SCO96

Brown was picked in the top 10 of the 2020 draft. We have him under contract for two more seasons. There was no need to trade him this offseason. He could still blossom into something special, especially with all of the coaching changes we've made for 2023. But, if he doesn't become more dominant, I probably wouldn't be that opposed to moving him before the 2024 season. If I were offered a #1, or very high 2nd round pick, I'd be strongly inclined to take the deal.

I think it is questionable to call Derrick Brown a legit pass rushing DT. Our DT's combined for 2 sacks last season. DB got 1/2 of that number. I'm old enough to remember Joe Greene and Randy White dominating from the entire line in the late 1970's. I've seen guys like John Randle, Warren Sapp, Bryant Young, Howie Long terrorize QB's from the DT position. Today, Aaron Donald averages more sacks than most DE's. Those type of guys are worth $20 million a season. Thirty-two year old Fletcher Cox has 7 sacks for the Eagles in 2022 despite being several years past his prime. I could even see paying a 25-26 year old Cox that type of money. "So far" Brown hasn't proven to be that type of player. If his current level of play continues thru his current contract and he asks for $20 million a year to resign, then it would be in our best interest to let him move on. You hit the nail on the head when you said "if he continues to improve". I'd take that even further. He needs to become a dominant player at his position before I'd even consider dishing out that type of money. As a GM, if I knew he was looking for that type of contract I'd start looking for his replacement in the draft over the next two seasons in order to have someone ready to replace when/if we decided to part ways.

The 4 hardest positions to fill with "elite talent" (via draft, FA, or trade) are QB, Pass rushing DE, LT, and CB. Those positions are going to almost always command the highest salaries on a competitive football team. If your roster is set at those positions and your team had an above "average O-line" , the franchise should be in the playoff hunt year in and year out. If you have "good players, if not great players" at the other positions you probably going to be a SB contender.

The die has been cast, so there is no going back. But, situations like this is why its obvious that the NFL salary structure ridiculous. Non QB players taken in the draft can go from making 4-5 million per year, or less, to 4-5 times that amount on a 2nd deal. It's great for the player, but when you have 52 other active roster players tough decisions have to be made. I can see why some would be hesitant to pay Burns. I also realize that talented pass rushers don't grow on trees. If they did everyone would have one. You just can't let a guy responsible for 1/3 of your sacks walk away without a sure thing on the roster to take his place...especially when he's only 25 and hasn't even hit reached his prime. I say pay the man. Build a solid team around Bryce and try to reach the SB by 2025. At the same time, you need to start making roster moves to have a young pass rusher (two pass rushers ideally ) in place on their rookie deals when it's time to pay Bryce the big money in 2026. Burn would be coming to the end of his 2nd deal and you could possibly be in a position let him walk if his future salary is too high for the cap.

Burns had 1/3 (12.5) of our total sacks (35) last year, with no true passing rusher threat any where else on the D-line. Marques Haynes had 4 sacks. No one else on the team even managed 3. Our DT's combined for a grand total of TWO. Our 2nd leading sacker was Frankie Luvu (7), an OLB. Despite the lack of help on the line it seemed like half of our message board couldn't wait to get rid him heading into the 2023 season for draft picks(s) which in all likelihood wouldn't come close to replacing his production in the rookie season. I'd say that Brian Burns is definitely undervalued by "some" of the Panther fans.

It's fair to say that no player on our roster played up to their potential under Matt Rhule. I wouldnt be surprised to all of the roster players he drafted improve by leaps and bound in 2023. Good post. I hope your optimism for these two pays off this season...and beyond.

Marty was so bad as a GM that I don't believe he was ever asked to interview with another team for a GM job or any other front office position. We can only imagine how different things would have been if Richardson had brought in a GM with a different perspective and a better eye for talent after he let Gettleman go prior to the 2017 season. Perhaps the O-line would have been fixed; keeping Cam from ever getting hurt. We were 6-2 I think before the bottom fell out in 2018. Perhaps Rivera never loses his job. Or, if he did get fired we could have hired a coach more adept with dealing with the offensive side of the ball in the modern NFL., Rhule almost cetainly would have never been hired, and our draft classes would likely have been much better after our 1st round selection Instead, Richardson went back with Hurney as an "interim GM" and decided to keep him on until he sold the team to Tepper...which has resulted in 5 strait losing seasons.

Great comment. I think you can make an argument that coaching is more important in football than any other of the major professional sports. How many time have we've seen players labeled as bust or cut only to see them flourish under the tutelage of another coaching staff. I'm not sad that either player is gone. But let's be honest. If this current coaching staff was coaching last year's team, I think the Panthers would have won our division with either Mayfield or Darnold playing the majority of the snaps behind center. They would have been able to get the most out of both guys, something that Rhule and Wilks were unable to do.

