SCO96

If the rebuild is going to be successful in Carolina, I expected the team to make a strong playoff run in year 3 or 4...not year two. We had a strong draft last year. Despite our 11 losses, we literally had a chance to win 8 of those games on our last possession...and we did that with a fairly mediocre roster, no CMC, and an average QB. Those players from the 2020 draft should get better in 2021. But, we still have some big holes on the team roster. Donte Jackson was the only CB to get an INT last year. The team only had 29 sacks last year. One player (Brian Burns) had 9 of them. Our O-line is below average. We need to have another strong draft to address those issues. If we nail the 2021 draft we could pick up another 3 or 4 starters. We'd then be in position to give up some picks to move up in the 2022 draft to nab a guy or make a run at a veteran via trade or Free Agency. If we can improve the o-line, secondary, and add pass rusher I really believe Carolina would be a desirable destination for a veteran QB in 2022 I wouldn't give up all those picks for D. Watson (who I love as a QB) or Wilson, Fields, or Lance. We need to stay put. As for QB, I'd ride with Teddy (Shudder). Besides, if he had a better O-line, a healthy CMC, better defense, and the knowledge that we all want to move on to another guy, it may light a fire under him and actually make him play better.

There is no way I'd ever give up that much draft captital to move up 5 spots and take a QB who isn't the clear cut best QB in his draft class. Secondly, I would never take a QB out of Ohio State in the first round. I'm still waiting for someome to name an accomplished QB out of that school in the last 50 years. I would wish Fields well and hope to be proven wrong since I'm a Panther fan, but would not leave draft night feeling with very low expectations if the Panthers made such a move.

While I agree with most of what you said, it is easier to throw the ball more efficiently. 1) Terry Bradshaw literally said "1978 was the year the NFL legalized holding" Prior to that lineman couldn't extend their arms to pass block. 2) Tackles are allowed to be partially in an upright stance now to get a jump on speed rushers and slow down the pass rush. They had to be in 3 point stance when I was growing up. 3) Receivers can only be hit only in the initial 5 yards of their routes now. Back in the day you could literally knock the guy down during the route as long as the ball wasn't in the air when you did it. I think that's a bit barbaric myself, but I think extending that contact zone to 7-10 yards would make things a bit harder. 4) QB's get much more roughing calls today & are better protected by officials. I read an interview with Roger Staubach years ago. He said he saw P. Manning get a flag for a hit during a MNF game. He jumped out of the chair when he saw it. He said "I got hit like that every game!" Pass rushers have to literally slow up and watch they way they hit a guy to avoid a flag. Careers are lasting longer b/c QB's don't get hit as much. 5) I think PI is called pretty well in terms of defensive contact. But, WR's are routinely allowed to push off with little consequence...especially down field. A receiver has to blatantly push off to get a flag now. If a guy can't throw the ball it doesn't matter if he has the new rules or not. But, an accurate guy can thrive in today's game if he has a good supporting cast.

I think the NFL know exactly what they've done. Their intent was to drive up scoring and that is exactly what has happened. The prolific statistics we see every year are a result tilting the game in favor of the offense. During the 1977 season Drew Pearson led the league in receiving with 870. He's the last guy to win the crown with less than 1,000. Some of us old school guys like a good defensive slug fest. The general public...not so much. Most casual fans I spoke with after the last Rams/Pats Super Bowl absolutely HATED that game. They thought it was boring. The Eagles/Pats 41-33 game more to their (and the NFL's liking). With even female fans hooked on fantasy football things will never go back to the old days. If defenses EVER get an advantage, the rules committee will find a way to negate it. I am surprised that QB is so bad at times. The league has made it so much easier to throw the ball these days.

You raise an interesting point about drafting Mond (or another guy for that matter) after the 2nd round. A lot of people feel that you can only find a "franchise guy" in the first two rounds. I disagree. While the guys drafted higher have a greater chance of success, we do have examples of guys who have become solid starters in the league in rounds 3 thru 5. Tom Brady was a 6th round pick. Tony Romo and Kurt Warner were UNDRAFTED and both guys had successful NFL careers. I think those later round guys may be less talented upon entering the NFL. But, here's the question we all need to ask. Are coaches capable of grooming the players drafted later into quality starters? Hidden gems are found in every round in the drafted and even among the undrafted players. I think in some years you can find some QB's there is well. The one thing you can't really see on film is the willingness to accept good coaching and the will to succeed. I think some potential starters been written off by teams b/c of their draft slot and and never got a real opportunity to grow into a solid QB.

