vorbis

Aaron Parker sounds a lot like Terrace Marshall Jr. in his playing style. big receiver, played a lot in the slot with good success, solid on contested catches and in the red zone at Rhode Island, and has the speed to get YAC.

Christian Miller and Spencer Brown waived

I'm just happy for all the A&T alums that they get an Aggie on the Panthers. long overdue. is he the first ever?

just because you want to find out things doesn't mean it's ethical to ask someone what their cough is about during an official news conference. Covid is a new kind of thing though, so this isn't completely black and white. but for what it's worth, I did study journalism in university and this would have been a legitimate discussion of whether or not it is ethical to ask about that in that particular setting. I lean towards it's not quite kosher, for the record. mind you, if this press conference were happening in person I think the legitimate concern of being in the same place would supersede that ethical concern, because it could potentially affect the reporters directly.

I definitely noticed it and did wonder if someone would bring it up in the interview when I watched it, but I'm not sure that's an appropriate question for a journalist to ask, to be quite honest. as for league protocols, the rules differ for vaccinated personnel vs unvaccinated personnel, and Rhule is vaccinated. Rhule would have to be a confirmed close contact of someone who tested positive, or be showing symptoms himself to even require a test right now. a few coughs do not constitute symptoms, as far as I know. obviously coughing these days raises eyebrows immediately to many, but keep in mind it's allergy season and even aside from that, there's a ton of reasons why someone would be coughing like that. they weren't chest coughs, to my ears. I get that it's something that catches everyone's ears right now though. even considering all that, Rhule has at no point struck me as someone who would try to conceal something like that.

agreed. Tecklenberg is a fighter, but he's not any kind of a solution at C. his tape against Pittsburgh was brutal. time to find a capable player in that spot.

let me just walk back my "guarantee" a liiiittle bit. Darnold confirmed that he was just trying to get rid of the ball during that sack during his presser, so I get that he had a plan with it. I just don't think that's the right move. and given Rhule's point of view on Teddy extending the ball over the goal line last season, I think the head coach will have a similar opinion about it. good result, but bad process, if that makes sense. so much of the talk when Darnold came to the Panthers was about fixing bad habits. several times that has been likened to him playing a bit less hero ball, playing within the structure of the offense, not trying to do "too much" etc. that play was old Darnold in that respect. but I get that he intentionally wanted to dump the ball to stay in FG range.

nah. there's a way to throw the ball away on that play, but it's not by going through your entire throwing motion while already in the grips of a defender with other defenders within arm's length of swatting the ball. I guarantee you he'll be coached up on that in film session. if he wanted to throw it away, he should have done it earlier. at that point, the right play was to take the sack.

we might not be talking about the same play. the one I'm talking about, he had no business getting rid of that ball. he got lucky it wasn't ruled a fumble. if you want to make that play a difference between a win or a loss in the NFL, that was a losing play.

Darnold is definitely still a work in progress. but the arm is there (for the most part). the touch was there, his progressions looked decent. he looked like garbage when he got pressure in his face early in the snap. most every quarterback looks like something akin to garbage in that scenario. the thing that worries me the most was the ridiculous attempt he had when he was already wrapped up and sacked, which was ruled an incomplete pass. he keeps doing that, he'll fall on his face here. if he can stop doing that, then we'll see what his upper limit is, because he'll start the whole season.

the thing I liked the best was his philosophy of being willing to trade back multiple times in the draft to accumulate picks like darts for the dartboard. I think taking more shots in the draft leads to a better talent pipeline on the bottom half of the roster. this leads to being able to make tough decisions when the season's over, and let marginally effective players coming off their rookie contracts walk in free agency. and since you'll have the pipeline of talent coming from within, you won't have to mine the free agent market quite as much. which will lead to a relatively steady influx of compensation picks. which improves the talent pipeline. it's just a simple way to make roster management a bit more efficient. it takes a few seasons to set up, but you have to trust in your scouting and development processes. and I think that's where the Panthers are headed. I am here for it.

I don't think Perryman is getting cut, guys. Rhule made it sound like Carter won the starting job regardless of Perryman's role. Perryman is a sub-package player to them.

that is phenomenal content, thanks for posting

the "sports psychologist" thing is available for all Panthers players btw. and Rhule has spoken about how Slye took it upon himself to pursue that sort of thing this offseason, even going beyond the resources available from the Panthers org. Joey took it very seriously and tried to sort himself out. it's just it hasn't shown up in results yet. and he's definitely running out of time. maybe he already has.

Rhule/Snow's defense doesn't seem to be quite so ironclad about gap responsibility as Rivera's defenses. make of that what you will. in that light Hoskins looked great, if I'm being honest. very powerful, a big frame so he was pretty natural maneuvering around trash at the LOS. he might be a keeper, though he might be on the practice squad to start things out. the numbers are getting tight on the defensive line.

FYI thanks to new rules this year, pads go on on Tuesday, not tomorrow. probably not the worst thing in the world to have a gradual ramp up of training camp intensity, and I think the coaching staff has embraced that in multiple ways.

it seems to me that the way Phil Snow works as far as players' positions is: step one: find athletes step two: get them on the field step three: put them in position to make plays step four: call the positions whatever

he's talking about being in his prime, feeling more relaxed in his process and in a good situation to get targets and put up numbers. he's playing for another contract, obviously. it's a good year to be a fan of the team he's on, is what I'm saying.

great interview. Talib was able to get Robby to open up a little bit. I get the sense that Robby's locked in. sounds like it's reasonable to expect Big things from him this year.

the thing that always stood out to me about Ian Thomas is how easy he goes down with the slightest bit of contact, and how awkward he seems changing direction or catching and turning to run, that sort of thing. when he gets hit, he seems to fall down a lot like me. aaaaaand I have a disability that dramatically affects my legs. which ain't good for a professional athlete. not sure if it's something that can be improved by stepping up your training regimen or not.

I would like to know if Daviyon Nixon is still not at OTAs. I sure hope he has a good reason for missing them if so.

I feel like this is a much more interesting poll if the choices are "who aside from CMC" or "which WR" gets the most targets. if McCaffrey is healthy, he's catching 100+ balls.

idk I think it's entirely plausible that an agent would have his client's stats down cold while also having a good view of the free agency landscape and prospective teams. Arnold signed right in the first few days of free agency, so Burkhardt was probably on the phone about him multiple times a day. I definitely have suspicions about some of the scenes in the main Panthers Confidential video being staged to some degree, however. but it's fine by me, because it made for a compelling bit of video storytelling that still had a ton of super rare access.

for the record I don't doubt there will be some semblance of a "we're not looking at last season, we're focused on the future" moving on type statement when they are inevitably asked about it, but it doesn't take very much at all to keep the back and forth going. the split appears to be very real, and raw to some degree.