Haynes was third on the team in sacks with 5, behind Luvu (7) and Burns (12.5). He’s 29 and should be in his prime right now. With the new 3-4 the team may use him more as a standup rusher. This could make him more effective since ESPN is listing his weight at 235…which is awfully light for a 4-3 DE.

I like Bryce Young. I admire the willingness of the team to move up and get us out of our QB purgatory. The front office picked him so we have to roll with him. That said, my thoughts about Hooker are similar to yours. He played against some of the best competition week in and week out in the SEC (TN even beat Bryce and BAMA when they played this past season). Carolina could have probably nabbed him at #39 without giving up DJ, a 2nd and 3rd this year, a #1 in 2024, and a #2 in 2025. Anyway, the die has been cast. All we can do now is see how things pan out in 2023.

It isn't Burns' fault we've only had 22 wins the past years. That lies on Tepper's decision to hire Rhule in 2020. Rhule was the worst coaching hire in franchise history. No one will dispute that. As soon as Rhule was shown the door, this team rallied and almost made the playoffs w/out a top 20 player at the QB position. Burns will probably have a breakout season in 2023 if he can stay healthy. The 3-4 defense may make him even more effective as a pass rusher and the DC is among the best in the league right now. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does with the new scheme and coaching staff.

So glad we didn't make that deal. Those type of trades should happen when you're overstocked at a position, you're tearing down the team for a massive rebuild, or you know there's a guy you can acquire (FA or draft) who is a sure fire bet to equal or exceed the departing players production. Carolina had 35 sacks last year. Burns had 12.5 of them. Haynes had 5 sacks. No other lineman on our roster exceeded had 3 sacks. Our DT's combined for a total of 2 sacks. Our second best rusher was Frankie Luvu (7 sacks). Our ability to rush the passer would be greatly diminished w/out Burns. Now with the new coordinator, we can better utilize Burns and add more players to strengthen the pass rush.

I mentioned D-line because our DT's combined for 2 sacks last season. We literally have no legitimate pass rushing threat up the middle. I was thinking a solid 3-technique DT in a 4-3 would be hard to pass on. But, I forgot that we're transitioning to a 3-4 for the 2023 season. So, I agree that an Edge rushing OLB would take priority over DT and DE.

I think we should be able to find a starter at #39. If legit pass rusher is available (DE or DT) on the board when we pick we need to take him. I'd say the say the same thing for WR, LB, or CB.

Fields is only entering his 3rd year. The Bears really couldn't afford to draft another QB in the 1st round. Fields showed improvement last. But, he isn't' a top 10 QB. I think you can make an argument his isn't even top 15. I can't imagine there's a huge trade market for him. It would have been bad for them to have two #1 QB's on their roster. Arizona moved on from Rosen pretty fast to draft Kyler Murray, but Rosen never looked like a legit QB. Fields has at least shown the ability to make big plays. I think they made the right decision to build around him. I just think the Bears have a history of making bad decisions on the offensive side of the ball...and they're QB's suffer for it.

A franchise history is never irrelevant; especially when you have an ownership that makes the same mistake over and over and over, etc. The two highest rated QB's in Chicago History are Jay Cutler and Sid Luckman. The former had a decent career, but he was never a top 10 guy in the NFL. The latter, Luckman, was a stud...back in the 1940's Luckman retired before my 71 year old mother was born, and he still has more TD passes than any QB in Chicago history except Cutler...and he played at a time when teams rarely threw the football. Chicago unfortunately is a wasteland for QB's. That franchise has usually emphasized defense over offense; and running the ball over passing it downfield. I'm over 50 years old, and the Bears have only had 2 players on offense make the Hall of Fame in my football viewing lifetime: Walter Payton (RB) and Jimbo Covert (OL). The Bears had a chance to hire an offensive minded coach this past season to help their young QB. What did they do? They hired a defensive minded HC at a time when high powered with QB centered offenses are the current trend. None of us are prophets, but I bet you Bryce Young will win, play in, or come close to making a SB in Carolina than Justin Fields ever will in Chicago.

A lot of people would consider the above statment blasphemous...but I understand your point of view. If you, me , or others on this board were employed by a company and did a poor job we wouldn't shocked if we were dismissed or had our salary reduced b/c of poor performance. If we were injured or sick and placed on disabilty, we may get some money, but defintely not 100% of our usual salary. The idea of a guaranteed salary without any exceptions for inury and/or poor performance is ridiculous in the everyday world you and I live in. In the NFL you receive a salary bonus upfront and guaranteed minumum even though you may not ever come close to living up to the expectations the team had when the deal was signed. And, to make make matters worse that contract counts against a salary cap that requires you to pay 52 other players. NFL economics have never made any since to me.

