SCO96

Mike Singletary is a Hall of Fame MLB who played his entire career with the Bears. He grew up wanting to play for his favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys considered drafting him in 1981 but decided not to for one reason, Gil Brandt didn’t think he was tall enough.. Back in the day, Dallas built their teams based on their expectations of height, weight, and speed. The Cowboys wouldn’t draft a LB if he wasn’t 6 ft tall. Singeltary was 5ft 11 inches. Singletary lettered all four years at Baylor, a university in Texas. He was named All-America twice, and Southwest conference player of the year twice. His coach tried to convince Tom Landry to give him a shot but He and Brandt couldn’t get over the fact that he was 3/8 of an inch shorter than their ideal lb so they picked a guard named Howard Richards in the first round. Then in rounds 4-5 they picked 3 LBs in a row. I was a Cowboy fan back then. All four of those guys were off the team by 1986, and none of the linebacker ever became a starter. But hey, at least all 3 linebackers were 6ft tall. Analytics should help you make decisions like someone pointed out, but that shouldn’t be the deciding factor. You need to make your decision on one thing, CAN THIS DUDE PLAY FOOTBALL? They Cowboys lost back to back NFC title games in 1981 and 1982 to eventual SB winners San Francisco and Washington. The run defense collapsed late in both games. You have to wonder if things may have been a bit different if they’d have had Hall of Fame MLB in those games. We need to see if Christensen can play LT.

I definitely see your point of view. If you could convince me that a guy could come in and make this team immediately better with the current personnel I'd be all for terminating Rhule. Thing is, that would be hard to do without a solid QB on the roster. We also need to revamp the O-line. It's gonna be hard filling both of those holes with only 1 pick during the first two days of the 2022 draft. Free agency is an option to help us, but we can't assume that Carolina is going to be a desired destination for this year's class of free agents after the 2021 season. This would be a much more desirable job for a new coach was coming in with 2nd and 3rd round choices intact. A new coach would literally be starting out with an immediate disadvantage. He'd have to be able to maximize the players contracted talent under contract for 2022 ...AND...hit on practically every day 3 draft choices to put us in a competitive situation.

We all know there is a learning curve leaping from college to pros. I think too many Panther fans overestimated this team heading into 2021. I didn't expect us to make the playoffs this year. I was hoping for a 9-10 win season, setting the stage for a strong playoff run in 2022. However, I didn't think the team would play so poorly this season. Last year 8 of our 11 losses were by one score or less. We were soundly beaten 3 times last season (once to NO and twice by Tampa). Every other game was literally decided in the final minutes. This year we've had games where we couldn't score a point in the 2nd half. And, we got swept by the NFC EAST, a division that didn't have a team finish above .500 in 2020. And, arguably our worst defeat of the season was to the Giants, one of the weakest teams in the league. Our inability to score points in the 3rd quarter is mind blowing. Our drafts and personnel decisions are highly questionable. Not coming away with at least one bonafide starter for the OL this past draft is inexcusable. Brady may not be the answer at LT, but we really don't know because Rhule refuses to play him there despite picking him in the 3rd round.. Drafting WR TMJ in round 2 may pay off down the road, but he really hasn't contributed anything this season. Jaycee Horn is hurt so he gets a pass, but he only played 3 games. You can make an argument that none of our 2021 draftees have had a strong impact thru our first twelve games. You can't have that for a team undergoing a rebuild. Now, we don't have picks in the 2nd or 3rd round this year, so we only get to make selections on Day 1 and Day 3 of the 2022 draft. The CJ Henderson trade is a head scratcher. Even after Horn's injury we had DJ, Bouye, and Taylor. That was a trade we didn''t have to make. Plus, keeping TE Arnold probably would have helped our passing game. I don't care if Rhule is gone at season's end. But, I can see giving him one more year. plus it may be hard finding a guy who can come in and turn things around immediately with the lack of draft choices in 2022. If he does return he needs to be on the hot seat. The current team performance is unacceptable.

