lightsout

There have been a couple. One was a scramble where he got positive yards where it looked to be a sure sack. The other was early in the season where he used his shoulders to draw down a corner so he could hit the flag route. But that's about it. The rest have been "nice for a rookie" plays that yes, Gardner Minshew could physically make. I tried for 8 weeks to be very gracious to Bryce but I just can't. He doesn't look prepared. Could he improve? Certainly. But this isn't #1 overall worthy play. I knew Lawrence would figure things out. I knew Burrow would figure things out. Josh Allen. Manning. These were all guys we knew would develop into good starting QBs. Bryce ain't them.

If Bryce had one game to give us pause, I'd slow my roll. All the QBs that had rough first years had at least one game that they looked truly impressive in. Bryce has had a handful of plays across the entire season that were impressive. His average is probably something like 1-2 plays per game. Bryce has not looked good. He has not showed promise. He has shown life.signs. that's about it.

NC State has defeated a number of good NFL QBs. They're never good enough to compete nationally or even for the acc title, but they are good enough to absolutely surprise a team or two almost every year. Maye is 6'4" with a cannon. He's gonna be good on Sundays.

Or package Burns+ Bryce+ this year's 3rd for top 2 pick. If you get a bite. Gimme Maye all day. Bears will take Williams. Pats could bite. Hard reset with a prototype rookie QB.

None to go after. Best you're gonna do is kick the tires on a retread or gamble on somebody else's unproven kid that you believe in, which means we're giving up something considerable if we're serious. Unwise.

FTFY

I don't doubt he wants to win. I don't doubt that he's committed to making the Carolina Panthers a successful team and organization. I doubt he has the ability to shrug his ego off and actually achieve it. The necessary steps for him are something he currently doesn't want to do. He wants it his way. Sometimes sheer tyranny of will can get you there, but often not.

We need Bill or O'Brien specifically so Tepper learns his lesson on getting overly involved. Because those two would have us competing and wouldn't tolerate meddling ownership. Tepper needs a successful coach who can generate success for Tepper's team who will also tell him to shut the fug up. The only way to humble him, if you're able to at all. That sets us up for the future if it works because future hirings, Tepper knows when he got involved, we sucked for 7 coach changes and when he wasn't involved, we won.

It's not that points don't mean anything. But looking at that number and going "awful defense" isn't necessarily true. If a team has a good offense and gives up 26 points per game defensively, that is far worse than a team that has an offense that scores I TD per game but gives up (on average) 26 points per game. In this scenario, the bad offense team has a measurably better defense than the good offense team. Does this make sense for you?

Points per game isn't a good metric considering our offense is fuging useless and has given teams a short field the entirety of every game. The fact that they aren't dead last in opp. PPG is a statement in itself

Ejiro has sold me. He's made something out of a defense that has had health problems all year, while having the worst offense in football to boot. Thomas Brown, I'm not sure of. If he can make us respectable offensively to finish out, I'm down to bring him back for one more year, just to see. But he's got an uphill battle. On a historically awful offense, the entire staff on that side of the ball is hanging on by a spider's thread

You and me both. Sinking feeling Bill is seeing the writing on the wall. I think Tepper reaches out, gauges interest and has terms Bill will have. Bill will almost definitely say "you're not gonna get in the way of me running the football team." Tepper is gonna accept it because it Belichick. Then we're back to perpetually .500 Progress?

Belichick. Calling it

I expect Brown to be freed up and show his value. He has no tightrope to walk around. He can lean on Caldwell but I don't think Caldwell will pressure him to structure the offense in any way in particular. What we see the rest of the season will be Brown at least somewhat freely doing his own thing. He can't change it all, but he can incorporate some different stuff that maybe Reich wasn't about.

I just don't watch now. So much nicer.

Panthers have lost to the team they traded DJ Moore to to get Bryce, Anthony Richardson's backup, and Will Levis. And just barely got by CJ Stroud because of some voodoo magic (I'm convinced at this point). Can't make this poo up lol

For a league willing to absolutely destroy the sport itself in the name of safety, the one change that would instantly increase the safety and decrease injury risk, guaranteed, they won't act on.

All Tepper need do is pick up the phone and talk to Tom Dundon. And then listen to the man. Because he's doing sports ownership right.

The reason some linemen suck at zone schemes is they aren't athletic enough, or strong enough, or technically sound enough to effectively create space with it. Fail to gain ground, fail to create lanes, fail to run the ball. Our OL can execute down, down, kickout because it's simpler. It's momentum, it's one directional flow and then jamming with the pull. Same with iso and off tackle, you get a double and a lead up. It's simple. Zone requires dipping and ripping, trading off and climbing, fast feet, violent hands and balance. Something our OL does not have, all of which is evidenced in pass protection. Can they execute the concept? Occasionally I'm sure. But when teams KNOW you're running zone, it's easy to defend. Like dumb easy. Especially given we have no deep passing game, so we're facing 8 man boxes for 6 man, at best, zone schemes. Hell of a lot easier if we could do some zone against some nickel sets with two deep safeties but we're not going to get that.

The ONLY path forward is this. You get a president of football operations hired immediately. Ideally, nobody you know closely if you're Tepper. Somebody with an objective view and a track record of success or a resume under other successful people. You hire that person and you never, ever give your input on what you want outside of "a winning football team". That's it. If he fails, poo can him after 5 years (let's be real, that's how long it takes to unfug this mess) and hire somebody else. But you don't get involved with the actual football team beyond hiring that guy ever again. You're bad at it, you're clueless, and you are torching the franchise scrambling for solutions. Tepper doesn't do that, we're looking at 15 years minimum of absolute fuging pathetic football because Tepper will absolutely not sell if he is making money, and it's damn near impossible to lose money when you own an NFL team. So Tepper is here until he decides he doesn't want to.

I'm not longer watching the Carolina Panthers football team play, I know that much. Play with the kids, do chores, game, nap, literally anything else.

Yes. Which is why I keep calling our staff fuging idiots. There hasn't been a single issue with a snap or handoff from under center. Reich likes operating from the gun. He is too stupid to have thought of trying to run a conventional offense until the second half of this game and the offense finally looked like an NFL offense.

He did it multiple times that drive. Stop.

He honestly looks more comfortable under center than in the gun. As rookies tend to. Staff is full of morons

Our offense looks so much better under center and yet our staff is too goddamn stupid to realize that should be our base and not the fuging empty spread sets