traveling party watched an impressive display from Stroud, one that might have been enough to prompt another look at his tape from the fall, and then boarded the jet for Alabama. That night, they went to Evangeline’s, a posh Tuscaloosa eatery maybe a mile from campus. As the food was coming, Caldwell asked Young to detail his process. He started by explaining a Saturday night, with his physical recovery from an SEC game. He went into Sunday, from grading the previous day’s tape, to diving into the next week’s game plan and trying to learn it well enough to present it to his teammates Monday. He kept going, and going, and, after about 10 minutes, he was in mid-day Tuesday and those at the table were looking at each other. Reich looked at pretty much everyone with a smirk. Tepper laughed. Young came off like a battle-tested NFL quarterback, not some wet-behind-the-ears college kid confronted with a hedge-fund billionaire and his table full of NFL execs and coaches. “It’s like you’re sitting with a 40-year-old man and the level of detail of his answers,” Fitterer says. “You could ask him a simple question, and he gives so much detail and thought to each question. It was pretty cool.” The next day, more of the same. Fitterer wanted to see Young’s arm strength in person, and that meant training on deep sideline routes and drive throws through the middle of the field. His arm was never going to be Richardson’s, of course. But what the GM and coaches saw was plenty. He could get the ball to difficult spots and change speeds like a pitcher to throw the right ball every time.

On the process of getting to the pick... By the time the Panthers got to the combine, they’d done enough work on tape to be comfortable with at least two of the quarterbacks in the class (my sense is those two were Young and Stroud), and that gave Fitterer time to try to get ahead of the market on trading up. They had the ninth pick. As we chronicled in March, Fitterer and Bears GM Ryan Poles met at Lucas Oil Stadium, and at an Indianapolis hotel a little out of the way (the Hyatt) from the normal NFL hustle and bustle in the city, which Poles had booked to keep his meetings quiet. As the week after the combine wore on, the Texans first came strong, and it looked like the Bears would deal twice, with Houston coming up to No. 1 and Carolina to No. 2. But Fitterer kept after Poles, the Texans got cold feet and the Panthers got to the top of the draft. Fitterer didn’t want to give up a third first-round pick, and Poles’s desire to get a receiver to help Justin Fields (and get himself a better read on his young quarterback) led the teams to agree to a deal with two first-rounders, and second-rounders this year and in 2025, and DJ Moore going to Chicago. And at that point, while Fitterer didn’t have a decision yet on whom he’d take, he did have a leader. “Coming out of our February meetings with scouts, Bryce was probably the leader,” Fitterer says. “But we had committed to keeping an open process and we really did. It’s not just like b.s. We really did go into this like, This is such an important decision for our organization. Let’s not lock in [on someone] in February and say ‘This is our guy.’ And so we went through it. … There’s some really impressive guys. There’s some real guys in this quarterback group. “But the one thing about Bryce is he just was so steady all the way through the process, and every time we sat with him was like, S---, this guy’s special.” And yet, again, Fitterer, Reich and their staffs resisted calling the fight any earlier than they had to. Stroud would make a run at it. Richardson, who had some similarities to Josh Allen (whom Morgan was with in Buffalo), did, too. So Young would have to keep checking boxes.

Also from the article... As the 2022 season quickly came undone and coach Matt Rhule was fired, Panthers owner David Tepper had periodic conversations with his football people on the direction of the team and what was next. They’d make decisions to trade Christian McCaffrey and keep Brian Burns, and the process started to inform them on where they were. They had a stout defense with a young cornerstone. The offensive line had come together to drive a run game that dominated with Steve Wilks as interim coach. What was missing was obvious. “I think once we traded Baker [Mayfield], and Sam [Darnold] came back [from injury],” Fitterer said Sunday. “Sam actually played well this past year. But you have two swings at it, you have high hopes for both Sam and Baker when they got here and, at a certain point, I remember talking to Mr. Tepper and [assistant GM] Dan [Morgan] and we’re like, We gotta just draft and build our own. Even if Baker hit or Sam hit, it was going to be a lot of money to renew these guys, and how do you build a team properly unless it’s like a top-five quarterback? “How do you really build a team properly to support him? So we thought the rookie way was the right way to go, to draft and develop, and fix the problem rather than taking swings here and there. … Eventually, you just have to draft and develop your own guy.”

From the article: Fitterer sauntered into Reich’s office and matter-of-factly spit it out. All right, man, the GM said jokingly, who are we taking? Both smiled. Reich started laughing. Yeah, it’s Bryce, Reich responded.

Our old punter is apparently still in the league (I didn't know)

Condoleezza Rice has been rumored to be in consideration for that job for years.

To be fair, and with the disclaimer that I'm definitely not a Rhule apologist, it looked that way to a lot of us. Remember the absolute euphoria when we traded for Stephon Gilmore?

List definitely makes sense...

Defense has a couple of challenges built in, the first of course being that we're switching to a new system under a new DC and some of our players (like Gross-Matos )may not fit very well. But on top of that, there's the analysis that some of what Evero has done in the past doesn't necessarily fit with traditional position concepts. (Jourdan Rodrigue talked a lot about that in her analysis of him) So you have to ask where you put the guys that may or not not fit the new scheme In a depth chart that doesn't necessarily correspond to traditional roles and rules? Good luck with that

Not too familiar with LSU guys but yeah, that's possible.