Ricky Spanish

I tend to be very pragmatic and cautious with my predictions for our record each year. If Young can stay healthy and play halfway decently I see no reason we can't win 10 games this season and at least make the playoffs as a wildcard team. The completely overhauled offensive skill groups, our New offensive brain trust, our new DC with the talent already on the roster, there's no reason we shouldn't make the playoffs.

I hope all these QBs succeed a little bit less than Bryce does, But I hope they do succeed. The NFL is more fun when it has good QBs playing at high levels.

Even if Reich isn't a great coach, I don't get slimey incompetence vibes like I did with Rhule.

I have him stashed in both my dynasty leagues. Low risk, high reward stash and I have the room for him.

9. Carolina Panthers What went right: Carolina got a quarterback and a coaching staff. Trading up to the No. 1 overall pick didn't come cheap. But an organization that desperately tried to acquire Matthew Stafford and Russell Wilson, drafted Matt Corral and dealt for Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield finally landed its quarterback of the future. Again, I don't want to predict how players will turn out before they've played an NFL snap, but coming out of this offseason with top quarterback Bryce Young was a huge step forward for the Panthers after the half measures of years past. I'm more confident in talking about their coaching hires. Everything went haywire for new Carolina head coach Frank Reich in Indianapolis a year ago, but the former Eagles assistant had done excellent work with the Colts up to that point, consistently getting more out of his quarterbacks than other coaches had in the years before or after. New defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero is one of the few people to come out of the 2022 Broncos season smelling like a rose after leading their defense to a 10th-place finish in DVOA. What went wrong: I'm not so sure about the playmakers around Young in 2023. I'm certain the Panthers didn't want to trade away DJ Moore in their deal with the Bears, but if that was the cost of doing business for a potential franchise quarterback, it needed to happen. Moore's departure left them with Laviska Shenault Jr. as their No. 1 wide receiver. Moves had to be made. I didn't love the signing of Adam Thielen, who will turn 33 in August, has played one full season over the past four and just finished an inefficient campaign with the Vikings. Seventy catches and 716 yards sounds reasonable enough for a veteran wide receiver, but he ran 656 routes, the second most of any player in football. He averaged a woeful 1.09 yards per route run, which ranked 83rd out of 97 qualifying wideouts. Some of that is a product of playing alongside Justin Jefferson, but Thielen was at 1.69 with Jefferson the year before. Thielen is still going to have a two-touchdown game at some point in 2023, but I'm not sure he is a starting-caliber receiver anymore. No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young doesn't have elite playmakers around him, but the Panthers have a solid roster on defense. (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images) I'm more optimistic about the DJ Chark and Hayden Hurst signings, and the Panthers supplemented those by using a second-round pick on wideout Jonathan Mingo. No issues there. Signing Miles Sanders to a four-year, $25.4 million deal seemed more curious, even if it's more like a two-year, $13.2 million pact in reality. Sanders has been an efficient running back and is coming off a career year with Philadelphia, but he also was playing behind a great offensive line and was buoyed by the gravity of teams focusing on what quarterback Jalen Hurts could do on the ground. The back's receiving workload also disappeared, with Sanders racking up more receiving yards as a rookie (509) than he did over the three ensuing seasons combined (433). Some of that might be a product of the Eagles' system, but the Panthers essentially gave Sanders the Austin Ekeler contract without that sort of production. Would they really have been worse off if they had just brought back D'Onta Foreman? Or should they have been more aggressive about trading for Ekeler? What's left to do: Figure out what to do with Jeremy Chinn. A second-round pick in 2020, Chinn looked like a potential star at safety for after his first two years in the league. He took a step backward last season, though, and the Panthers signed new safeties Vonn Bell and Xavier Woods in free agency. Chinn is probably not going to be a safety whom you want playing the deep half all that often, but he can be a valuable contributor as a box defender. He could even play some snaps at linebacker in passing situations, but Carolina is set there with Shaq Thompson and 2022 breakout player Frankie Luvu. Can Evero carve out a meaningful hybrid role for Chinn? Does the impending free agent's future lay elsewhere.

"We demand/deserve answers"

Honestly, I'd rather overpay a DE than a RB. It is not financially beneficial to break the bank on RBs in today's NFL. You pay DEs big money because their production is hard to replace. You can easily replace 80-90% of an All-pro RB's production with rookies and vet journeyman, and pay 1/10th the cost to do so. Sanders' deal is probably the most money I'd be comfortable handing a RB these days.

