kungfoodude

Yep. It buys you time to build and find not only a QB but an OL. Teddy can make up for some of their deficiencies(and he did) but Darnold amplifies them. They got greedy and thought they were gonna win now. Guess who that sounds a lot like? Marty Hurney. Sam will likely never start another game here again. That experiment is so over that it should be a fireable offense to even out him in the game other than as a backup after the starter got injured. I think the staff also realizes that he will not play here anymore either. That's why they keep dumbing down the offense and trying to keep the ball out of his hands. You keep intersecting meaning in what I am saying. Point out where I said I am content being average "for years to come?" This is the same as me saying your point is that we need to be terrible for decades to get a QB in the draft. Neither of those is true so you need to stop interjecting the argument to want to argue against and just accept what I am saying in the literal sense. That's why I am pointing out the dangers of doing what you are talking about. I am not making definitive statements about it. Maybe we stink for a year or two and end up with the next Peyton Manning. Or maybe we stink for 15-20 years trying to find the next Peyton Manning. That's what I am saying, the teams that are constantly drafting high typically stay in those cycles for a long time. The reason being exactly what I am talking about. Mismanagement, poor evalutions, panic drafting and poor coaching. Any or all of those can keep you in a rut for decades. Sure, most teams don't maintain a lengthy period of high level of competitiveness, that is absolutely true. But would you rather be the Pats, Chiefs, Packers, Colts, Seahawks, Steelers or do you want to be the Falcons, Texans, Vikings, etc. Do you just want to be able to randomly put together a few great seasons or be in contention for the long haul? I thought that was literally the point of this rebuild. The former teams that I mentioned have rarely experienced "bad" seasons. They have mostly been average to elite. That isn't my accident. I would never in a million years argue against the value of an elite QB. Never. In fact I am on record here as repeatedly saying that it is the most important piece of a successful modern NFL team. By a wide margin. But, this acknowledgement doesn't mean that I want us to just draft a top 5 QB of every draft class. Look back 20 years and you are gonna find some amazing years for that and then a lot of really awful years for that. That's basically my entire point and why I keep beating on the evaluation and not reaching. If you don't believe he IS The Guy, then don't waste valuable draft capital on a guy that MIGHT be The Guy. After all, that is basically how we ended up with Sam Darnold.

I think Tepper created that situation himself. Most experienced and knowledgeable owners typically don't hand over complete control, especially to someone with no experience. I agree Matt Rhule didn't have that track record but that does beg the question, why did he get all that money and power without the track record?

Well, that is also speculation on our part, in fairness. Maybe it really didn't happen against the Falcons. Maybe it did but there wasn't an obvious sign that there was an issue, other than maybe some soreness. There are just as many valid reasons they wouldn't check him out or that Sam himself may have not really thought it was anything more than soft tissue damage. I am not even saying they might not have fuged something up but we really don't and won't know the complete situation unless Darnold decides to say something.

I suspect that the injury is more minor than is being reported. If it were a massive break in that area, he would simply not have been able to compete. Even the accounts of it were basically the day after he reported it being sore and so they did an MRI. I would guess that during the game it was also just sore and Darnold probably just interpreted it as getting whacked by that hit(soft tissue damage/bruising) and not any structural damage. I have definitely had hairline fractures before(in my feet) that I was generally unaware were present, other than the obvious initial damage which I interpreted as just bruising from the impact. For me, it wasn't until it just wouldn't heal up after a couple of weeks that I even thought it could be something more.

If he can just hit 20% of the open players, it will be a MASSIVE upgrade from Darnold. I am not sure I can ever recall seeing more open WR's in an offense that are just simply not seen. Sam Darnold is 100% the worst QB we have ever had at seeing the field. The only one that might even be in the discussion is probably Jeff Lewis. It has to be INSANELY frustrating to watch film every week and see these players being schemed open and the QB simply not going through his progressions at all or reading the field. If you have All 22, just go play by play and watch some of this poo. Honestly, the worst case has literally been the Huddle's new whipping boy, Robby Anderson. Go watch how often he is wide open in a game. It's insane. Darnold is gonna be one of those guys that in a few years people are going to speak their minds a lot more about that situation and I think you are going to hear how bad he was at playing QB.

If he can just give the team some spark, that would be enough. None of us have illusions of being a winning team this season. Just go down fighting and competitive, like last season.

