BrianS

Here's the problem I have with all the "trade down" talk: Either Howell is a franchise QB or he isn't. Bottom line. If he is a franchise QB, forget trading down, you draft him. If you think he's a franchise QB, you draft him. It's really that simple. What the fans think or believe is utterly irrelevant. The Panthers problem is their evaluations at the QB position have been complete dung since we took Cam Newton. I'm not sure what's changed there. What makes any of us believe in their evaluation? Pickett? Corral? Howell? I dunno man. Sometimes you just gotta take a swing. I just wish I felt better about the guys who were making the calls on who to swing for.

Unlike Darnold, Baker has won games in the league - even one in the playoffs. I worry however that Baker just might be good enough to win 7-8 games here. I would not mind him here, if our evaluation said he could be the guy. Problematically, I don't trust our evaluators. And that's the real problem. If we had solid evaluators, and they said he was the guy, bring him in. Get him here. Draft a tackle. Unfortunately, we can't trust our eval. And then Baker wins 7 games, we're drafting in the teens, and no chance to draft a guy we REALLY like once Rhule is gone. This franchise is so screwed up man.

Kyler Murray is a GOOD QB. It sounds / seems as if he's looking for GREAT QB money. That is what I would be concerned about. Asking for great QB money before he's really showed it. He's improved every year, which is what you want. I'd just like to see a consistently good level of performance game to game. He still goes missing at times.

Rhule needs to grasp and shred of credibility he can get at this point. I'm sure he'd love it to come in the form of Kuechly returning to the Panthers in some role.

I don't think Pittsburgh can afford it. If they wanted our pick, we'd ask for their first and second this year and probably their first next year to make the trade. Their pick value in R1 is very different than ours. Seattle is a possibility if they have their eyes on somebody. The could probably have our pick for their first and one of their seconds this year. That might be something they would be willing to do depending on their level of commitment to the guy they want.

While his career may have been short, I don't know that I've ever seen a better defensive player than Kuechly. The only one who comes close is Lawrence Taylor.

Saying that someone "reeked of alcohol" is very different than saying they were intoxicated. A guy I played with in college came to practices and just reeked of it, but he wasn't intoxicated. He was just sweating it out the day after. FWIW.

I am actually less concerned about the knee than I am about the offense he played in. Air Raid QB's typically don't fare all that well in the NFL. But, obviously: Patrick Mahomes. Strong is going to get drafted. He's going to get a chance to take snaps in the NFL. He's a risk, yes. But honestly, I'd rather draft Strong than Willis. Strong has actually shown things against big boy competition. He's been remarkably consistent over the last two years despite the injury. What I like about him is that you saw the growth from his first year starting at Nevada to his second and then he continued to perform that way the year after. He showed growth, and proved it wasn't a fluke.

I'm all for drafting a great player, but dude, we aren't beating NO this year. It's just not happening. That defense is salty AF and no matter who we have at QB they're gonna be seeing ghosts. And now the chairman and CEO of the Taysom Hill fan club is gone, so we don't have that to fall back on. Ekwonu looks good, but so do Cross and Neal. I'd rather have Ekwonu or Neal just because they have legit positional flexibility whereas Cross is a tackle. While I'm dreaming I'd like to have a second round pick as well so we can at least start rolling the dice on finding our franchise QB without wasting our first round pick on a lesser talent.

I'm not sure the visits are as much about who you end up drafting, but who you eliminate as a potential draftee.

This. All these "running" QB's get figured out eventually and nearly always have a shorter shelf life than your pocket passers - or even your mobile but NOT running QB's. I want a guy who even if his legs are failing can still scare the defense. If John Elway or Steve Young were playing hurt / unable to run, they could still just kill you. We need a bit of that around here. I'm not convinced any of these rookies will be that, but Willis is the LEAST convincing of them all.

That is a lame way to say the guy caught 26 balls for 300 yards last year.

No. Think about it. Let's say Person does have connections to some of the Panthers players. If he starts naming names in "print" of those who may not be sold on Darnold, how likely do you think those players will be to answer the phone again? If a player publicly makes a statement, of course, Person can report that. But when you're building relationships in an effort to get interesting tidbits, you can't out your sources.

Forget about downfield stats and stuff. Just look at accuracy period. It's a huge indicator unless the team is running Air Raid or something silly. (Yes, I'm looking at you Carson Strong.)

In all fairness, if Ridder had come out last year the flaws would have been exposed at that time, despite his great season. It's not like his game went from perfect to flawed in 12 months. You can't hide that stuff once people start to look hard.

Ladies and gentlemen, the coach of YOUR Carolina Panthers . . . Matt Rhule! smh.

I mean, yea, I really don't care morally. If you aren't hurting anyone puff away man. The problem is that the NFL cares. They have rules. They have testing. The law in the state where he was cares. Obey the laws. It's just so dumb, I can't understand how it keeps happening to these athletes who should be getting better advice.

Inconsistent? No, actually he's been pretty consistent. He should never have played hurt this year, that was dumb. Someone should have given him better advice. You know what's not consistent? The Browns head coach. Baker played for FOUR head coaches four years. That's not the path to success for a raw young QB, and Baker has done fairly well. He's not a big improvement over what we have? Did you watch Darnold? Sam Darnold is . . . awful. I mean, tragically bad. Surely you don't mean PJ. Lead the team? The guy has 7 game winning drives in his 3.5 year career. If he plays as long as Cam has, he'll have more than Cam. I don't have any questions about Cam. Nor about Baker. The Browns are asking little because Baker has them over the barrel. They need Baker gone in order to make moves in free agency. Honestly, this is the main reason I don't see us getting him. We can't afford him. We need Sam gone in order to bring in a good QB.

Who cares indeed? Oh, wait, the NFL. They care. Smith was dumb. Dumb as rocks. The guy is a bubble player. How many years did it take him to get to the NFL? How much blood, sweat and tears? To jeopardize the best job he will likely ever have, he deserves every bit of whatever befalls him. Make your choices, live with the consequences. Sometimes the lessons you most need to learn are the ones that are the most painful.

Earlier this week on the Rich Eisen show Ian Rappoport was saying that he thought the Panthers were more likely than the Seahawks to sign Baker. Make of that what you will.

You can't make this (*@#$ up!

It's a one year deal. This is fine. If one of the young guys takes a step, we can cut Burris and it doesn't hurt us. Unless of course they guaranteed his salary. I haven't seen details.

Joe Burrow would like a word. Justin Herbert would like a word.

Over the last 25 years, first round QB's have "hit" at a rate of about 50%. For all other rounds combined, the number is about 10%. Those are the numbers.

I get what he's saying, but there is a big difference between Jackson State and Ole Miss / Mississippi State. I mean, objectively it seems like the best use of time for the Panthers yesterday would be watching Malik Willis, no? Today, Ole Miss and State is a pretty full day. As a reminder, there were NO players from Jackson State invited to the combine.