Captroop

As depressing a thought as that is, it's probably true. He definitely has the highest Madden rating.

Brian Burns like:

Of all the NFL games that are played this year, this is certainly the one that will be played today.

Coaches come and coaches go. In Mr. Scot we trust.

Leave it to the Panthers to have a historically bad season in a season with a weak QB class. But I'll say, I'm kinda optimistic for a couple reasons. Flash back to the 2011 Draft, and Andrew Luck was the generational, once in a lifetime QB that was sitting at the top of the draft board...and he stayed at Stanford rather than having to play for the Panthers. Well, that worked out pretty well for us in the end! And the reason I'm really optimistic we can find a QB of the future in this draft, is we are - for the first time in recent memory - ready for a franchise QB. The problem for a lot of teams drafting in the top 5 is they're every bit as bad as their record indicates. You take Trevor Lawrence and put him on the Jaguars and he's still going to look bad, and that rough transition to the NFL can make it so much harder for them to develop into a franchise QB. We, on the other hand, have the makings of a really REALLY solid pass blocking offensive line. We have a marquis wide receiver. Of course we could use a Greg Olsen-esque safety valve TE and a deeper WR corps, but we have an offense that even a middling rookie QB could step in with and find moderate success. Moderate success out the gate can translate to them developing into a really solid QB.

PJ the tank commander!

Yesterday wasn't a tank job. That's just a team that's had it's heart ripped out. Last week was make or break for us. And it broke us. I contend yesterday would have been a lot different if we had won in Atlanta. The swagger and energy of sitting at #1 in the division, reason to fight, reason to play hard, reason to win. Instead we had the ignominy of our heart-breaking loss being followed up by taking sole residence in the basement of the NFC South. I have a hard time believing the team I watched "play" yesterday was the same team that was on the field the last 2 weeks. No fight. No urgency. Feet for hands. Yesterday I watched a team that looked like they'd lost all reason to hope. DJ, man. I just wish you'd kept your f***ing helmet on. Anyway. The tank is on. Hooray.

Let's go!

Giving possession to the Panthers is a good offensive play for the Bengals this game.

I'm going for a run.

Damn. Refs getting paid by the flag today?

The worst part is this massacre isn't even helping my fantasy team. I'm starting Burrow. Can you at least flip it to Mixon, Joe?

I know I did. I'm not even disappointed today. We had our chance last week. The outcome spoke to exactly the kind of season we were in for.

The entire defense coming back onto the field to do a coordinated celebration isn't a penalty but taking your helmet off is? Funny to see the dichotomy of officiating a good team and a bad team.

But how can that be? He's a #1 overall pick QB.

Good stand by the D. Good adjustment. Let's go PJ

Good teams don't get holding calls against them I guess.

Nah, not mocking him. It was actually supporting him. I wanted to see him get another chance behind a better line before we got Baker. The joke was the fanbase would never accept him after last season, so he would show up in a Groucho Marx mask so he could have a fresh start with the fans.

Or blocked kicks.

I don't. My opinion on Taylor Swift is this; no matter how bad anything Kanye West says or does gets, he will always have a special place in my heart for 2 reasons: Graduation, and successfully getting Taylor Swift to shut the fug up, if even for the briefest of moments.

If he'd kept his helmet on, that would have been an epic Panthers highlight. A 60+ yard game winning reception. The farthest a pass ever traveled in the air since they've been tracking it. Sitting at #1 in the division the same season we fired our coach. It was historic! It could have been up there with X-Clown, or at least the Smitty Houdini act in Houston. But the memory will always be sullied for me, because of that asterisk that immediately after this, he was penalized and it cost us the game.

I'd like to see us pick up one more lineman in the upcoming draft. Maybe a Center or G. But otherwise, this is what we've needed to do for years. Before you bring in your QB of the future, you build a brick wall for him to stand behind, and we have the makings of a quality O-Line that could last 5-8 seasons. It's what Dallas did before the Dak era, and it's what Carolina is finally doing now. Whoever we bring in will be in great position for their talent to shine through.

Multiple things can be true at the same time: DJ should not have been penalized DJ should have known better. We're sitting at #1 in the NFC South if he kept his F***ing helmet on, instead of #2 in the draft order Hey! We're #2 in the draft order The most costly thing that happened yesterday is I think the helmet fiasco broke our kicker, which, if we had any devices on winning the division, will be incredibly costly. Pinero's second miss was because of the 1st miss. He was 14 of 15 on the season for FG, and perfect on XPs going into the 4th quarter yesterday. Now after those game-losing 2 misses, I think his confidence is irreparably rattled. He'll have the yips the rest of the year. Lesson learned. Keep your damn stupid helmet on. Don't give the refs any excuses. We lost, and what's the best we can hope for from the league? Everyone agrees we were hosed. They review and give us a half-hearted apology. Still an L on the record. Keep your helmet on.

Never seen NFL rule analysis in haiku.

I like the picks of Atlanta getting 17, and I think it would be poetic for a "prove it" game like we face this week. Rhule was 1-25 when opponents scored 17 or more. So let's say Atlanta hangs 17 on us. Do we score fewer and prove we are still the same garbage team Rhule got fired for coaching, and last week was an aberration? Or do we score more and prove that we're the team Wilks has the players believing they are, and end the week tied #1 in the division with a tie-breaker? I really don't know, but I want to believe the latter: Panthers 18 - Falcons 17