Peon Awesome

What Ericksen had was likely Vfib, not afib. Most people with afib have no symptoms. It can be an issue if the heart rate gets too high, where someone might feel palpitations, light-headedness, chest pain and/or shortness of breath, but more often than not, patients don't even know when they have it until it comes up incidentally on an EKG or heart monitor. Meanwhile, Vfib causes cardiac arrest and death if not treated immediately. While I'm surprised Watt is playing the same week as a cardioversion, it's not completely outlandish if the shocking reverted him to a normal rhythm. That being said patients often eventually jump back into afib again even after the shock. So there's a good chance this might not be the end of it for him.

On the one hand, I can watch the game in my warm, dry home, on my 85 inch 4k TV with my own supply of craft beer, or I can drive 3 hours, pay $20 for parking, pay $30 for nosebleed seats, another $10 for some crap beer, sit through intermittent rain showers at 50 degrees for 3+ hours to watch subpar Panthers football, then sit in traffic for over an hour to get out of downtown, followed by another 3 hours to get home. It's just such a tough decision. Now I'll admit, if I was still living in Charlotte, I'd be tempted. But even then tickets are a fraction of what you're going to ultimately pay and the sitting in traffic for eternity, especially God forbid after a painful loss, is just straight misery.

The interview with Rhule is included here. If anyone finds something in what Rhule said that sounds like it's throwing DJ under the bus, please let us know. It's obvious when you watch it, the reporter was just trying to instigate and create a headline. Basically Rhule said everyone needs to get on the same page and the passing game is more than just the QB. Line has to block, receivers have to get open. Nothing controversial.

I mean it was pretty clear the reporter was trying to stir things up and instigate a catchy sound bite out of DJ. To me he handled it really well. Making much more out of this is clearly what the reporter was going for. I think this is much ado about nothing.

If the Giants hold on to win tonight, it's funny to think our 2 losses were to teams that should be a combined 6-0 if not for one of the most improbable comebacks possible (Cleveland against the Jets)

Evan Neal does not look good tonight. Dallas is feasting rushing the right side of the line.

Yeah there aren't many bigger mismatches than McCaffrey in space against a linebacker in coverage. Throw that wrinkle into our offense with the addition of Shenault and maybe our offense has a chance to at least not look like the worst offense in the NFL.

It really depends on what your expectations are. If you treat Henderson like the 3rd round pick we gave up for him, he's been fine. If you're expecting a shutdown corner worthy of the top 10 slot he was originally drafted, he's not that. The one long pass to Olave he gave up was actually solid coverage with a perfect throw by Winston and great catch by Olave. Henderson timed the hit perfectly and if Olave had lost control from the hit, we'd be applauding Henderson for the timely hit. He had the boneheaded PI in week 1 and he lays off defenders a little more than ideal. But I still think we're clearly better off with him than without him

Shenault on offense of course. McCaffrey also still looks explosive with 100+ yards rushing for the 2nd straight week and another long run called back with the hold. Lots of possible candidates on defense. Chinn looked good overall between his sack and a tipped ball. Horn with the tip that led to the interception plus an interception himself. Obviously the combo of Luvu on the forced fumble and Haynes with the return td was the play of the game. Hell Pineiro deserves kudos remaining perfect for the year including two from 40+. Truly a team win.

Lemme tell you guys a secret... it's possible to be happy we won and still think we can do much better than Rhule.

Another positive: this is the best punter we've had in years

No outcome would surprise me at this point. Win by 30, lose by 30, lose on a last minute 55 yard fg for the 3rd week in a row. I'm not writing off the season after week 2 so I'm still hoping we win and figure things out, regardless of how likely/unlikely that is. But there's no question it's a winnable game.

#7 and a 3rd for the #3 pick? In what world do you think there's precedent for that? Has there ever been a comparable trade in NFL history? I doubt it. If so, please share. Unless you mean 7, our 3rd plus a future 1st. That's probably more likely. The closest recent comp I can think of is the Jets trading the 6th pick and THREE 2nd round picks (including 37 and 49 from that year) for the 3rd pick to take Darnold. But going from 7 to 3 only takes a 3rd? Sure...

Not necessarily. We have like $15 million in cap space. How much different would things look with $33 million in cap space instead? Other than maybe allowing us to go even more all in on Watson, which is probably a blessing in disguise. You could definitely argue the loss of an early 2nd plus 4th and 6th round picks, was a bigger blow. Basically ask yourself this, could we have traded Darnold and his salary to a team by giving them the 38th pick plus two day 3 picks? I think any team with available cap space would happily have taken Darnold off our hands for that return.

Guy is truly remarkable. No doubt about it. Yet, doesn't it seem almost inevitable that had we drafted him, Snow would have utilized him as a sideline-to-sideline coverage LB? And then we'd have a half-dozen threads ridiculing the Panthers for wasting a top 10 pick on a coverage linebacker, one of the least valued positions in football. Now the main reason I bring this up is, how many players are we similarly underutilizing by our bad coaching? Would Brian Burns be competing with Parsons and Garrett for the sack title this year? Would Chinn be a 1st team all pro strong safety? Does McCaffrey have another 1000/1000 yard season, become unanimous comeback player of the year and serious candidate for offensive player of the year? The list goes on. It really makes you wonder how much talent we're potentially wasting.

