KSpan

I think they were feeling themselves a bit much coming into the game and it compounded the 'bad day' aspect of things. Either way, it happens, and Campbell is a good coach overall. They need to cool it a bit with the trickery but not much, easy to get too cute and that's exactly what happened with the Williams dagger of an interception.

Luvu wanted to leave and was not going to stay no matter what. Can't blame him. No one in Carolina could figure out how to properly use Chinn and he sure wasn't a fit for Evero's cloud-soft whatever it is. Chinn had options from other teams and ultimately chose Washington due to scheme fit - the attacking style is working out well for him. I'm still not convinced his best fit isn't as a WLB/SUBLB but Washington seems to have him as close to his rookie performance as anyone thus far.

What comments exactly? The one where you damn with faint praise? "While I agree that there are better candidates to bring that here, let’s look at why Quinn could be that guy to at least stop the bleeding" Or the one where you make no assertion whatsoever about his potential for success and list every possible outcome? "Whether he turns out to be a successful McCarthy style retread, the Defensive version of Frank Reich, or a transitional guy who hovers at .500 is yet to be seen."

Lions are the best offense in the league. That's doing just fine in this situation. Not ideal, but staying in the game.

What narrative is that exactly? I said it's a dumb 'stat' in all cases for all QBs. Analytics and data analysis has its place for sure but the more arbitrary, esoteric things like this can be dumb. Guess my lack of narrative doesn't fit your narrative though.

I just find that particular esoteric 'stat' to be an eyeroll for any QB and make fun of it wherever it pops up, always have. The fact that it was tossed out ad nauseum across Pantherland these last weeks led to my sarcastic comment. Bryce played better for sure, but the BIG TIME THROWS stat itself is silly in any context.

And hear about BIG TIME THROWS.

I feel the same as my initial assessment - mid- to low-level starter over time with occasional flashes of more, a la Teddy and Alex Smith. I now believe he has way more chance of maintaining that type of performance over time than I did after the first 2/3 of his career starts, but it is going to take another 1/2 to full season of next-level play to buy into him being good enough to really be worth counting in the 'franchise QB' territory. If he does it though then I'll be wrong and everyone involved will be the better for it. Will revisit it around Weeks 6-8 next year but won't give it a second thought until that point. That said, my bias is that I think you have to keep swinging until you get a true upper-tier guy if you want to be perennially competitive in this league. If your QB isn't clearly in the top 5 of the league, then he's not good enough to win without the stars aligning. Teams spending that kind of money on a Tua, Trevor, Kyler, Geno, etc are just trying to maintain a status quo and hoping that the stars align and lightning strikes for a season. That speaks as much to the business of the NFL though since teams need fans and fans need hope, so it is what it is.

As if him being currently employed actually prevents anything... come on now. That's exactly why there wouldn't be anything publicly known, but we aren't naive enough to think that the conversations like that don't take place. They absolutely do, and quite often, in one way or another. It's the same thing with fans declaring "Why didn't we talk to So-and-So player?!?" when they sign with someone else; in many cases preliminary conversations took place, it was just clear it wasn't going to work and there was no upside to either party disclosing that. Exact same thing that happens in every business and industry in the world. With respect to Evero, I've never been a big fan and don't like the kind of scheme he runs (which is not exclusive to him or Carolina these days). I do believe/am willing to give the benefit of the doubt that if Canales and Morgan (or any other staff in this situation) thought a better option was available and viable at this time, they explored it before this particular news about Evero staying came out.

Who says they didn't? We have absolutely no idea what all goes on behind the scenes, be it the coaching staff, free agents, or anything else. No reason to automatically assume that anything the public didn't hear about never happened... in fact, I'd say that a sign of a good staff and FO is the ability to operate without everyone knowing every detail.

Which has nothing to do with the comment that was made responding to the claim that Teddy never had a game 'half as good' as Bryce vs Atlanta, which is demonstrably refuted. Caveats, qualifiers, disclaimers... that game goes both ways. The definitive statement about franchise QB status will be made throughout the first half of next season.

Nothing I said was incorrect or twisting any kind of truth. Penix did not cause the Falcons to lose, which is exactly the position people have been making about Bryce for weeks now. It's the same thing and the only point I was making.

Absolutely, but while signs are pointing up it's still too early to know Carolina did just that. With respect to the general question, does he deserve credit for maybe finally getting the f out of the way like he should have done from Day 1? Same standard of proof here... jury's out. Seems like he may have actually gotten something right, but the first half of next season will be much more definitive for everyone IMO. The bar has been raised - can it continue to raise?

Obviously, yes - I live in KC and have watched the entire Reid era (and long before as well) firsthand. But he absolutely was Smith's competitive spark that year, and if Smith had not come out firing Mahomes would have been on the field. Reid and the FO kee what needed to be done.

Did you seriously just suggest using social media comments as some sort of barometer for athletic performance? What an absolute clown show of a comment.

No, it would not - Dalton was clearly enough. All i said was that they need to keep an air of competition. You are flat out making things up at this point.

Where did I say to spend a draft pick or a bunch of money? Hint: I didn't. The threat of Dalton was clearly enough this year as. A 'cheap vet backup'. Stop putting words in my mouth, you look foolish doing so. That aside, Bryce absolutely did not prove anything long term - that can not happen until next year. No player can do so with a samp size this small and with the abysmal performances put on film previously. It would be foolish for the team to not have a continuing development plan that does not include a viable alternative.

No, you made up the BS strawman that you posted first and I responded to for giggles. All I said was that the team should consider keeping competition if they feel it would benefit him.

Point being what exactly? The corollary here of course is that if he had been challenged sooner instead of anointed and not challenged, he would have performed better throughout his career. Which is almost what I'm suggesting the team continue to consider with Bryce... Craziness, I know. I mean, who would think that a guy that clearly benefitted from competition might still benefit from some degree of it in the formative years of his career?

Where did I say any of that? I didn't. However, let's pretend for a second that I did. If the competition is indeed a catalyst of Bryce's performance, and it sure appears to be, would it not be sage to keep that solidly in place rather than risk decline in performance? Is that not worthy of prioritizing in some way, shape, or form? And is that not the responsibility of the FO to address such priorities? Boy, if you don't stop...

That goes both ways. Carolina should have lost vs the Cardinals and today if not for Kyler and Atlanta's kicker and defense, and the Saints and Giants games were both FG margins as well, and those games were not high scoring. Last year and earlier this year can't be ignored completely - it doesn't work that way for such a drastic shift and small sample size. However, there is a definite trend of notable improvement and scoring in recent weeks and IMO Bryce and the offense coming out strong next season can carry a lot of weight toward that trend being permanent.

Except Lamar did it yesterday. Has to be shared at best, unfortunately.