vorbis

I think the main concern is just him having the core strength to slip out of tackles in the pocket like he did at Alabama. whether that results in added weight is kind of immaterial. as long as he can maintain the play style he had in college, he should be good to go.

it's obvious the Panthers valued Johnson highly at that point in the draft, and made the move they felt they needed to to get him. the more drafts I watch, the less attached I get to how *I feel* about how the draft is going to play out. I don't watch film of hardly any of these prospects until they're drafted by the Panthers, so I'm not going to pretend I know better than an entire department of professional scouts and "league observers." so to me, a lot of the talk about "he would have been available at $X_pick" is just noise. whether he's "worth" the pick at 80, also, is really only an insightful query relative to the snapshot most people have in their heads of the draft order before the first pick was made. the only thing that matters now is how he plays. I kept looking at this, scratching my head. he had such a weird RAS profile: he was a 2-way player for Oregon in 2021. would practice on offense and on defense. he's been moved around the defense quite a bit during his college football odyssey. that to me says multiple coaching staffs have looked at Johnson and said, here is a great football athlete. let's figure out how to get good results out of these talents and traits. in that sense, the Panthers are only doing what the coaching staffs at Miami U and Oregon also did. he only settled into a role this past season, and his production went up significantly. and this weird-ass RAS profile tells me, here is an explosive mover who doesn't have the refinement right now to perform well in agility drills. so the RAW is real. but so is the underlying physical ability. Dom Capers has a history of finding pass rushing talent, and front-7 talent, in the dustiest corners of the draft and free agency, going back to the early 90s with the Steelers. so with him and Ejiro Evero, I feel like Johnson is set up to have the best chance to carve out a career and a second contract for himself. I'm concerned about the mindset and attitude of a guy who would smack the **** out of a fan who was being a dick on the field after a hard-fought loss in a rivalry game. it just is what it is. maybe the fan deserved to have the **** smacked out of him, but if you're getting caught up in that, maybe you can be manipulated and/or baited on the field by strong-willed opponents. I'm less concerned about him being an unfinished product as an older draftee, given his physical ability, kind of weird path during college football, and the coaching situation he's coming into. I'm also less concerned about the circumstances of the Panthers seeing a run on pass rushers in the 3rd round, and moving up to get a particular guy who was one of the last sitting on a particular tier. that's just tactics of the draft.

it's fun having a GM who is ready and willing to move around during the draft. both because it makes watching the draft more fun and exciting, but also because (to me) it shows a GM who is comfortable with the relative values they put on players, and feels empowered to move around to extract as much roster value out of the draft that they can.

good stuff, thanks for compiling OP.

if I'm running a cognitive test company that works with NFL teams, I'm thinking that tightening up my "information disclosure" policies would be a big part of the viability of my company going forward. plenty of perfectly competent quarterbacks who might feel reluctant to even take this test next year, for worry of the information getting out despite whether or not they feel it's to their benefit.

the shtick with Bob McGinn's prospect rankings (which are VERY thorough and often go against conventional narratives in insightful ways) is that he polls scouts from all over the league, and grants them anonymity. he includes their thoughts verbatim in his rankings, where he puts prospects into tiers. I think most of us can understand how the anonymity approach can be really interesting, but also how it can be weaponized or misused to rapidly change perceptions of a prospect in the week leading up to the draft. maybe the truth is being told, but maybe a team feels like if they can make a prospect slide on draft weekend, they can get a good deal out of it. the thing is, we just don't know which is which, thanks to the anonymity thing.

Bob McGinn has released Wonderlic scores of quarterbacks every year going back to the early 2000s, including many times where he was the first person to reveal said scores. every year some player gets outed as having a bad score and the whispers get louder in the last week before the draft. about as often as not the information is being revealed by Bob McGinn. it's my least favorite thing about his prospect rankings every year. I get why he does it but yes, you should absolutely expect him to leak this kind of stuff. I hate that this is being released right now, and the manner in which it is being done. it smells like a hit job in the days leading up to the draft. just gives me a feeling in the pit of my stomach that someone is being torpedoed. Stroud has the tape of a top pick. for all the talk NFL teams do of "the tape is what's important," they often seem quite happy to have a standardized test to fall back on to make judgments that supersede tape.

insider source tells me that AR absolutely killed it at Kingdom Hearts

the whispers are already deafening that Bryce will be a Panther. not sure today's news of the visit-cancelling changes anything. that being said, I'm so pumped for Bryce Young to be a Panther. I think he's going to be a great one.