Let’s say this a possible strategy to get a 4th year. It could have worked if he and Fitterer hadn’t given away most of our 2022 draft capital. We have a #1, #4, and a #7 I think. If a top LT is available when we pick, I could see selecting him over a suspect/overhyped QB given our oline woes this season. If we still had all 7 draft choices I’d feel a lot better about our chances to significantly improve the team. After our first round pick, we don’t pick again until the last day of the draft. There’s no guarantee free agents are going to want to come here in 2022. If the guys we picked this year to make a huge improvement next year we could be looking at more of the same ineptitude.

I’m not as pessimistic as you about the current condition of our team, but….I wouldn’t shed any tears if the scenario you propose actually took place.

I’d be willing to give him a 3rd year if Brady was shown the door and replaced with a better OC and the offensive line receives a legitimate overhaul in the off-season. If these two obvious flaws are not addressed at the end of the year I doubt I’d watch one game from start to finish next season.

This game may have only been topped in terms sorry play by the fiasco up in NY when we got destroyed by a Giant team without several of their best offensive players. We at least scored a TD in this game. We only scored 3 against the Giants. I could take the losses better if we were more competitive. The defense has some flaws, but overall they’ve played well enough to keep us in most games. The offense is just putrid. The offensive line is terrible which results in poor QB play and an inconsistent running game. In terms of offense, there is nothing that this team does well.

Cam is a 10 year veteran. He’s a former league MVP. If he is that reliant on coaching to practice proper passing mechanics at this stage of his career, then the outlook for his NFL future looks bleak.

I think when it comes to the QB situation we can agree that the answer is not on the roster . PJ has a good arm, but he makes too many bad throws when under duress. Darnold seems to have trouble reading the field. Even during his prime Cam had accuracy issues, but he had a great deep ball. The shoulder injuries have hindered his abilty to push the ball down the field consistently. I don’t think a any DC worries about Cam beating the deep which makes it easier for db’s to sit on his routes. The Oline is terrible which doesn’t help matters, but we aren’t gonna win a SB with either of these guys behind center. I could see keeping possibly keeping Cam as a backup/one year stop gap while a young guy develops, but we need to have a franchise guy (preferably a draft choice) starting by 2023.

Great RB. He’s had a great game today…..but he needs to sit for the rest of this game.

After last weeks debacle I decided to skip this game. Imagine my surprise when I got home and saw that we were up 20-0 just before halftime. Now we just scored a TD in the 3rd quarter. That’s a rarity for his team this season, This looks like it’s gonna be our best game of the season.

Teddy was signed for 3 seasons I believe. That contract was perfect in length because it would give you time to see if Teddy was the guy, or draft a successor if he wasn't. Imagine if we had kept Teddy this season and not traded down in the draft. We would have had our choice of 6 left tackles and/or 3 interior lineman, including Creed Humphrey (the best center in the draft). It's very possible we could have easily walked away with 2 starters on the O-line from the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Having another year in the system and a "healthier" CMC would have helped Teddy's performance. By year 3 I think we could have been a legitimate playoff threat with solid depth on both sides of the ball.

In fairness to Rhule, it's possible that the fracture wasn't picked up by the medical staff until this week. Sometimes, even doctors can overlook something. I fractured my toes years ago, but happened to have an appointment for a physical that week. My doctor pointed it out after the X-ray. I was a little surprised to see how small it appeared on the screen. Back in 2000, Bronco RB (and Hall of Famer) Terrell Davis was coming off a knee injury in 1999 that would eventually result in his premature retirement. He said that when he hit the field again that season he knew something was off even though he had been cleared to play. Five games in the year he had to shut it down. According to an internet site, this was due to a stress condition in the injured leg. But, I can remember reading at that time that he had a fracture in his leg was un-diagnosed/missed at the start of the season. I don't think the staff would send him out there with a fractured scapula on purpose.

It may explain why he didn’t do a better job pushing the ball downfield against the Pats. It may have also affected his accuracy on the pick 6 when he missed an open Ian Thomas. Unfortunately, it doesn’t excuse he end-zone pick. That was just a bad decision. As soon as that ball left his hand I knew it was going to be an incompletion or an INT. Props for suiting up. You guys know that had to hurt.

I will regret not drafting Justin Fields when/if he wins a Super Bowl in Chicago during his rookie contract.