It isn't about pinning hopes on any "bridge" QB. The truth is, we made a massive mistake letting Teddy go. He was the QB we needed to be acceptably mediocre while our defense won games. He also deserves a big apology from myself and most Panther fans because a lot of the things he has said about our coaching staff(which were not as critical as we all interpreted them) appear to be pretty fuging accurate in hindsight. I would not have expected to make the "wish we had Teddy back" plea at all. I was one of the lead members of the "fug Teddy, get him gone" squad. However, we somehow managed to downgrade many levels with Sam Darnold. So, that being the case, I am on the average journeyman QB bandwagon for a few reasons. First, we simply must steady this ship. If my choices are winning with a ceiling and runaway losing, I am gonna choose the former. Second, we have a good enough defense to win games. We literally need a good enough offense for them to not LOSE games like the current one is. To that point, if you transplant the 2020 offense into this 2021 defense, we might be a 6-8 win team 9 games into the season. Thirdly, we cannot simply just panic draft QB's in the first round over and over. The biggest reason is that if we keep failing the way we are failing, all these promising young players are going to start opting to go elsewhere. You think DJ Moore wants to continue to have a revolving door at QB during his prime years(7 different QB's in his rookie contract)? You think guys like Chinn and Burns are going to want to play their hearts out every week just to watch inept coaching and bad offensive play squander it? You think elite veterans like Stephon Gilmore are going to want to stick around losing franchises? So, in closing, I want to see a steady journeyman here to right this ship, give us time to go out and find The Guy, and possibly have enough success to retain core players and attract quality free agents. Because, the alternative of continuing to gamble wildly at QB and shuffle the deck every year....that is going to lead to being....the Cleveland Browns from 1999-2017. I can't beat that dead horse enough. We are literally tracking towards that level of mismanagement. All that shuffling didn't lead to franchise QB's at every turn. It led to almost 20 years of suffering. As an organization, I am very concerned we are teetering on that ledge. I was dead set against a "full rebuild" after the 2019 season because I said that most organizations that undertake such a venture take years and years to ever see success again. There just isn't a great precedent for that in the history of the NFL, ESPECIALLY in the salary cap era. Successful franchises constantly retool and tweak to maintain a level of winning that is acceptable. They don't put charges around the foundation and raze it to the ground in an attempt to build from nothing. It is a massive gamble to do something like that and it has oddly gone much better than expected but this new foundation we are building hasn't set yet. We fug it up and it will come crumbling down, yet again.

As I said, PJ is decisive about what he does with the ball. His decisions just tend to be wildly aggressive, sometimes for literally no reason at all. Also, his Bad Throw % is pretty terrible. Either way, I am just glad to see some other different shitty thing.

You can either prove me wrong or right. I don't care at all. I am not triggered like you appear to be. Just stating the obvious.

It will be interesting to see how that all goes down with PJ and eventually Barkley playing. I think they all know running the ball all game isn't likely to net a lot of wins.

I'm not bitching. I just know you aren't a fan and I think it's funny you keep pretending to be. Once Sam is off the roster, you'll be gone. I will await whatever hilarious excuse you have to leave. Hopefully it will be a Chuck-like meltdown exit. Those are always entertaining.

I mean, you came in here hyping up Sam Darnold and springing to his defense. I'd say you and Matt Rhule have a lot in common, that being you have absolutely zero idea what a good QB looks like. Wait, he actually tried to get Stafford. So you suck worse.

Well....reference recent college coaches coming up to the NFL. The average time before they are out of the league is typically short. The most damning thing is actually that most of the college coaches that came to the NFL in the past 15 years actually started off their careers with success. Rhule....not so much.

Good luck with your future team.

100% agree. We likely pushed the rebuild back because of Rhule and Co's hardon for Sam fuging Darnold. What is worse is that we will have to see what they are able to do with that defense while we fug around trying to fix this inept offense. We can't keep everyone, tough decisions are gonna have to be made. I don't want to look back at this in five years and see another window that closed because of another classic Panthers blunder.

Go watch him against legit competition. The rosy view breaks down really quickly. He looks TERRIBLE in those games. Not a little but unimpressive, not mediocre, fuging TERRIBLE.

Someone needs to chart the posts of glenwo2 and 1usctrojans. I bet they slowly disappear now that Sam is basically done here.

Is he gonna bring his own towel?

Well, this should be....something....

We have gone over that already, as well. If you want, cruise over to overthecap.com and take a look. As I also have discussed with you, the 2023 free agent class could be big. That list is quite deep. Obviously extensions can and probably will happen to whittle it down but it is far better than the 2022 FA QB class, on paper.

It is high. He is currently 33rd out of 33 in DVOA, 29th out of 33 in QBR and 31st out of 33 in QB Rating.

That is a lot of words that you are shoving in my mouth. You know we have had this exact discussion at least twice in the past few days, right? Did I not lay out exactly what I would do, were it my choice? And that was nothing at all like you are describing. As I have said, repeatedly, you don't reach on a guy. You believe in the prospect and go get him. And, yes, I was a Slater guy.

Weeelll....I think that depends on the situation with Rhule. I have given my choices umpteen times on here. What they will do is mystery. I would assume not the right thing based on their history. I am not saying there is a sure thing. I don't believe that at all. I am saying that reaching at QB doesn't often work out. You don't see many successful panic QB draft picks. Also, let me be completely clear, it is very possible when I am doing more detailed looks at this guys after the college football season that I may have a less negative view of one or more.

In the 2022 draft or the 2022 offseason? 2023 is TBD. Too far out to say conclusively.

Not sure, they usually haven't been healthy enough to find out.