Sheena's great. she's definitely got the ears of at least one person in the front office. her and Vashti are great with the Carolina Blitz and have a great connection with the fans who show them respect and follow them on the appropriate socials. while she had some decent info during the Deshaun Watson saga, I feel like her analysis of the team is always on point, and obviously informed by privileged conversations she has with source X Y or Z. Charlotte's lucky to have her.

being a fan of the team who's going to draft a quarterback #1 in the draft is just about as exciting as it gets as an NFL fan without winning or playing in the super bowl, and I see many fans who are intent on making that into something to be stressed about, and talking themselves into doom scenarios if it doesn't go the way they want to.

I really like the trade down 5-10 spots for maybe another day 2 and day 3 pick option. give Evero lots of bullets to beef up his defense for the playoff push. as for positions, the Panthers have a glaring opening at nickel CB. I know they've talked about Chinn as the big nickel and Rowe has experience there, but Evero's eyes lit up when talking about the importance of the nickel position at his introductory press conference. it's clear they have a high value on that position.

VP of Football Ops is not necessarily a football-centric position (though it may seem so from the title). it could be anything from coordinating travel to managing stadium operations to arranging media appearances, coordinating charity endeavors, etc. it's perfectly reasonable for someone with a long tenure in communications for the Panthers to ascend to that kind of role.

idk anything about these OL prospects but "Steve Avila" is an ass-kicker type name for a lineman.

I'd even go a step further and say that if you're an NFL team at the top of the draft and the difference between Bryce Young and CJ Stroud ends up being that you determine Stroud is not "easy to coach" then to me that's a sign that you didn't do the work you needed to do. there are plenty of differences between these two quarterbacks just in terms of onfield play, more than enough for you to make the determination that's right for your team.

"not an easy guy to coach" is some really flaky criticism on the level of "fake smile" IMO. any decent coach is not gonna care if Stroud has his own opinions about how things go and in fact you want that critical thinking in the room, especially at the quarterback position. you had better be able to reach a player of his level if you're an NFL coach, is what I'm saying. I agree with everyone saying the timing and the mouthpiece for this criticism warrants scrutiny. it's pretty clearly a hit job with a goal of having Stroud drift down the board until team X can justify trading up or picking him in their slot. it's transparent. happens every year. if Stroud goes #1 he'll have earned every bit of it.

even a player who cons his way into the hall of fame is a home run pick at #1, and that ain't Brees.

people obsess over this scenario where a 340lb defensive lineman falls with all of his weight on top of Bryce Young as if that wouldn't hurt like hell to anyone including Cam Newton. yes, that's a scenario any team with any quarterback wants to avoid.

I voted Stroud in the original poll and Young in this one. my personal preference (as someone who doesn't watch college FB) have kind of mirrored that change, as well. I'm good with either but I think it's harder to find the things that make Young who he is than the things that make Stroud who he is.

this is your periodic reminder that you can absolutely support one or both or all three of the alleged serious candidates for the Panthers #1 pick, and you can do so without downplaying the other candidates' strengths or disparaging them in vague ways!

let's not overstate the issues with Bryce Young's height getting in the way of executing basic plays on offense. it will present some challenges but it's literally been done by other quarterbacks who are similar in height. and the skills those quarterbacks needed to function with their height, those are exactly the skills that Young possesses. in fact many would say they are some of his stronger attributes. height just isn't the primary (or secondary) concern with him. frame is. and in my opinion, I wonder if his arm is quite strong enough to play in the NFL like it did in college. we've seen QBs with elite traits but middle-of-the-pack arms get exposed in the NFL. still love him, though, and I go back and forth over who I'd prefer. Stroud is the box-checking QB who you wonder if he'll ever truly ascend into a top tier NFL quarterback. Young is the it-factor QB who you wonder if his skills will play the same way at the next level.

oh cool, that's a lot of information from a group of diverse people who nonetheless all have one thing in common: they have no actual say in the actual decision of who the Panthers should draft

it's clear that the front office has seen something in this void years business that makes it just a good move to do in a variety of situations. the Panthers don't even need the cap room given to them by adding 4 void years to Chark's deal. plenty of room to sign all their draft picks and still make more moves in free agency. I don't know if they just see this as the cost of doing business for this off-season specifically, or if they feel this is just a handy way to rig the cap calculations game. but it's clear it's a conscious move on their part, regardless of trying to save up x amount of space.

if this is the most desperate contract the Panthers sign, then they're doing pretty good. they paid what they needed to to get the player. long-term cap implications are minimal. they still have room to fit more free agents under this year's cap and have room for draft picks. I think they paid a premium for a player with the credentials that Thielen has. the choice to sign a veteran WR makes sense given the incoming rookie QB, young WR core with potential draft picks coming there as well. the logic is there. edit just saw this tweet: this front office has really seized on the void year thing. they really must feel confident about the cap continuing to go up. that makes it even more palatable in the meantime, cap-wise.

lol except for the handful of legitimate leaks that have happened on this forum