Adding Lineman thru free agency would be ideal, but after the way things have transpired here the past two years, I’m not sure the cream of the crop in the 2022 of FA’s will want to come here.

This is why it's hard for me to fully embrace analytics. They don't tell the whole story. According to the numbers the Cowboy o-line is just a little bit better than our in terms of pass blocking. I think we all would agree that isn't the case. But, we also know that our line doesn't hold blocks very long. It's one of the reasons why Darnold seems to always be on the run. Perhaps other teams have QB's that do a better job getting the ball out of the QB's hand in a timely manner in terms of their schemes. What this does show us is that we do not have dependable blockers in our passing and rushing game.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32176833/2021-nfl-pass-rushing-run-stopping-blocking-leaderboard-win-rate-rankings There's a lot of information here It's quite interesting an worth a read if you have the time (or interest). I'm going to post the data that pertains to our beloved Panthers. I don't fully believe that analytics are the answer to everything, but I do believe some statistics are useful in evaluating how a team (or player) is performing in certain areas. Checkout the below stats on our woeful offensive line. Team Run Block Win Rate (tell us the proportion of plays in which a player "won" his block on designed running plays.) 1. Washington Football Team, 79% 2. Kansas City Chiefs, 75% 3. Baltimore Ravens, 74% 4. Philadelphia Eagles, 74% 5. Miami Dolphins, 74% 6. Dallas Cowboys, 73% 7. Cincinnati Bengals, 73% 8. Green Bay Packers, 72% 9. Cleveland Browns, 72% 10. Los Angeles Rams, 72% 11. Chicago Bears, 71% 12. Arizona Cardinals, 71% 13. Buffalo Bills, 71% 14. Minnesota Vikings, 71% 15. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 70% 16. Indianapolis Colts, 70% 17. Denver Broncos, 70% 18. New York Giants, 69% 19. Jacksonville Jaguars, 69% 20. Tennessee Titans, 69% 21. Detroit Lions, 69% 22. Seattle Seahawks, 69% 23. New Orleans Saints, 68% 24. Los Angeles Chargers, 68% 25. San Francisco 49ers, 68% 26. Pittsburgh Steelers, 68% 27. Atlanta Falcons, 68% 28. New England Patriots, 67% 29. Carolina Panthers, 67% 30. Houston Texans, 66% 31. Las Vegas Raiders, 66% 32. New York Jets, 65% Team Pass Block Win Rate (Pass block win rate metric conveys the rate linemen can sustain their blocks for 2.5 seconds or longer.) 1. Cleveland Browns, 73% 2. Washington Football Team, 68% 3. Green Bay Packers, 68% 4. Los Angeles Rams, 67% 5. New Orleans Saints, 67% 6. Arizona Cardinals, 66% 7. Baltimore Ravens, 66% 8. Kansas City Chiefs, 65% 9. Philadelphia Eagles, 64% 10. San Francisco 49ers, 62% 11. New York Jets, 62% 12. Buffalo Bills, 61% 13. Tennessee Titans, 60% 14. Chicago Bears, 60% 15. Denver Broncos, 60% 16. Seattle Seahawks, 59% 17. New England Patriots, 59% 18. Jacksonville Jaguars, 58% 19. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 57% 20. Indianapolis Colts, 56% 21. Minnesota Vikings, 56% 22. Los Angeles Chargers, 54% 23. Cincinnati Bengals, 53% 24. New York Giants, 53% 25. Detroit Lions, 52% 26. Atlanta Falcons, 52% 27. Las Vegas Raiders, 51% 28. Dallas Cowboys, 51% 29. Carolina Panthers, 49% 30. Pittsburgh Steelers, 47% 31. Houston Texans, 47% 32. Miami Dolphins, 46% We ranked 29th in run blocking and pass blocking heading into last week's embarassing loss to the Patriots. Joe Brady and Sam Darnold certainly have a share in our bad offensive performance in 2021. But, having an offensive line that is among the 4 worst in the NFL certainly doesn't help matters.