I think we've done a good job in free agency. We need to use this draft to get some immediate playmakers on the field. Whichever QB we choose at #1 is going to help right from the start. If a stud edge rusher, LB, WR, or DB is on the board at #39 we need to bite the bullet and pick the guy. Like someone mentioned earlier, all of that trading down from the 2nd round in 2021 has yet to pay off. The moves resulted in one solid starter (Brady Christensen), a solid platoon RB (Chubba Hubbard), and a guy we still have no idea how good he is at WR (TMJ).

He still may be. You can’t judge a guy based on one preseason game as a rookie under a Matt Rhule coached team. Brock Purdy became somewhat of media darling last year. He led his team to the NFC title game despite being the last player taken in the 2022 draft and showed that he belonged in the NFL. He would have looked like every other QB who played in Carolina from 2020-2022…average/mediocrity to terrible/awful.

As a general rule, I tend to agree. But, it's not always so cut and dry. I think the decison to go for a 2nd contract depends on two things: 1) The talent of the back. Some guys are just in a class by themselves. Eric Dickerson, Walter Payton, Tony Dorsett, John Riggins, Adrian Peterson, Curtis Martin. Emmitt Smith, and Barry Sanders all had 1,000 yard seasons after the age of 30. It would have made sense to extend them after their 4th year in the league when they were in the 25-27 age range. If they were playing today I'd definitely front load the deal so the cap numbers would be lower at the end of the contract just in case the inevitable drop off began prior to 30. 2) The number of carries/hits they've had. Years ago a couple of guys did a studies on the decline of RB's. They found it wasn't necessarily the age that caused the decline, but the number of carries the RB had. a) Most backs who get 370 carries in a season tend to experience a huge drop off the following year. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1271412-why-and-when-do-nfl-running-backs-start-to-decline#:~:text=The Curse of 370&text=A running back with 370,he is named Eric Dickerson. b) When a back reaches 1,800 carries for a career there will often be a drastic drop off over the next two seasons. https://www.numberfire.com/nfl/news/4940/measuring-nfl-running-back-longevity-falling-off-the-1-800-carry-cliff A great back who averages 250 carries a year or less has a good chance of being productive for 7-8 seasons in the NFL before a drastic decline occurs. NOTE: If the average age for back is 21-23 upon entering the league and he starts his rookie year, that does seem to coincide with the age 30-31 drop off point. The ideal situation seems to be finding a great back after the 1st round and extending him after the 3rd year (if he turns out to be elite) so the second contract ends before he reaches the 1800 carry/age 30 threshold. Or, getting a stud in round one and keeping him for the length of the 5 year deal, then franchising him for a season (or two) and have a replacement ready by the time he hits 28.

Jay Cutler played in Chicago from 2009-2016. He threw 154 TD passes which is the most in franchise history. Now take a look at who is behind him at #2. SID LUCKMAN! This guy won 4 titles for the Bears back in the day. He was a top QB in his day and finished with 137 TD passes. He averages 8.4 yds per attempt, which would be stellar even in today's pass happy NFL. Here's the amazing thing about his rank on the Bears all time TD list. SID LUCKMAN retired in 1950! He literally retired the year before my nearly 72 year old mother was born (1951)! No other Bear QB on franchise history has even reached 100 TD passes with the team. Billy Wade Is #3 (68 TDs) He played with Mike Ditka and Gayle Sayers back in the 1960s! He left the Bears after the 1966 season. Jim McMahon is right behind him at #4 with 67 TDs. Mitch Trubimsky is at #5 with 64. There's a reason why Chicago has only won 2world titles (1963-Wade and 1985-McMahon) since LUCKMAN retired in 1950. They have struggled to acquire or develop a true difference maker at the position. History shows that going to the Chicago Bears is one of the worst things that could happen to a young QB.

...or back to back winning seasons It's ironic that shortly after we hire our first offensive minded HC, Mr. Richardson dies the following month. I had the opportunity to meet him once in Spartanburg at the Marriot Hotel. Pleasant Encounter. Condolences to the family.

804 Yards , 6 TD's, 67 receptions for the season Per game average: 47.3 yards, 1 TD every 3 games, 3.9/4.0 receptions per game. That's worth 18-20 million per year!!

The most famous QB in Dallas Cowboy history, Roger Staubach, didn't enter the NFL until he was 27 due to a 4 year stint in the Navy. He didn't become a full time starter until age 29. I'm not saying Hooker is the 2nd coming of Staubach, but I don't think him entering the league at age 25 is in and of itself a big factor in determining how well he plays in the NFL. In fact, the older and maturity could turn out to be a huge positive in his favor.

I don't see too many post on this forum that I consider to be twisted and diabolical , yet clever and somewhat brillliant at the same time.