I'm surprised our defense ranked as high as it did last season. Our defense had 29 sacks last year. Brian Burns had 9 (a respectable total) of them which is almost a one-third of our team total. Efe Oboda had 5.5. Marquis Haynes had 4. Our DT's (Brown and Kerr) had a combined total of 4. Those numbers aren't going to get it done in today's pass happy NFL. I remember watching several games where it seemed that we just couldn't make the QB uncomfortable in the pocket. Too make matter worse the team only had 7 INT's. Donte Jackson had 3 of those...which is almost half. He was the only corner on the team with an interception in 2020. Four other defenders had 1 each, and one of those was a LB (Tahir Whitehead). Those numbers are terrible. The pass rush should complement the pass coverage and vice versa. We don't have enough talent to field a FORMIDABLE defense. I have no doubt our D-line will get better as the players age, but our secondary is in desperate need of a play-maker at CB. We could use a ball hawk at Safety to help out Chinn. And, none of the LB's on our roster are true difference makers. You don't have to account for them in the game-plan like you do with the guys in Tampa Bay If we can't get a QB at 8, I would have no problem with the team taking a CB, pass rusher, or even a LB to improve the defense...although a LT would be a very nice addition.

A lot of us on the Forum agree with you, but I would guess almost 50% feel like we have to get Wilson, Fields, or Lance THIS YEAR or franchise is forever doomed. All of these guys have question marks. Fields in from OHIO STATE...nuff said Wilson has nice numbers, but he really hasn't played against any elite programs from the power 5 conferences. That's not his fault, but it does leave some room for doubt. Lance didn't even play last year after he opted out of the spring FCS decision. Here's a link to a good article on him. I'll post a portion of the article below the link. https://247sports.com/Article/ESPN-Mel-Kiper-Jr-calls-Trey-Lance-most-fascinating-player-in-NFL-Draft-2021-North-Dakota-State-Football-160732511/ ESPN NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. believes Lance is one of the most fascinating players in the draft. "That's the most fascinating player in the draft probably in a long time is Trey Lance because of the circumstances you had to deal with COVID," Kiper said on the latest First Draft podcast. “Only one football game they played. If you go back to that game, whether it was rusty or pressing, he did not throw the ball well. He was 15 of 30 against Central Arkansas, threw the first interception of his career. As I said, it was 15 of 17 starts he threw the ball 23 times or fewer. You had five games in 2019, 56.5 or less in terms of completion percentage. This is a ultimate leap of faith on talent. If you're taking Trey Lance and you're giving up all that to go up from eight to three to get him if you're Carolina Panthers. I get you're in a division with Atlanta. Matt Ryan can't be there forever. Tampa Bay, Brady not gonna be there forever, and New Orleans is still figuring out Taysom Hill. “So I get you want to find the quarterback you feel most strongly about. I understand that completely, if it's Trey Lance, great, do it. But Trey Lance, to me, the most difficult and the most fascinating player to evaluate, since I've probably been doing this and I've been doing it for 43 years." "I think Lance, all these quarterbacks can play right away, but he's got to sit for a year or two. He's 20 years of age. Doesn't turn 21 until early May, arguably the youngest player in this draft...So to me, he's got to sit, watch and learn. You have Teddy Bridgewater will be kind of that bridge to Trey Lance if you go that route." ---- If he's there at 8 I can see taking a chance. But, I'm not giving up several years of high choices to nab him at #2 or #3.

That "draft chart' bothers me. It over values the top 5-10 picks in comparison to the other slots. I could see giving up a 1, 3, and 4 in this year's draft to move up 6 spots if you felt Wilson was a sure thing. Or Maybe a 1,2, and 4. Why on earth do you have to give up a 1 and a 3 in the 2022 draft as well? Well, you have to because the "draft chart" says so. You have to make sure the other choices add up to the value total of the #2 slot. Maybe...just maybe...that #2 pick ain't worth all that and is actually overpriced. I vote no.

You're right about Florida State pass rushers, but a bust on the D-line won't set you back like a bust at the QB position. I won't tell you my exact age, but i'm old enough to remember the Bradshaw, Staubach, Stabler era of pro football. Tell me a an exceptional NFL QB out of Ohio State, Alabama, or Penn State since 1980. Outside of Carson Palmer give a good QB out of USC since 1980. If you take away Joe Montana (1979 draft), Notre Dame hasn't had a solid QB in the NFL since Joe Theisman and he played with the Redskins from the mid 70's thru the mid 80's. You just can't ignore things like that if you plan on drafting your next "Franchise QB", especially if you're willing to give up a boat load of draft choices to get him.