It's interesting that you made this comment. For years he worked in the Seattle front office. The one area that the Seahawks seemed to struggle with year in and year out after the back to back SB appearances was the O-line. Some offices just seem to think that a mobile QB like Wilson (and Cam for that matter) do not need a top flight O-line. But, when you look back at the guys with multiple rings from the past 20 years (Big Ben, Eli, Peyton, Brady) they all had good pass blocking lineman during their championship years. Any great team in NFL history that won multiple titles had great o-lines The 1960's Packers The Cowboys, Dolphins, Steelers of the 1970's The 49ers of the 1980's and the Redskins from 1982-1991 (Remember the Hogs ?) The Cowboys of the early 1990's The 1997-1998 Denver Broncos The Brady/Belichik Patriots A solid offensive line is a must.

Not upset at all on passing on Fields at 8. We shouldn't have traded down in the 2nd round. We passed on six tackles and 3 interior lineman (including the top center in the draft) before we picked up T Marshall Jr (WR) near the 60th pick in the draft and he hasn't made any significant impact this year. Any of the linemen would likely have had more impact on the offense this season. Drafting a LT that we considered a guard in the 3rd does't seem very wise in hindsight. Now that we don't have a 2nd or 3rd round pick for 2022 we literally don't have the draft capital to address the O-line in the off-season unless we luck out in free agency.

If anyone is the first to be showed the door I think it will be Joe Brady. I posted this link after the Dallas game and it contained a mind blowing statistic https://www.derp/2021/10/5/22710073/why-is-the-panthers-offense-under-joe-brady-so-bad-in-the-third-quarter Panthers third quarter performance Year Week Opponent Panthers Pts Opponent Pts 2020 14 Broncos 3 12 2020 15 Packers 7 0 2020 16 Football Team 0 3 2020 17 Saints 0 10 2021 1 Jets 0 8 2021 2 Saints 0 0 2021 3 Texans 7 0 2021 4 Cowboys 0 20 Total 17 53 Here are the 3rd quarter point totals in the 5 games since: Eagles (0), Vikings (7)...and those came on a blocked punt Giants (0) Falcons(3) Patriots (0) 20 pts in the 3rd quarter over our last 13 games...and going back to last season I might add...is not going to cut it in today's NFL. That's almost an entire season's worth of games. There is something seriously wrong with how we come out offensively after halftime. And, since Sam wasn't here last season, it can't be blamed entirely on him.

Good post. But, as the saying goes "adversity introduce a man to himself". How's he going to handle this? Is he tough enough to bounce back? Will this wretched performance make him put in the work to get better? Back in the day there was an NFL franchise that had a QB with all the physical tools a QB could ask for. He was strong, could run, and had a canon for an arm. Unfortunately he made a bunch of bad decisions and threw a lot of interceptions like Sam Darnold. He was considered a "dumb" quarterback. He was a a detriment to the team in his early years. The team had to had to rely on a formidable defense to keep them in games. He was booed by the fans. He even lost the starting job for awhile. Then, things fell into place. He fought through the tough times. He actually took the team to the playoffs....and the Super Bowl... the year he lost his starting job. He retired with 4 titles and a league MVP. Anyone who has any knowledge of NFL history knows I'm talking about Terry Bradshaw. Jim Plunkett had a similar trajectory. Things look terrible right now. But, it did for those two quarterbacks as well. The kept their head up and became NFL legends. I'm not saying Darnold will doe the same, but I still think its too early to give up on him...at least this season. I would still like to see what he could do with a competent o-line.

If PJ was a viable option I’d have no problem with him starting Thing is, he’s never looked that impressive when he’s on the field. He has a live arm. But, he misses throws, makes bad reads, and throws INTs just like Darnold. I’ll support whoever goes out behind center, including the practice squad guys. I just dont think they’d do any better. If anything I’d bet they do worse. I’ll admit that I’d love to be proven wrong. If a guy came in to replace Sam and led us on a strong playoff run I think he’d be the toast of the Carolinas.

I never even thought of him as future candidate. I wonder if he’d bring Nick Foles with him?

Not disagreeing with you because I think we need a veteran, but we can’t make an assumption that everyone is just dying to play in Carolina. Did you have someone mind this past offseason?