d-dave

That's what I thought when I saw it. DJ is not a talker at all. He's still dealing with it emotionally because he has to uproot his family to Chicago and it was very sudden. So personally, I get it. For the rest of things: it's all just football talk. Nothing too crazy there. We have some massive snowflakes in this part of the fanbase.

I'm running the big brain: I'm not touching crucible =P MAYBE next iron banner...depends on the armor. Generally I can't stand PVP in destiny since 75% of the times I'm killed, I have no idea what I could have done differently.

LOL, don't be ashamed =P I still can't bring myself to buy the silver lol. So I have some thoughts on the new difficulty curve. While I'm not a "I'll solo legendary campaign for funz" guy, I'm not a complete potato. I have builds, synergy with weapons and exotics. I guess I'm an "intense casual." Last night, I was running the new Heist Battlegrounds playlist. Well, I ran one game. It took 30 minutes to get through it. I was play with guys who died a lot. Like more than 30 times between the other two players. I kept running to rez and getting killed as well. It seemed like one play was just "there" while the other guy and I did the encounters and rezed him (and died almost immediately after). I don't mind doing hard stuff, well for me. I did solo my whole exotic pulse rifle and catalysts last season. That was pretty cool, but I think Bungie stepped too far in making us all incredibly weak. I mean, I'm running 100 resilience with various sniper/energy mods depending on what kills me. Heck, even with Woven Mail, I was getting flattened. I don't think the more casual audience than me is going to keep playing if they are going to keep getting curbstomped constantly in the seasonal playlist activity.

I can see the point: if you're a prideful alpha male, who wants to sign on to giving up your job to a kid? Very few pay well enough to do that! If our rookie is ready to rock, let them start. Cam had a LOT to learn, but still came out kicking butt his rookie year. The bridge QB sounds like a nice luxury, but I think it's up to the coaching staff to earn their paychecks and prep that first player to come out and win.

I imagine that he's testing the market, much like Bozeman did. Bozeman saw that he wouldn't make $10 million a year, and said he'd come back for a place he likes where he's going to get as good a deal as he can. Foreman is probably in the same boat. See who will pay the most because he's a runningback and knows that he's not in the CMC class of big money backs.

What are we at? 6 weeks until the draft? So yeah, this is going to be the ad nauseum talking point for a LONG time. The reality is Carolina can't get it wrong, or else everyone loses their jobs. No pressure guys.

Yep. Some people have criticized it as a preview for The Final Shape, which I get. I wish there were more answers in the campaign. But post campaign is starting to get more interesting. I'm working my way through the rebuilding of the broken servers of the Cloud Striders - which is getting pretty interesting (if the game play isn't slightly repetitive). But I have to say that I LOVE the new build system. While it doesn't have as much flexibility as the old system, it's much easier to put together a build that works well.

I'm conflicted somewhat on the main story. I finished it up last week then started some of the post campaign stuff. I feel like reviewers like IGN needed to play that in order to get more context. The game play of the campaign was really fun. But there were a LOT of important details left out. Many will get filled in over time, but I wish that had been part of the main campaign. Strand is a LOT of fun to play. On my titan, I am working on a woven mail build and it's very FUN! Synthcepts for the win!!!

While you're there, can you get me to next lottery numbers?

While it's been entertaining and occasionally educational to look through people's threads and posts about drafting versus FA Qbs; I kept going back to how do you "create" your own luck? So I was just looking at a list of QBs taken in the first round and found this article/list which includes pre-draft quotes. https://www.insider.com/nfl-draft-first-round-quarterbacks-busts-stars#39-ej-manuel-buffalo-bills-2013-1 There have been plenty of QBs who are average athletes who have reasonable NFL careers. Dynamic athletes are all over the place. Hindsight is 20/20 so we should use it to get better. What do you look for in a guy to be the QB? What is that special quality that separates a Mac Jones from Joe Burrow? How do you avoid a Zach Wilson sized bust? What are the qualities that allowed Patrick Mahomes to maximize his talent? How do you avoid a Blake Bortles or EJ Manuel? For the player - it's guts. Some will say "that dude" or "he's got that dog in him" but it all means the same thing: Do they have the special IT factor that will elevate them to superstar status. Joe Burrow probably has the most "IT" factor in the NFL. Total professional arrogance. But it helps him play better. For the 2023 Draft, which QBs have the IT factor? Who has the guts? To me, it's Bryce Young. So if a guy isn't built with that individual greatness within him, what do you need? That's where coaching comes into play. You need teachers who can mold some of these younger guys into men. Look at Mahomes. When he was drafted, everyone was like "What? It's Andy Reid high?" Well he saw the traits he wanted, and he's since molded Mahomes, allowed Mahomes a system where he can trust his talent, and he's developed the IT factor. So do you take a "safe" QB with all the size and measurables? Or do you take a chance on talent? It's going to be quite interesting to see what our Panthers do as well as how the narrative continues forward.