Remember when Charles Johnson got paid and reset the DE Market? He did pretty well, good enough to almost live up to the contract. I think that Burns is better at this point in his career than Johnson was, and I don't think he'll get a contract that resets the market. He's a pro-bowl Pass Rusher. Those guys get paid regardless of who the team is. If we don't give him a contract, someone else will. He's more valuable to us because we have 0 other proven pass rushers on our team. The cap is also going up each year. I don't blink at these contracts anymore. We actually have a GM/FO that is capable of working the money into future void years, something Hurney and Gettleman were completely incapable of. Pay him a top 5 DE contract this season. Watch that become a top 10 DE contract next offseason. Then watch it become a top 15 contract the next year. By then he still won't even be 30, he'll be 28 and up for a potential extension. We may end up overpaying him, but pass rusher is one of the three positions you overpay for, OT and QB being the other two.

Here's mine: Little Caesar's is the best chain pizza restaurant simply based on the cost/quality. I can get a hot and ready Large pepperoni pizza for $7.40, tax included, on the fly, and it is a perfectly fine pizza. Does it taste better than other chain pizzas? Not necessarily. Are Dominos or Papa Johns twice as good as Little Caesar's? Absolutely not. Domino's Large pepperoni is over $14, Papa John's is over $15. They might be slightly better, but I can get two average tasting Pizzas for the price of one slightly above average pizza from anywhere else making Little Caesar's the Pizza of the people.

I finally read this thread for the first time. There certainly are some spicy takes in here.

Ain't no laws when you're drinking Claws baby.

Any snaps that Corral gets this pre-season will be more than he had last pre-season. I hope Corral succeeds one day, but his road to NFL Starter got 10x harder the moment he was drafted under Matt Rhule, and then another 10x harder the moment he got hurt.

Complicated legacy. He did some great things but I don't think he was a great guy based on the long list of women he either assaulted or tried to murder

Ah, so the PFF guys are dumb. That explains it. I just don't see Mingo jumping two players on the depth chart between the vets of Chark, Thielen, and TMJ when all are healthy. I also don't anticipate him jumping over Shenault as the next man up if anyone of the above 3 gets injured.

Me personally, I don't think Mingo sees the field much at all this season. IF (And this is honestly a longshot based on their history) Chark and TMJ are healthy, I see them taking over the 1 and 2 WRs with Thielen as our slot option and main red zone target. We'll have some plays schemed up for Shenault throughout the game to utilize his run after catch abilities, and then there's also Hurst and Sanders getting targets as well. That leaves Mingo, the rookie, on the outskirts with not much to do unless someone gets hurt. Next year if we move on from Chark or TMJ Falls flat, I can see Mingo sliding into the #2 receiver. But if our receivers stay healthy, I don't anticipate him doing much this year.

Looks like Reich is familiar with Jennings, he was on Indy's roster for a bit in 2021. Jennings was on the Texans for a beat and Jackson was doing his thing in the XFL. Stevenson was drafted by Buffalo in 2021 in the 6th round. Scott was drafted by GB in 2020 in the 7th round. Wilson is the first player from Quincy University to get signed to an NFL Roster. He tore his achilies last fall but might have been a late round pick if that hadn't happened. Youngest of the guys we signed. Everyone but Wilson is aged 25/26

This comment is Tommy Maddox erasure and I won't have it.

The NHL Just aired the closing of a 9-1 blowout over the first three goals of an elimination game in the playoffs. Baseball isn't much better. NFL Is just so stupidly ridiculously greedy.

Haven't seen anything and it's been slow news ever since the draft.

I'll expand on this further. @Day1PanthersFan, you're being obtuse if you think Dalton is genuinely believed to be the starter of the team. No one anywhere says that's going to happen. He was brought in to help mentor whatever QB we chose, as well as a proven spot starter in the event said rookie gets hurt or needs some time to get up to the speed of the game in the NFL. He in currently penciled in as the starting QB for semantics reasons. It will not stay that way. Anyone with critical thinking skills realizes and knows this which is why you're being dragged so hard by everyone in this thread.

This was really entertaining and I loved it but you're all also sleeping on the Chargers' Anime Part 2 release video:

For me I think Atlanta is our bigger rival due to the geography and how close we are to each other, but I hate the Saints more, if that makes sense? Either way I'll never get tired of chanting "85 SOUTH" whenever we beat ATL at home.

He's our offensive line's Andy Dalton