lightsout

I'm about done. I'm hanging on but it ain't fuging easy. I miss having a team I was proud to root for, even through shitty seasons, I knew we'd get it fixed the next year. I knew it in 01, I knew it in 2010, but not now. Right now, all hope is lost. This team has done nothing but regress year after year since Tepper. He's the common denomination. He's the culprit.

I mean nobody is open, Bryce doesn't have the athleticism to escape pressure, and the only semi open option was the deep route that the deep safety was hawking towards. A sack was almost the only good play. And that's sad. fug these play calls, this roster, and this owner for giving it to us.

Miles is a decent RB. Problem is, he has such little vision. I've seen him lower his head into guys rather than just following the butts into a gap for an easy 4. Make a guy miss and it's more. I don't have the energy to find the screenshots but there's a few at least. He just doesn't know how to find his hole sometimes. If it's square in front of him, he's gaining yards but fug man, this is the NFL. D-Will and Stew were great for us because their vision. They'd find that one cut to make to get second level and then let their skill sets gain from that point.

We have the concepts to open the run game. We just don't run them. We run a lot of inside zone and a little bit of trap. Problem is we can't trap with our backup guards because they simply can't. Fold blocks are a tad better, so our b gap runs are there some but teams are loading up on us and running man and blitzing it. Which forces us back to the inside zone to account for bodies. Then not getting push because they're just firing off harder. We run counter and it usually works. That's the benefit to running so much inside, teams fast fly to where it appears the play is going, we get easier blocks. Then they just compensate for that by having their ends not be outside contain, which means the backside end crashes, closes the gap, keeps his outside arm free, forces the play to bounce and the Will or backside corner/safety get there to mitigate. We need more tosses and power. We need more straight up iso (chuba was chunking with it, but then they realized that was his butter). We need more variety and that includes formation variety. As it stands, I can call most run plays for us presnap. Not a flex, it's a bad thing. I shouldn't have the success rate that I do there. If I do, then defenses certainly do

I mean run blocking is run blocking and most of our zone work seems to be inside zone, which is basically just chipping and passing off. Very physical and not a lot of lateral movement aside from the initial step to gain ground. The stretches we have ran haven't looked great but that's because zone stretch isn't as effective with the speed most defenses have in today's NFL and the schemes teams are running defensively. It's why tosses are so prevalent, it's about the only way to get outside apart from power hitting and letting the edge contain squeeze himself inside due to momentum, because that allows the linemen to actually pull and run instead of stepping and then trying to wall and climb.

fug yeah. It's why I love hockey. Yeah you'll get your occasional 6-4 when goalies are off or when you have superstars with the puck, but the 2-1, 3-2 outcomes leave tension that football, basketball and now even baseball are lacking. It's a shame. High scores aren't exciting. They are dull. These sports have taken a NASCAR persona of "it's kinda boring until the big wreck and the last 10 laps when everybody is throwing it all out there".

Idk if I'd call it moderate success. We had our way running the ball more often than not. Jake being Captain Comeback absolutely helped make that team though lol. Without him being a magician in comebacks, that team is a 6 win team at best.

I mean you're not wrong but that was moreso because we gave them the ball on short fields too. They ran more than they passed because we couldn't get out of our own way and the scoreboard. But they did find success running down our throat.

Yeah I definitely would have been fine keeping Wilks as he proved he could take an abysmal team and turn them into a competitive unit on short notice. That and yes the philosophy he instilled was one of being physically dominant and playing mistake free football. It's a philosophy I love. People poo on Fox and Rivera for being that kind of coach, but the fact is they weren't wrong. They each needed an OC with fresh ideas for sure, but the concepts didn't have to change, just the approach. Rivera was running 21 and 22 personnel from the pistol, because Cam. But you could just as easily move that under center and now you have offset-i and the plays all still work. And another fact, Fox and Rivera each took us to the Super Bowl with that philosophy. They both got out coached in their Superbowl, but they each got there.

See I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not because I know people genuinely love it too. But I'd be like "fug this". Seeing two defenses fail for that long isn't exciting to me.

