kungfoodude

I did literally say what he said, FWIW. Any preseason rankings are wildly inaccurate guesses....that's what preseason ratings are. Usually people only lose their minds about it when they just don't want to hear it. Ranking us last is not at all unreasonable. By all their metrics ranking the players they have rated, we probably are last. I would ABSOLUTELY place us firmly in the bottom 10 units in the NFL at this juncture, albeit maybe not last. How could you possibly rate us highly given the massive questions along the line? No reasonable person should assume the signings we made and draft picks we have would make us a good offensive line. They have to go out and PROVE that to be wrong. I thought everyone was relatively on the same page with that opinion, TBH. Our QB and OL situation are completely up in the air. Those two groups will likely be the biggest factors in our success or failure this coming season.

Not sure if you have surfed this place recently but the sunshine squad is throwing hissy fits at just about any inkling of criticism or thought process that doesn't include everyone on the roster as an All Pro. You know, standard extremist thought in the modern age? One of these fuging idiots last night kept repeating some poo like "never give up, fight the good fight" or some such drivel. Remember when you could just debate competing points and not have people lose their minds?

IMO, yes. I didn't see many guys outside Horn that I would consider starting quality but I see a lot of guys that will bolster the depth. That is one underappreciated issue we had last season. Make no mistake, that was likely the least talented roster to ever play for the Panthers. A lot of that was the depth. Once you got past our starters(some of which were of dubio7s quality anyway), the absolute bottom fell out. I think that improved substantially this offseason.

I will say that although the quality of our starters may not be very good as a unit, I do think we won't have the same level of drop off as in 2020 when the injuries start piling up.

I think we are a safe bet to rate very lowly before the season. We made some ho-hum signings in free agency and then we added predominately lower rated and lower drafted prospects. We just have to see if we can get something out of this hodgepodge of underachieving and underrated guys. I definitely don't have any butthurt about us being ranked very low. The majority of the line is in the "prove it" category. Completely understandable. We just don't want that to be the case after Game 17.

I think they just generally liked Horn more as a prospect than Fields.

QBR is just a rating based on end statistics. It doesn't take into account any portion of decision making other than simple completion percentage, TD's and INT's. That would be a poor tool to use for decision making. If you want some inside looks at decision making in statistical form, I would look at some more advanced situational statistics and metrics. That is more likely to shed some light on the trends. Ultimately, "decision making" is also part eye test and somewhat interpretive. One evaluator may see a bad decision or bad throw, whereas some might attribute it to poor play calling or some othet external factor.

Hilarious lack of self awareness.

I don't really have much hope he is going to be our answer at LT, so hopefully he can make an impact at OG. Given where he was drafted, if he is ultimately a good, versatile utility backup OL, that's acceptable. Would prefer him to become a multi-year, effective starter but it won't be a five alarm fire if he isn't.

Agreed. It is about progression and moving in the right direction. I don't think any of us is expecting an elite unit this season. I want to see that we are moving in that direction though. Big improvements in coverage and 3rd down conversions. Pass rush and sack totals tick upward. More solid against the run.

Yeah, the knocks were pretty universal and consistent. That ends up being the same for most professional evaluators, do you see glass half full or glass half empty? Everyone misses in the NFL but trading up to get a bust magnifies that error immensely. Furthermore, Hurney had such an extensive track record of making that mistake. It just seemed doomed from early on. Sadly, that ended up being the case.

I think a lot rides on our QB experiment and the OL. I have less overall concerns with the defense, although we do need to consider thar could go South, as well. It is a VERY young unit. They might take take lumps than we think.

Not sure I would draw that conclusion but it is possible. I think the Antonio Brown comment is closer to being the truth. I think he eventually just got a very inflated view of himself and lost his work ethic.

I used to be 1 but now usually stick around 2 to 3. I am purely in wait and see mode right now. I want to like our draft, but I am also pretty skeptical of the repeated moves down. I think most in the 1 category just haven't been fans long. Probably a lot of post 2015 run bandwagon jumpers. The longer you watch this team(and I have been through every single year), the more jaded this franchise makes you.

Yeah, the big difference is you forgot they existed. I didn't. Scroll back and read where I said he was a polarizing prospect. That is initially what you bristled at. However.....he was very, very clearly a polarizing prospect. But, if you cherry pick only his positives and don't actually recollect that time period(or read the draft profiles completely), then I suppose you would think he was a shocking drop to round two. Strangely, if you watched that draft broadcast....it didn't shock those guys either as he dropped....

This is essentially the core of the problem. It's just a message board. Calm down.

That had a lot less to do with it than multiple teams saying they didn't want him on the team(including a prospective team).

Our line is a stud RT, a good center and three question marks. If we can get at least two answers from those questions, we could be on to something.

It may be, it may not be. TBD. The scheme will be better, even if it isn't.

Careful. You'll wake the sunshine squad from their dreams of Superb Owl victories with Greg Little pancaking DE's as Sam Darnold throws bombs to Ian Thomas running free 80 yards down the field.

Fields and Wilson haven't shown anything at the NFL level, so they aren't great comparisons in the preseason. After the year, those will be valid comparisons because they have had to prove it at the NFL level like Darnold has(or hasn't) for three seasons. It doesn't really matter if we give him the benefit of the doubt or not. He's our unquestioned starting QB for 2021 and we are just going to have to see what happens. For his sake(and ours), we better hope that OL has improved in the offseason.

Interesting that it was only 10 QB's taken at #3. Narrowing it down to the #3 pick is probably a little too specific. The data on first round bust QB's going to a second team and succeeding is pretty damning alone. The best hope we have is that the Jets were truly enough of a dumpster fire that Sam had very little fault. Even then, we have to hope it hasn't permanently stunted or ruined his development. That's a lot to have to hope for.

I wouldn't bother with this recent crop of "fans." A lot of them aren't actual Panthers fans. Definitely a question for Igo and the mods. Perhaps has to do with the recent server upgrades? The bulk of us were here for the entire charade, so we all recall how that went down. It's kind of a pointless thing to argue anyway. Little is so clearly a bust that it's a purely academic discussion. No matter what we think of the free agent signings or draft picks, none of them can be as ill suited to play LT(or really anywhere on the OL) as Greg Little was. Hurney's lows were so unbelievably low. It's unreal.

It's not different than any other offseason. Hope and homerism springs eternal, mixed with our little band of non-Panther fans that are just player surfing. Rather telling that as vocal as they are they are such a small group. These specific optimists are not Panthers fans. They are just Darnold fans. It's interesting how thin skinned they are. Lashing out at anything they perceive to be as too critical. At least the USC fan is capable of seeing that Darnold is not some flawless player without any fault for his current predicament. The reality is that we took a flyer on a high ceiling, very low floor bust because we couldn't get a more surefire option. So, unless we as actual fans want to watch our fourth straight losing season, we better hope this experiment works out. It's a lot easier to swallow being wrong about a player and winning than being right about a player and having hopes in our franchise dashed....yet again.

Odd that you love to use the "Now go ahead and get the last word in" phrase yet you do such persistently. Interesting way of projecting.