Khyber53

Alabama's coaching staff is a remarkably good sales and marketing team.

I think he's a back-up level QB now and he'll possibly see the field that way. And that's probably his career going forward if he can get a shot to prove himself that way. And let's face it, back-up NFL QB is one heck of a dream job.

They were hoping for Drew Brees pt. 2.

The next couple of weeks should be very important for the jobs of a lot of people in the Panthers organization. I'm speaking particularly about our entire scouting department. Was Bryce just a one shot mistake that has hurt the whole team or is he just the biggest symptom of a systematic inability to assess talent honestly and extensively. And I don't just mean our college scouting group but also those who are assessing free agent players out there. We've been watching a degradation of the team since the year before Rivera was fired. We've made bad pick-ups in free agency and have a love for grabbing old guys who are using their names for one last paycheck. For every Adam Thielen who balls out, there's a Bruce Irvin to balance him out or even two of them. It is our GM situation that has slipped, but there's a whole cast of folks behind that guy. If we don't see a competent and competitive team out there in the next two weeks, we've got to look at taking an axe to the whole department and cleaning house on our scouting groups. Or maybe it just was one undersized guy screwing up the whole thing. I'm personally not sure it was just one guy, though.

We're going to learn a lot about this team Sunday in Vegas. Not all of it will be pretty. This is a team with some major issues. That being said, we just benched our biggest issue on the field.

I hate to hear anyone's lifelong dream being shattered, but it was time. This just wasn't working out and it wasn't going to work out. It's time to move on. It's sad but you have to look at a #1 draft pick that already got one HC fired, was a second one looking down the barrel of that gun? Looks an awful lot like it would have been. I wonder what the ration of #1 draft picks versus HCs fired works out to be over the history of the league? There's some rough math in there that probably doesn't bode well. So, now, let's move on.

You'll never know if your receivers, tight ends or even offensive line is any good if your QB never attempts a serious pass over 10 yards in the air. There's dink and dunk, but this is just dinky. There are 52 professional football players on this team besides Bryce and every one of them knows if a player is any good or not. Don't you think they are seeing what we are? Have some mercy, bench PeeWee and just go play some football. Please.

In 30 years as a Panther fan and 20 years as a Falcons fan before that... I've never seen a more hopeless, useless, feckless and worthless team take the field. And I have never seen a worse first string QB. And I've cheered for a lot of suck ass teams over the years. This is pathetic. Bench the pint-sized project QB and let's try to play adult football.

I'm fuging sick of this "get the first pick" bullshit garbage. Win some fuging games, fug picking order. Losers pick first and I am sick of the loser mentality. Bench PeeWee, try and get some sense of self worth back and at least fuging try to win.

It's more than a game. It's something we share, something we remember and something we pass on. So very sorry to hear about your loss, but also heartened to hear what a great and positive impact he had on your life. We miss people for a reason and hopefully we get to be with them again some day. Until then, we get to hold onto those shared parts of our lives, and you are right, we should all make more of them, even if it's just a phone call. Peace be with you and yours.

I'm gonna say it and it will draw some fire but poo, let's call it like it is. Dan Morgan has always been a mook and was never one of the brightest guys on our team. He wasn't the guy we needed to take over for Fitterer. He may actually be a step backwards. As a former Panther player, he is to management as Frank Reich was to coaching. I'm sorry, but it's true.

You mean you still have hope that Bryce can be the guy?

