kungfoodude

I don't know if you listen to the 4 Man Rush podcasts but Matt Wahle(who may know a few things about being a successful NFL lineman) has said a few times that being way overweight coming into the NFL is a HUGE red flag. You should already have had the discipline and work ethic to make that not be an issue. If it is, you aren't doing something right. I tend to agree with him. That's something you should have been able to clean up in college.

It's easy to see a high upside guy in that range and get excited about potential. But, unless it is injury or background red flags that cause them to drop, there are usually a laundry list of reasons and most of them tend to be right. It just is what it is.

I think the W/L record is relatively unimportant for 2022. The odds of Rhule ever panning out as a head coach for us seem to be slim, so I care less about that than seeing what the roster is. If we can improve that OL unit to being....poo....top 20? That's at least forward progress. In all honesty, my overall bar for success this season is for the 2020 and 2021 draft classes to not look like a disaster. If we can just accomplish that, at least the post-Rhule rebuild might not be that painful. I think that is a realistic thing to hope for.

Lol. This fits.

Lol. You realize your post history literally proves that statement wrong. Hilariously so.

I mean, if we can't improve over that, I would fire everyone in the entire organization. Just start at the top and hand pink slips out on the way down. Even if we still suck on the line, there just isn't an excuse for being that bad again. I mean....ZERO excuse.

Lol. I think recent history has proven I am not the one emotionally overwhelmed by a message board and a lack of team success, given your recent hiatus after successive meltdowns. The Panthers sucking impacts me in terms of being frustrated that my season tickets are pointless to own. Other than that, if they keep sucking I will just keep watching with friends and roasting the team during the game. It's entertaining enough when the team is as bad as we have been for the past four years. There is little to no reason to be optimistic, hence why this board has turned so negative. You act as if that is the fans fault when in reality it is the fault of the franchise. This is what you get when you lose for this long. If you get out much, which I suspect you don't, you would rub elbows with some other suffering fanbases that are just as negative if not more than ours. Anytime you stink this bad for this long, that's the result. Unless you want a parade in downtown CLT for winning 6 games in 2022.

He would be best served as a vet minimum 3rd stringer, IMO. That allows him to just basically be around better players and watch them work, while the team not having to rely on him seeing the field in anything other than a scenario where they are likely to lose anyway. Could he develop some in that case? Possibly. But that also requires that he put in the work to improve and I think the results show he doesn't do that or can't accomplish that. He'll be a sad, funny footnote in Panthers history like Jimmy Clausen was.

Lol. I think we can all just jettison the idea of Sam Darnold at this point. He is who he is. He's basically doubled down on what hasn't worked, so he probably has 2-3 years left as an NFL player.

Yeah well you said the same thing last offseason despite the OL signings being obviously terrible. Your opinion is basically just full delusion. Which, don't get me wrong, is highly entertaining.

I am going to start out pretty skeptical but what I hope to see is gradual improvement over the course of the season. My bar for success is that Ekwonu shows he is the future and we get at least one other average caliber starting OL from the interior. If that happens, it's at least forward progress and something to build on in 2023. Anything beyond that is a big victory.

I like Ekwonu, Bozeman and Corbett better than what we added last year but I need to see results at this point. I just can't trust this staff/FO anymore. Let them prove it on the field and I will buy in. I said a couple of offseasons ago it would probably take 3-4 years of consistent investment in the OL to build a decent unit that had depth. Given that we have not consistently or intelligently invested, I still think we are probably still another 3-5 years away from being a good unit with quality depth(based on level of investment from 2020-2022). The QB situation will be extremely interesting if we don't add anyone or have an injury. I fully expect this will be a 4-6 win team but the QB battle alone should be worth the watch.

I would assume if he was dangled in the Jimmy G talks that he was in the Baker Mayfield talks, as well. Maybe Andrew Berry literally answers all Scott Fitterers calls, "Hi Scott, we still don't want Sam Darnold. What else did you want to talk about?"

It is an assumption BC at LG is an improvement. Honestly, a very big one. My guess is that he is not going to be ready to make that transition as a starter for 2022. I still think he ends up being the top bench option.

I would take that solution in a heartbeat but I am curious to know if Carolina has even tried to use Darnold. Or if Cleveland just immediately balked.

If the rookie LT works out, that means we have upgraded to a fairly bad offensive line. If Bozeman ALSO works out, we have probably upgraded to a slightly below average offensive line. If ONE of the OG spots ALSO works out, then we probably have upgraded to an above average to good OL. If BOTH OG spots work out, we are probably a good to great OL. And IF alllllll that works out, you are going to be getting worse with each injury, because the bulk of our backups are probably going to be guys that weren't good last year. It's not impossible that we could be a top 15 OL unit, but it isn't a clear path. A lot of things need to break our way to be an upper half OL unit and even more need to break our way to be an elite OL unit.

I think the fans tend to believe that these organizations are monolithic despite all the insane amount of evidence that this is far from the truth.

Yeah, the idea of him being a QB whisperer are pretty hilarious. He was with two established, accomplished professional QB's. At best, he may have done some minor tweaking. At BEST. I am pretty sure had we fired Rhule this past offseason(which we should have) and McAdoo was the hire, the bulk of this board would be up in arms about how we made another stupid hire.

Yeah, we are getting deep into the conspiracy realm if we are taking THIS article as Browns propaganda. It's definitely not going to be effective propaganda, if that's what the attempt was. The Browns are just likely waiting for someone to have TC or injury troubles and hoping that eventually someone is willing to budge a little to get Baker. You never know, we could be that team eventually. I am certain we are probably one of a fairly small group of teams that even has passing interest.

There are a LOT of ifs there. Keep in mind that includes some pretty bad lineman that if forced into action will torpedo at least one spot on the OL.

The infatuation with McAdoo is really quite amusing. Don't get me wrong, he probably looks like a genius compared to the clown we have running the show now but he really made his name by just being around teams that had successful QB's. It's really unknown how much of that success he was actually responsible for.

If we can jettison Darnold, I am definitely down for Mayfield. But, I don't think they would be willing to accept him in return. Outside of that, they need to pay the bulk of his salary and accept a pretty low draft pick(nothing above a 5th). That's about what he is worth at the moment. I don't have a problem with a one season gamble on a streaky QB.

Also a lot of the credit Rhule gets for playing rookies is from 2020. There was also almost zero option in 2020. Most of those guys had to get burn because our roster was complete trash and we had a rash of injuries. It was more of an inevitability than a choice in 2020. One thing that seems to be pretty clear is that you can't trust that Rhule will consistently make the right decision on personnel/playing time. He's mediocre at best in that regard.

Remember him trotting out Elflein and Erving game after game after as they get embarrassed snap after snap?