It's going to be really interesting to see what happens with the number 1 pick, the Panthers, or anything else. I can see both the idea of trading up, picks be damned, for a franchise changer QB. I can also see being patient and waiting for the draft to come to them. I have no clue what will happen. This is a really good staff, so I'm curious to see if they are willing to bet their jobs on CJ Stroud, Will Levis or Anthony Richardson...

Got to love this time of year. The amount of BS flying is insane. Now I will trust the staff to determine who the best QB option is for the Panthers. I have no idea who it will be.

Isn't this a fun part of the off season? For those of you who need it: remember, this is the time of ultimate BULLFECES. Tape tells you what you need to know. I'm not a QB guru myself, I'll trust the team to make that call. If the team feels like they can bet their jobs on fixing Richardson and turn him into one of the best, then that's fine with me. We know that AR looks like a manimal. Dude looks like a video game cheat code. But tape is tape. We'll see how everything turns out. But whoever we end up drafting, which I feel like is a near 100% certainty, it will be up to the coaches to figure out who will give us the best chance to be successful.

I guess I should have posted here. AR is the athlete who we thought he was: a MONSTER. Daniel Jeremiah broke down one of his games, and he did better than the stats would lead you to think. But we're in draft season. There is SO MUCH BS out there. Is he really the smartest QB in the draft? Dunno. But everyone is saying he killed the interviews. So...??? Who knows. Look, if we did end up drafting him, even if we trade up, I'd be cool with it. Our coaches are set up to build a guy like him up. I have no clue if it's a good idea right now. We still have two more months of BS... But we'll have a better idea of the Panthers' plans soon when they either trade up or sign a vet QB.

We all knew the physical stuff would be easy for him. He looks like the stud athlete we knew he was. Passing in shorts is easy so, cool. But you have to go back to the games. Daniel Jeremiah went and charted one of his lesser games, and found that there was a lot of good that AR did in spite of his team not helping. So man, he's a really intriguing player. Teams are saying he killed it in interviews, one of the smartest guys that they spoke to, etc. Part of me thinks that a lot of this is draft talk trying to play the game with other teams. Maybe get someone to overvalue AR. Or he's the real deal. I don't know. I'm excited for whoever we manage to pick, regardless of what we have to give up to get them. Good ole draft season! Edit: Just saw AR toss those long balls. Man, he's just got arm strength for days...

Welcome back Yes, get through Beyond Light (not terrible) but the grind for the Stasis shards is going to be annoying at this point in the game. Witch Queen is incredible! Best story, super fun! I'm curious how the campaign will feel with the new mod system. I'm 2 missions into Lightfall - but I've been a little spoiled by the rest of my media. Apparently I'm one of the few people who didn't take several days off to grind the campaign! I love the locale. It's really beautiful, and it changes between night and day times. Strand is cool in the missions (because you have a turbo boost for ability timers), but it kind of falls flat outside of it because of the long cool downs and not much in the way of neutral gameplay. The gameplay is still fantastic. The look and feel of the game is still great, but I'm not hearing great things about the story for LF. I'm usually more forgiving as a fanboy, but even the other fanboys are like "yeap...missed that one!" So I'll see how it goes.

I hate that it had to happen. But we were absolute garbage when we traded him. He was a major salary cap liability. No one denies that talent he has, and he's really gone to the best possible place for him in SF. They love to run the ball, and put guys in space, and win. He also has a ton of west coast connections with family and friends. I wish we could have kept him, but it would have murdered our cap. I still love watching him make plays. Dude is special, and now he's in a place where the coaches will take advantage of him. I wish him nothing but the best, except when we play. We got a bunch of picks to help us rebuild. It is a very rare win-win for both teams.