I found myself recently rewatching Bama vs Michigan in the Orange Bowl. Tom Brady leading the Wolverines against Shaun Alexander's Tide. The offensive philosophy of the game definitely shifted to spread a decade after that game, and with that came athletes redesigning themselves to fit that mold. Slimmer, faster, twitchier, more elusive. Gone are the gigantic warriors, the bruising backs, and the art of play action (I haven't seen a hard bite from a secondary on a play action in forever it seems). Now it's speed, speed, and more speed. Instead of plugging for 3-4 yards with the hopes of wearing down the defense and hitting the big one, it's pass for 4-7 yards with the hopes of your playmaker popping one. Let's be honest with ourselves...this current era offense is fuging boring. Everybody here knows it. You bitch about it weekly. "dink and dunk offense", "no down field shots". Look around the league. Everybody is running similar poo, they just have speed to do it. Throw the obligatory shot, sometimes your guy wins the foot race but most often? Crossing route or screen and hope. There's no mind games with defenses. No defense is overly concerned with stopping the run. You have strong run games still for sure, but nothing approaching 2000-2009. Saquon should be this generation's Adrian Peterson, and would be...if they had a philosophy of "here are variations of I and single back, we're gonna make you suffer for all 30+ carries he gets". But of course he can't because finding 5 road paving OL on the same team is rare now, let alone a fullback since they all either became linebackers or tight ends. Which brings me to us. If you ask me, Bryce would benefit most from his football IQ if he had the flexibility of yesteryear offenses. Remember QB play back then? They come to the line, you're reasonably sure the call is this, but then the entire formation shifts, now you've got no clue. Then the big play hits. You don't see that kind of poo anymore. Even better when there's just a subtle hot call. Jake and Smitty provided some of their best with the simple helmet tap. Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's the pain of this team right now. Maybe it's me hitting old age in my 30s and missing what used to be and hating these kids that are on my lawn. But who here wouldn't take a Davis/Stewart type back with this current roster and see if we can cook something up? Beats the poo out of watching 4 yard passes knowing we don't have the athletes to really break one for 40 plays every game.

Given that he and Thielen are used similarly, you'd think we would utilize some misdirection and force teams to guess which safety valve they need to cover. Chark on the deep route, Mingo backside post, Thielen and Hurst running intermediate and short. Would force teams to actually respect us rather than running the same combination of crossers with an out/flat we've called 90% of the time. Or the poorly executed four verts where we're just keying the crosser.

Like normal shots or Durham shots?

True but as a fan, I'd be totally down with losing that game in a shootout. Thought we were for a bit there, then realized after the missed FG that we were absolutely fuged. At least with a shootout it's like "hey, we battled and came up short. We can build on this"

I really want to get my mother in law to watch the kids so I can get my wife to Raleigh for the first time, so I'm absolutely down to a do a huddle tailgate if we can nail down some dates.

Brother I've lived through a decade of poo Canes hockey and some poo awful years with the Panthers since 96. But I'm this goddamn close to throwing in the towel on the Panthers fandom. It's that level of bad for me. Maybe it's just an accumulation that's hit a tipping point for me but like you said, it's about winning. I'll take moral victories but we aren't even achieving that much.

Want the product to change and the team to be something worth watching? Stop buying merch, stop going to BoA for anything, make Tepper lose money to the point he bails. Tepper doesn't know what he's doing, and he's hiring people who don't know what they're doing.

3-4 is garbage because in order to be strong against the run, you rotate over into a 4-3 alignment. As opposed to just staying 4-3 and having your will be a stud (Chinn) so you don't even have to bring in nickel personnel

Dalton isn't exactly throwing darts through pinholes. He's hitting open guys, to his credit, and not getting shaken by pressure. But Bryce was doing that as well. If the defense could get a stop we probably win this. Offense is feeling it.

Broncos say hi

Yung Mo$h needs a halftime show before I die as well. Just random aside, he's leaned so fuging hard into bringing back nu metal and it's glorious.

If this doesn't happen I'll be pissed. Also, spinning off of that into Luda doing Get Back is damn near a necessity for me now.

TFG is ok but QB School moreso outlines actual football thought. TFG presents info in a way where your average couch GM will feel validated, imo. I don't think, from looking at the same things you have, that Bryce is just not seeing guys that are "NFL open" (I know what you mean, but either a receiver has gotten by a defender or they haven't. If the DB is in their hip, they are absolutely not open).

I really hope Dalton does well but he won't because our receivers get no separation and while he can and will throw with anticipation, he's not throwing balls before breaks even start like Bryce has been doing. Bryce will start the minute he's healthy.

Which is the same reason Cincy let him go. Because he's not a guy you hitch your franchise to. He's a solid backup/stop gap for a year. That's it.