Dave, you know what you were getting into when you applied for the head coaching job here. This team over the last seven seasons has become a trainwreck carrying a dumpster fire to a clusterfug. Ownership is clueless, ego-driven and sadly entrenched with a hands-on approach. Coaching has been a revolving door, with the last guy not even seeing the end of his inaugural year here from the sidelines. Management has been on a sled-ride downhill since Marty Hurney left... just think how low things are if you're looking up at the Hurney regime days? We'd traded away our first round pick this season and I believe our 2nd next season, just to draft a soft-spoken, miniscule quarterback of the future that just isn't cut out physically, mentally, charismatically or skill-wise to be a starter, or maybe even player, in this league. You inherited no decent wide receivers under the age of 30, a rickety offensive line and your best running back is an unknown kid who grew up playing football in Canada. And on defense you were handing the shiniest turd of last year's pile, but not until they'd traded away our only pass rush specialist. You know all of this, we know all of this. And you know that the team owner is probably more likely to have a new trophy wife before he gets a Lombardy trophy here. You're saddled with a mess, man. But you do have one thing here. The fans, those who are left and right now, we just need one thing from you: Progress. Just some sign that we are moving forward. We'd hoped for it all off season. We dusted off our jerseys and hats, duly walked to the tv sets and hunkered down like good little Panthers boys and girls. And the team laid an egg. One of the biggest in a long time. Against one of our division rivals. One that was supposed to be wounded and poorly coached. We can't do this again. Show us something. Show us that you are moving forward, past the crap and into a better day. We know it won't be here tomorrow or any time this season, just show us that if we hang on, there's something being built for us, something good. You don't have to win, but at least make it look like there's some fight in this team. And put PeeWee on the bench. For his own good, for ours and let us see what our team would do if we actually had a modestly skilled QB on the field. They used to call it the Andy Dalton scale... if you had a QB better than him, you were set. If you had a QB worse than him, you were screwed. He's literally a measuring stick and you could honestly judge the rest of our guys with him under center. But man, seriously, save yourself and us... just make it competitive this week. Please. Is it too much to ask?

Even they won't want him. C'mon, be real.

There's a lot a guy could be contemplating up there on that bridge. Hopefully not THAT this early in the season, but you never know...

And half the HCs in the NFL lost last weekend. Only only 50% won.

Thanks for making the original post. I appreciate what you're trying to do. We've been through periods of suck before, just none that have been as prolonged or seemingly futile as this one. This too shall pass. Eventually. Even if Bryce can't.

You ain't wrong!

Ding ding ding! We have a winner here! Exactly the problem. Big men playing tackle can only backpedal for so long at such a speed. If you are already in shotgun, and THEN begin backpedaling, you are going to outrun where your tackles can effectively block to AND put yourself right in the lane where a defensive end can just jet straight back. Step forward, let the tackles send the blockers back and around you. He doesn't trust his line, doesn't understand the physics and is trying, more than anything, to get enough distance to see the field. None of this works in our team's favor and very little of it is fixable. Once upon a time I wanted us to draft Timmy Chang, the guy was a touchdown throwing machine for Hawai'i. We didn't take him, no one did. Because Timmy was about Bryce's size. I thought it was unfair and stupid to pass up on his skills because of that. I was wrong. So very wrong. Timmy is now the HC at Hawai'i and has a good program there. Bryce should take note.

He couldn't see over them. You could tell by watching him.

I just know what I'm seeing now. There ain't no fight in the whole team. And if you're looking for a QB to put that back in them, then we don't have that guy. Not at all. Do we have a coach that can do it? Not sure. He needs to find it.

Great. The Harbaughs both coach their teams play hardnosed, punch them in the mouth football (as the game is meant to be played.) And we're fielding 53 Jimmy Claussens out there. Cue the school girl screams and the battle cry of "not in the face, not in the face." We've been on a downward toughness trajectory since Tepper came around and we're pretty much to the point where I'm not sure we've got the stones to make a decent 7th-8th grade flag football team, much less a pro one.

It has everything to do with giving up before halftime. They'd whipped us within the first five minutes of the game and just proceeded to do whatever they wanted to to us. We knuckled under sooo fast. Just no grit, none at all.

"Loser" Rivera ball was a damn sight better than what we've had since we jettisoned him. We have had the softest, wimpiest team in the league since. Not saying bring Rivera back, but we need someone who can teach a team to push the other guys around, not just hand over their lunch and girlfriends by midway through the first quarter.

We've been rebuilding since before Tepper arrived. He arrived and wanted to turn us into the new Pittsburgh. He turned us into the old Cleveland. If we'd have tried to rebuild the Panthers as the Panthers, we might have had some success. And here we sit with another year of frustration trying to assuage ourselves by dreaming over the #1 pick next season. What a bunch of chumps we are.