Mr. Scot

Here's the thing... If you're looking to give out an award based strictly on the best statistical performance, why would you put it to a vote? If it were all about the stats, you'd just give the award to the guy with the best stats. If you're asking people to vote on it though, then it can't really be just about the stats

Not really... Bryce is better than last year; worlds better than the year before. Mind you, that doesn't mean he should be signed to a long term deal, but it's there.

The fifth word in my quoted post agrees

Transcript of a conversation between Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler... Basic gist: Both believe he will (and should) get the fifth year option. Graziano sees some logic into going ahead with an early extension offer but Fowler disagrees. Text follows: ______________________________ Could the Panthers extend Bryce Young this offseason? Graziano: I covered the Panthers this past weekend and asked a bunch of their people about Young. And from what I can tell, they still believe in him. They've used 10 different offensive line combinations this season and have a young receiver group, so the team seems to think the ups and downs can be blamed on more than just the quarterback. Young was excellent Sunday in beating the Rams, but he was far less than that against the 49ers the Monday night before. The week before that, he set a single-game franchise record for passing yards in a victory over the Falcons. It's hard to really know what the long-term outlook is when the swings are this wild week to week. The Panthers will have to decide by the first week of May whether to pick up his fifth-year option for 2027. I expect them to do that because the cost will be reasonable (around $26.5 million), but then the question becomes what to do after that. Fowler: This feels like the classic wait-and-see situation. Despite showing flashes, Young hasn't progressed beyond midtier starter status. The Panthers have overachieved a bit this season and have viewed 2026 as their true jump year. Whether they want to allocate heavy resources to a Young extension during a crucial offseason remains to be seen. Picking up his fifth-year option and having him play at least a portion of his fourth season on his rookie deal is a sensible play. But Young has two things going for him. He's proving to be clutch, orchestrating four fourth-quarter comebacks and five game-winning drives this season. And he's showing touch on intermediate-to-deep passes, completing 30 passes of 20 or more yards. So he's giving the front office something to think about long and hard. Should the Panthers engage, what's the sweet spot on his market, Dan? Eleven quarterbacks are making at least $50 million per year. Graziano: So, if Young is open to an extension in the 2026 offseason, I think it would have to be lucrative to make it worth his while. If the Panthers pick up the fifth-year option, they will have him under contract for two years at around $33 million, so it might be tempting for him take a below-market deal just to improve on that. It might make some sense to do a short-term bridge deal like the one the Packers did with Jordan Love after Year 3 (when he really hadn't played much, because Aaron Rodgers was in front of him). But I don't see what Young's incentive would be to do an extension next spring or summer that averages less than $50 million per year. The Jaguars extended Trevor Lawrence at $55 million per year after Year 3, and we still don't know whether he's their long-term answer. Teams do wild things when it comes to quarterbacks because they're so scared about having to find one. So unless the Panthers are willing to give Young top-QB market value, he could bet on himself and bet on the team being incentivized to continue to improve around him. Then he could play out the 2026 season and put himself in position to negotiate a bigger deal after that, when the Panthers would have him for only one more year, which tilts the leverage Young's way. Fowler: Teams are only as good as their quarterback options, and Young is easily the Panthers' best. He also seems to have good chemistry with Canales and his staff. But don't be surprised if teams slightly shift their thinking when it comes to paying quarterbacks and show some level of restraint. If you don't have a bona fide top-10 guy, why pay obscene market prices so early? That's an easy call if you have a Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, etc. But Miami (Tua Tagovailoa) and Arizona (Kyler Murray) are among teams saddled with bloated guaranteed money for good, but not great, quarterbacks. My point is that there's no rush, barring both sides making concessions that work for them. I think Houston could be more inclined to pay C.J. Stroud, another QB from the 2023 draft class, early. He has higher-end traits as a passer. ... NFL Latest Buzz: Week 14

To be fair, Jake Delhomme has more than three years under his belt when he came to us. Bryce has shown legitimate improvement season over season. I don't think we can deny that.

Facebook status: It's complicated

Thing is though, you can analyze stuff from a bunch of different angles and still be wrong if the stats are your guiding force. I've watched enough football in my life to trust my eyes over my Excel. Stats have their purpose, and they work for some, but I've seen too many anomalies to make a high priority of them.

I asked because it ws double posted, looks like it's been cleaned up since though

That's...odd

Steve Smith

I got my moral compass from Bill Belichick

You wanted to reiterate this?

This is me too. I'm not gonna claim to have done a deep analysis on him. My take at this point is a "surface" take. I just have a hard time imagining that he's gonna make a successful transition to the pro game.

I'd call this a valid take. A realistic one also cause there ain't a whole lot else we can do

Pretty much where I'm at. I question whether he gets there, but stranger things have happened.

Yeah, he did. In a different context, George S Patton was a colossal a--shole (my WWII veteran uncle hated his guts) but it can't be argued that he helped us win the war. So is he all hero, all scoundrel, or is it...complicated? The whole dichotomy of instating that players be lumped into categories of "all good" or "all bad" just isn't viable in a real world discussion any more than we can put any human being in one of those two camps. Life is complicated. So is football.

Trends for QBs with a tendency to be streaky can be hard to follow. (we get a lot of those types here)

He's a double edged sword. Some players are. Smitty could be one of those too. Delhomme definitely was. Yeah, it makes being a fan a rollercoaster ride but we all oughtta be used to that by now.

Funny you mention Grossman because his name regularly surfaces in my head as a comparison to Bryce. Different strengths and weakness, but similar overall quality.

You know, believe it or not, it is actually possible that professional football people might truly believe that Bryce is genuinely good (it happens to me too). And to be clear, my "hurdles" are pretty much just facts of life anymore, but hey... (I am getting more opportunity to enjoy the board these days)

Ya know, it's not technically "googling" if I refer to a spreadsheet I created myself

I ain't the former (I wish ) Not gonna claim I'm the latter. That's for others to judge. (not the type to toot my own horn) Appreciate the kudos, though. Many thanks

Mike Remmers deserved credit for helping us get to the Super Bowl. Don't really care whether people were willing to give it to him or not. He helped us win games too. Go back to the 96 season. Kevin Greene was a big part of our season up to and including our playoff run. But what happened in the championship game? Sherman Lewis looked at the tape of our games up to then and formulated a strategy to run specifically at Greene. And it worked. They ran all over us. Does that erase how much Greene helped us win that year? Nope, sure doesn't. There are always gonna be some players who are better than others, sometimes markedly so. But with the NFL landscape having as many teams as it does and as many players on rosters right now, and even those players being subject to a salary cap, it just isn't possible to build the kind of roster you could create in decades past. That's just a reality of the modern game. Every team is forced to build up some units at the expense of others. We're no different. And the bottom line right now is that as much as you, me, or anyone else wants us to put a priority on finding another quarterback, the team might not see that as a need.

Depending on stats in a team sport is a massive gamble. QBx has a far better completion percentage than QBy. Is he better, or are his receivers better? QBa has fewer passing yards than QBb, but one plays for a team with a bell cow runningback while the other plays for a team that runs a high percentage passing attack. RBq has far fewer rushing yards than RBz, but he also doesn't have anything close to as good a set of blockers opening holes for him. Those are only a few examples. You could easily find dozens more. Baseball is a sport that lends much better to individual stats as a measuring stick. Football is a hundred times more complex; hence why stats can be misleading.

We're talking about contribution to a particular game. There's more to that than stats. Take for example a guy with superior stats vs a guy with lower stats playing his way through an injury or a hardship. In that scenario, I'm gonna vote for the latter guy ten times out of ten.