The disparity between white coaches and black players has always been huge, and getting more black men (and other minorities) is very important since they make up the majority of the player base. We hired great people and some of them happen to be minorities. That's a win-win. First- we get great coaches who will do a great job. Second- if they get hired off after year 2, we get some picks. Great! But the most important thing is that we get much better coaches. If we have success this year, and we get a lot of our coaches poached, that's a great sign for other assistants. Come to Carolina to get on the fast track to a HC gig. Will help ensure we have high quality coaches, even if they come in for a year or so.

Glad it's not me who has to make this choice. For these guys, this choice will determine the next several years for them. Whew! I hope that if they trade up: we strike gold. I really want that. I have no idea what's going to happen, but maybe getting our character coach guy will move us closer to 55% instead of just 50%.

So it's time for me to hype up my favorite game, time suck, whatever you want to call it! First off, the ViDoc If you've been paying attention to the weekly updates, they've released a ton of information about system changes to D2 under lightfall. Basically, they are trying to again streamline things. From crafting, to UI changes (in game Build Maker!!!) there's a lot of quality stuff coming to D2 in a couple of weeks. This looks like it will be an intense story, part 1 of the finale for the Light and Dark saga. I'm so pumped, and I can't wait to take my crayon eating Titan and punch the witness in the face repeatedly! Strand looks like an amazing ability. It's going to be a nightmare in PVP (good thing I just swore it off after last Iron Banner). I can't wait to play with using strand as a way to hook on to other players and NPCs. The strand punch looks amazing as well. So I'm pretty stoked! I've been super busy with life stuff from work to my dog in the hospital so this is going to be a very welcome distraction! Oh, and because it's a big deal for a potato like me, I solo'd the legendary Seraph Shield. Afterwards, I realized it wasn't that hard. But that's a pretty cool thing for me since I've never been a good player at all.

Mike Kaye was on the Locked on Panthers podcast talking about just such an issue. He was saying that even Richardson could be gone by 5. I laughed. Like really hard. Who in their right mind is going to go all in on Rookies QBs in the top 5? This class??? hahahahaha! Then you think about the general trends in the NFL. If you like a guy, you go get them. Like with what KC and Buffalo did. Like what the 49ers did with Lance (which who knows if they got that right!). Not everyone can fail into the #1 pick. That requires a fair amount of bad luck to be that putrid. Sometimes you have to make some big moves to get the guy who will push you over the hump. I'm not opposed to trading up for the guy the staff thinks they can get the right guy to lead the team for the next 10 years of success. I also don't think everyone is going to be breaking down the doors for these QBs. As we've seen, each pick is risky AF, and more often than not, it comes down to staff just as much as the player. I have no idea what's going to happen. It's going to be an interesting time as we see how the draft landscape changes and what moves the Panthers and other teams make.

As fun as Jackson is to watch, I'm very concerned with his injuries the past two seasons. They cost his team wins. While Jackson is absolutely electric when healthy, he doesn't have the largest frame. And we have seen how even the mold breaking Cam Newton eventually fell apart with injuries. I'd rather gamble on a rookie than tie up our team for half a decade with Jackson.

I think you have to go to the Bill Parcells QB thoughts. https://www.49erswebzone.com/articles/165172-brock-purdy-parcells-rules/ (first hit in google!) https://thedraftnetwork.com/2022-nfl-draft-qb-class-bill-parcells-rules/ (context on KP versus Golden Corral) So there's that. I think if you're drafting a late QB flyer - get them with those traits to have the best shot at hitting on the late round QB. Funny enough, we might see more QBs plucked late hoping to hit on the Brock Purdy jackpot. The reality is that Purdy played well in Shanahan's offense, which is one of the most QB friendly in the entire league. QBs are so incredibly important.

I bet Shanahan is an absolute gold mine of cool information. He's just wired differently, and it applies to football at an incredible level. There's a reason why his OCs tend to become head coaches quickly. Dude is really good at football. The reality is that the Turners were the last good offensive minds we had. They had the experience of Norv and the youth of Scott to craft a really interesting offense. The problem was the timing with Cam's injuries. That sucked. Could have been something really special, ruined by some malicious hits. But Kyle Shanahan is something special. Good for CMC. I have nothing but love for him and wish him well, except when they play us.

Yes it is! Thus far, I'm fairly impressed with it. Aside from a little dust, the card I bought was clean. That's always my biggest worry buying used. Will I end up with something that "looks" the part but doesn't perform. Ran some benchmarks, some games and it's performing within expectations. Today I'm going to see how well it does a water and fluid simulation in Houdini >=)