On offense the hardest position to fill beside QB is LEFT TACKLE. I think Sewell is more of a sure thing than any of the QB's not named Trevor Lawrence. I'm still baffled so many people on this board are willing to trade up lose draft choices for Justin Fields. Fields is product of Ohio State, that alone should disqualify us from taking him in the 1st round. Zach Wilson throws a nice ball. He put up some gaudy numbers. But, I don't think BYU even played a team from a power 5 conference this past season. All the teams I remember seeing on their schedule were from the Sun Belt, Moutain West, Big South, C-USA, conferences. That doesn't mean he won't be any good, but he isn't a sure thing either. I've always looked at our rebuild as taking 3-4 years to compete for a conference title. I think the world won't end if we continue to build a solid roster and get our future QB in another draft or acquire him thru a trade or free agency.

I heard Dak Prescott use that argument as well. Still, I think Brady would take less money even if he wasn't married to a super model. He seems to be obsessed with being the best AND winning titles. He realizes that's a lot more difficult middle and bottom half of the roster is stocked with below average/marginal players. Russell Wilson will have made $140 million on 3rd contract alone when it expires in 2023. He'll be 35 at that time. Would it ruin his financial future if he decided to take a fully guaranteed deal (ex 3 yr 60-75 million) on the condition that the team use the money to improve the overall roster. Let's be honest, neither he, nor his kids, nor his grandchildren, will ever spend the money that he's already earned.

A great QB should be the highest paid player on the team. I think most of us are cool with that, but 51 other players need to get paid as well. NFL rosters are by far the largest in professional sports. Just for the heck of it, I decided to add up how much it would cost to have a top paid player at each spot on the Franchise tag chart I posted earlier (QB, DE, WR, LB, CB, OL, DT, S, RB, TE). It would cost you almost approximately $150 million to have one player at each position. Every position listed requires more than one player at that postion on the field at all times except QB, TE, and RB (unless you use a FB a lot). Last year's cap was just under $200 million. You'd have to pay the other 42 guys with the remaining $50 million. Of course, due to the pandemic, the cap is dropping to 180 million which will make the situation even worse. You literally have to decide on which positions are of most value and hope you cheaply fill the other ones. If you can't find cheap talent in the draft your chances of competing year end and year out for title are pretty slim.

To this day, no QB has one a Super Bowl with a cap hit over $30 million. Yet, owners keep allowing the agents get record deals for their clients every year. They could have stopped this nonsense year ago. When an agent walked in touting his guy while attempting to reset the QB market the owner or GM should have said "Brady is the best QB in the league. I'm not paying anyone more than the makes." End of discussion. Now, it's become so bad, that people say you have to win a SB with a QB on his rookie deal, because he essentially eats up all the cap on the 2nd contract. That's backwards. You should have a greater chance to win a title as the QB matures and gets better. In the current market conventional wisdom says when the stud QB hits his prime, let's surround him low priced contractual players and hope for the best. Then again, this is the same league that once paid rookie 1st round draft choices (before they had played a down in the league) more than established veterans simply because of the spot they were taken in the draft.

I think Russel Wilson is a great QB and seems to be a genuinely nice person. But, I think some of the blame may lie in his court. He's asked for big time money on his last two deals. According to Spotrac (https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/seattle-seahawks/russell-wilson-9885/) "Russell Wilson signed a 4 year, $140M new money extension with the Seattle Seahawks on April 15, 2019 that included a $65M signing bonus, $107M of total guarantees, and an average annual salary of $35M. At the time of signing this deal was the highest average paid contract, most total guarantees, and biggest signing bonus in NFL history." In a capped league you can't take up to 20%-30% of the salary cap for one guy (QB), pay the other 51 guys on the active roster, and expect to have depth at every position. It's even harder for Seattle because the team is usually in the playoffs and picking at the end of each round. And, this year they don't even have a 1st round pick. He won't be getting a significant O-line upgrade this year unless the current ones on the roster significantly improve, they find a hidden gem (or gems) in the draft after the 1st round, or find a couple of solid mid-tier Free Agents. As we Panther fans know, quality offensive lineman don't grow on trees. You are lucky just to find a solid lineman these days (especially LT). Then, after their initial deals you have to pay them. Take a look at the estimated franchise tags for 2021 below. Wilson's cap figure for 2021 is $32 million. If they paid the current market value for a top O-lineman it's just over $14.5. those two salaries would eat up over 25% of this year's cap space and you'd still have to pay 50 other guys. This year cap is estimated to be $180 million. https://overthecap.com/franchise-transition-and-rfa-tenders/ 2021 Projected Franchise and Transition Tenders Position Franchise Tag Transition Tag QB $24,112,000 $21,749,000 DE $17,752,000 $14,811,000 WR $16,430,000 $14,269,000 LB $15,657,000 $13,406,000 CB $15,266,000 $13,202,000 OL $14,507,000 $13,156,000 DT $14,178,000 $11,405,000 S $11,196,000 $9,550,000 RB $11,112,000 $8,942,000 TE $10,156,000 $8,570,000 ST $4,792,000 $4,382,000

