Khyber53

Apparently not in math class. 1995 start would make last year our 20th year of play. My bad. Well, there goes any significance.

Haven't seen the spoiler episodes yet, but I think they are going to have to seriously change the Jon Snow storyline from the books. When I read it, I just kept shaking my head that Martin had painted himself into a corner with that one. I really think that will be one of the big fixes he hinted would come in the show rather than the books. And my bet is that Little Finger doesn't survive the season. Great character and remarkably well cast, but they've gone further in his story now than the books have, and that leaves me feeling that they are going to close down this branch of the tree.

Historic match up for opening game for both teams. Both the Panthers and Jaguars will be beginning their 20th year in the NFL on that day. And hey, I like the idea of starting out against them because, well, they are the Jags...

Atlanta at home to open.

He's not going to be as dynamic as Smitty, but he sure looks like he's going to be in the Muhsin Muhammad class, and that's a mighty good thing. Maybe even better.

Ehh, if he does fine for them, no biggie. If he does badly, sure won't hurt us. Suit him up, make him QB1.

In the end, we will pay Cam whatever it takes to keep him. We just have to hope that he hasn't already hit his ceiling. We could go far with him, or we could have already seen the best, we just don't know. We do know, however, that if he ever gets free from us, we will immediately slip back into the pool of mediocrity and sink back down among the bottom dwellers of the league. How long we stay there will be a function of when we can correctly draft the next big thing in QBs or pick up just the right free agent on the upswing. And neither of those is easy to do. Coaches and general managers leave town over just this problem, again and again. Cam is both our best option and our worst handicap. He's good with the potential to be great, and he has the keys to the vault. I sure hope it pans out right for the long run.

We don't have a good track record with USC receivers. Just sayin'.

Dang, I had somehow missed that Gordon had a case of fumble-itis. It can be cured, but... No, we need to pass on him. One thing about D'Angelo Williams was that he almost never fumbled, I mean, historically good at holding onto the ball. Stewie's been pretty good, too.

I think Gordon is a better draft pick than Gurley. That being said, I don't think either will be available at the #25 pick as there are a lot of teams with running back needs, whether they'll admit the position is important or not. If Gordon is there at #25 however, I hope we pick him. Gurley at #25 is just too big of a gamble coming off that incredibly serious knee injury. That torn ligament probably cost the kid millions of dollars, but that doesn't mean it should cost us millions, too. I'd rather we wait and pick up a second or third rounder RB to fill in behind Stewie. He's going to need it.

He was one of Pittsburgh's iconic players and deserves to be in the panthenon with Mean Joe Green, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw and Jack Ham. He's a guaranteed first ballot Hall of Fame player. Sorry to see him retire, but it is a case of a skill set being so high that when it falls, it crashes down. Time catches all of us.

Sadly, I can't really argue with you there.

If we can get him on the cheap, definitely a low risk, high reward guy. Tons of character, great experience and if he can play at 85-90 percent of where he used to, it would be a steal.

Speedy receivers are nothing without good hands. There are a decade of picks in Oakland showing that to be true. Good hands, precise routes and a desire to catch the ball every time it comes your way, that's what it takes.

I see Dallas and Detroit falling out of contention, but the Broncos will be back and for some reason, Andy Dalton's Bengals end up in the playoffs each year... no explanation available, but he's been able to do what few other Bengals QBs have been... get to the playoffs multiple times. And then us. We'll be there. We gutted it out last season, kept most of the squad intact and the Falcons and Saints haven't gotten better.

Duke would be the best compliment to Stewart. I don't know how good he is at picking up the blitz, though, and that's got to be a big factor in our choice of an RB.

If Wisconsin's Gordon or Miami's Duke Johnson were available in the second, I think we'd be foolish to pass up on them. Both would be great complimentary runners to Stewart and both offer good hands and speed as receivers out of the backfield.

We've picked some good first rounders (Williams and Stewart) but we've got bigger needs than a RB in the first round. Second round pick would make sense.

High character kid with a huge upside when he was drafted. He's going to have an excellent year in 2015.

So why was it a 2016 pick instead of a 2015 one?

People around here are acting like this FA move is like Reggie White going to Green Bay back in the day. And it just doesn't add up. Hardy had a fair to good run here, when he was on the field. 2014 should have been his breakout year, but he spent it on the couch, collecting paychecks and working on his mix tape. Do you really think he's going to be in football shape or that he's past making dumb decisions? To get their money's worth out of him, they'll have to have round the clock babysitters with him and conditioning coaches waking him up at 5 a.m. each day. Let him go. Just wish he'd have left that $13 million on the table for us last year.

Panthro, you're still mad over Armanti? Dang man, you need a life.

Four years ago? Man, you really hold onto grudges, don't you?

Man, let it go, he's gone. He's moved on. Someone new will come along. You can make it through this, just grow from the heart ache, you'll love again someday.

I'd never heard a bad word from a teammate said about him whatsoever. The closest was when Tolbert's mom scolded him and reminded him that Tolbert was at Deangelo's mom's funeral. And there have been countless stories about the friendship between Williams and Stewart, not to mention the whole group of Panthers wrasslin' fans that go to the local matches and even hold contests for tickets to go with them. To paint him as anything but a great teammate and a positive part of the team is to take one interview taken at the time of his dismissal and use that one emotion-addled moment and paint it across the guy's whole career. That's disingenuous, small minded and petty. Williams had a long, great career with us, he was upset on the way out the door. Anything more than that and you're just sounding butthurt over a bad breakup.