I wouldn't go that far. Daniel Jones averaged 5.2 yards per attempt on 34 passes; that's bad by any metric. Barkley averaged 3.4 yards per carry; his longest carry was 16 yards and a player like him running 21 times and expecting him to not have a single decent run is not realistic. We gave up 19 points despite turning it over twice in our own territory. Hard to be too critical of the defense here.

Our receiving corps is pretty bare bones at this point but he's definitely not worth $22 million. He's either a candidate for a contract restructuring or a cap casualty. The problem is replacing his production. TMJ showing anything would really help make the decision easier. Ultimately I think maybe you add a year, cut his base salary down and turn it into a 2 year $22 million deal. That way you have a neglible effect on your cap compared to cutting him outright and we don't have to be desperate to replace him. If he refuses, then cut him.

That's fair. I just disagree on the shutdown aspect. There's a clear difference between this year and last year. No one could get open on Horn last year. He had them smothered and QBs just ignored his side because there was nowhere to throw. Meanwhile this year, his stats are certainly aided by the fact that the qb on the opposing team wasn't talented enough to take advantage of his lapses in coverage and when they did, he had a tendency to commit a penalty to stop it. If you are arguing the same thing was the case last year, I definitely didn't see that and I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree which is fine. I'm attributing the difference to rust and recovery from his injury. I don't know if you are saying he was every bit as shaky last year but the offenses were so terrible it didn't matter. If so, that's where we would definitely disagree.

I think that's oversimplifying it. He was considered someone who could take young moldable athletes and help them overachieve. As a young rebuilding team, it made sense on paper. He didn't even have to be the coach to take us to the Super Bowl, just someone to get us on the right path and build the nucleus of the future. The thing that is so disappointing is how awful he has been at coaching up players. Seems like a lot of the young guys either regressed or at least never made any meaningful strides. I understand that not everyone is going to make it even with excellent coaching but his hit rate has been dreadful.

What do you want from him? He can't change his competition. You still have NFL offenses who were scared to throw his way last year. In a league where Carson Wentz and Joe Flacco are throwing 300+ yards per week this year, you can't just say he's no good because he shutdown mediocre opposition. Especially when he did it as a rookie. I'm not sitting here anointing him as the 2nd coming of Darrell Revis; I'm willing to acknowledge that the book is still unwritten on him. That's all I'm asking the haters to do as well.

Yeah I don't think Horn merits the hate at all. He was a shutdown corner right out of the gate as a rookie. Then he gets a massive injury and plays his first meaningful football in almost a year and people are pissed because he's committed a few penalties? It's OK to be upset but use some simple context before you actually write him off. If he's doing this all year that's one thing but give him a few games to shake off the rust and get used to real life NFL speed. Hell it's not even like he's playing awful. He's basically playing like an average starting cb which is pretty good for a guy who has only played a handful of games and had a major injury.

Yikes.. I mean Burns is athletic enough to be decent in coverage but he's an elite edge rusher. Why did we invest so much in the secondary only to rely so much on our pass rushers to help out? You draft Horn in the 1st, Chinn in the 2nd, resign Donte, trade a 3rd for Henderson, but you need Burns to help them out? I've also noticed that they keep McCaffrey in the backfield to help with blocking the majority of the time. Why have the best receiving rb in the NFL and rarely use him as a receiver? Especially after putting so much effort on rebuilding the O line and hiring a new O line coach. I realize the line is still shaky, but hell put Foreman in the backfield to help block and kick McCaffrey out wide a few times if you have to. We have only a handful of stars and we're not maximizing their talents.

I hate when refs don't just own up to their mistakes. It would be so easy to say on the Burns roughing call "At our angle, it looked like he made forceable contact to the head or neck area. Of course on replay, we realized we made a mistake. Unfortunately we are human and we regret that mistake happened at such a critical juncture of the game."

Yeah and that makes sense but you could easily craft a narrative to argue the opposite. Let's say we do a run heavy scheme against Cleveland. So you have injury prone McCaffrey, who has only played in 10 games the past 2 years, and you decide to run him 20+ times in his first action in a year and a half? Let's say he dings himself up. What the hell were we thinking? We didn't learn a thing from the last 2 years? Especially when you have Baker playing his old team with a gigantic chip on his shoulder ready for the ultimate revenge game and you decide to neuter him so you can run McCaffrey ragged? What a complete idiot Rhule. Refusing to budge on his failing run heavy mindset when all the successful franchises have moved to a pass oriented offense.

Yeah but I blame Tepper for that more than Rhule. Rhule is obviously way over his head and not cut out to be an NFL head coach. It's on Tepper to acknowledge that and fire him. If he's not going to do that, Rhule trying something different, failing, trying something different, and so on until he either lucks into a winning strategy or gets fired is better than sticking to his guns on a failing strategy. Would I rather have a coach that knows what he's doing in the first place? Of course. But that's not an option until Tepper accepts it.