They're talented enough to win without their A-game against most teams. But, most teams don't have a defense as talented as Tampa's. They've got a GREAT PASS RUSH, a good LB core, and a good secondary and great team speed on the defense in general. I can't help but wonder if KC will rebound from this. In the early 2000's the Rams appeared to be on the verge of becoming an NFL dynasty and the SB loss to the Pats in 2001 squashed that. We all thought Seattle was on the verge of becoming a dynasty, but their loss to the Pats squashed that. Now, another team QB'd back Tom Terrific has squashed (at least for now) the next NFL dynasty. With all of the deals they've handed out...and the fact that the salary cap may be going down in 2021, it's going to become harder for the Chiefs to hold on to their players. And, last night's game plan is going to copied by every defensive coordinator in the NFL in 2021. I wouldn't automatically pencil them in as AFC champions next season. The loss last night could possible be "the beginning of the end" for the KC Chiefs potential dynasty.

To be honest, I cut the game off after Mahomes threw the pick in the 3rd quarter while the score was 28-9. I knew the game was over so I bailed. Based on your post, maybe Reid realized the game was a lost cause as well...or felt Eric B could give them a spark. Let's be honest, Reid had some tough days leading up to the Game. Thanks for clarifying things.

I'm not saying you are wrong...but...how do you know that's 100% true?

It shouldn't affect them at all. From what I've read the thing that's holding him back is the perception that he doesn't do much in KC. Andy Reid calls the plays and deserves all of the credit for the offensive success. If Reid gets the credit for the good performances, then he should get the blame for the poor ones as well. Bieniemy's perception around the league shouldn't change based on last night's performance in a perfect world. But, if you head over to Pro Football Talk people are already saying that he failed to step up last night while Reid was distracted because of the drama with his son.

I agree with what you posted. That's why I was surprised Watson signed that huge extension prior to the 2020 season. The bad front office moves were known before new deal. As a 1st round pick in 2017, he'd be entering the last year of his deal this season and could walk at season's end unless he was franchised. I'd love to see him succeed elsewhere, but since he's only one year into his new contract I can see why Houston is unwilling (at the present time anyway) to trade him.

I'd give this post two thumb up if I could. Teams win SB's...not just quarterbacks. Before the Super Bowl Brady said the game wasn't about him, it was about the Tampa Bay team. That Tampa roster is stacked and much better top to bottom than the Chiefs. If you remember, we almost beat those guys at Arrowhead this year. We need to build more depth to compete. Giving up all of our high draft choices for a QB isn't the way win a title. We need more talent...along with a QB get back to the Super Bowl.

As great as Brady IS...in his last two Super Bowls his defenses have given up a total of 12 points. Let that sink in. It's a lot easier to win when 10 pts is enough to beat the opposition in his last two title games. Shout out to Brian Flores and Todd Bowles.

I agree. I may have even been willing give up higher choices (like a 3 and 6, or 4 and 7). Stafford is going to be better than any rookie coming directly out of college. We'd still have our #2; and our #3 or #4 depending on which package was more acceptable to the Lions. After 2021, all of their compensation would be received. The Rams gave up a #3 in this years draft in addition to their first round choices in 2022 and 2022. Their highest draft pick for 2021 is a #2. They don't have a #1 for this year (I think it's because of the Jalen Ramsey deal with Jacksonville). There's no way the Panther could've afforded to give up #1 choices in 2 consecutive years (2022 and 2023) and their 2nd highest draft choice in 2021, which would have been a 2nd round pick. I think their offer was reasonable. I'm glad the Rams are getting fleeced instead of the Panthers.

Good point. A-Rod is an elite QB statistically, but he always seems to fall short in the playoffs. How come? The Packers are weak in other areas (secondary/pass rush) and it becomes quite apparent in big games. Russel Wilson can't seem to make it back to the big game either...for pretty much the same reason. I'd rather see us solidify are roster with theses high draft choices. I don't think we need to reach for any of these guys after Lawrence. If we don't get one in the first round, there's always next year and even later in this draft. Welcome to the Huddle rookie. I'm gonna upvote your first post with a beer!

I have no interest in Justin Fields. He seems poised to continue the long line of NFL busts that tend to come out of Ohio State. I hope he comes off the board early so we can put any talk about taking him to rest. I just hope we don't decide to trade up to nab him.