Peon Awesome

OK I know at face value this is going to come off as super naiive and over simplistic but humor me. Official measurements: Bijan Robinson: 5'11'' 215 lbs Bryce Young: 5'10'' 204 lbs Bijan is supposed to be a 3 down back and the most electric offensive skill player in the draft. He is literally going to be running into a wall of 330 lbs DTs 25 times per game, and when he passes them, will have massive LBs converging on him at 20 mph. Now subtract 10lbs and 1 inch and suddenly a guy who might get a hand on him 6 times per game, protected by whistle-happy refs who throw flags if you breathe a little too hard on the QB, and he's going to snap like a twig? And keep in mind, he's going to have access to professional weight trainers and dieticians so the prospect of gaining 5-10 lbs of muscle isn't an unrealistic ask. I get it, the NFL is a brutal sport and injuries are ubiquitous. But it doesn't make sense to me that a QB has to be 6'4, 230 lbs but a player like Devonta Smith who makes Bryce Young look like John Cena, can go 2 years into his career without missing a single game despite getting hit more times per game than a typical qb.

He definitely got handed a tough break. He gets drafted by a team with the most inept and dysfunctional coaching staff in the league, gets buried on the depth chart in large part due to a battle for the starting job between two underwhelming overpriced veterans, was thrust into the preseason behind an atrocious offensive line that wouldn't be good enough for the XFL, and after only about a dozen snaps or so suffers a season ending injury trying to run for his life due to the horridness of said Oline. You spend your whole life with the dream of being a quarterback in the NFL and that gets snatched away largely due to factors outside of your control. The Panthers can't be blamed for moving on and taking Bryce Young. But you can't be upset with Matt Corral being upset he got a raw deal. I prefer he channels that energy to prove the doubters wrong while the Panthers make a genuine effort to groom him into the future backup with starting upside if Bryce does get banged up under his slim frame. But that ship may have sailed.

I've had YouTube TV for a few years now and I'm a big fan. Tremendous base sports package with pretty much every channel you could want, unlimited DVR, ability to watch from your phone anywhere and about half the price of most cable packages. If I didn't already live in the home Panthers market, I'd add the Sunday Ticket package in a heartbeat, but as is, Panthers games + the national games of the week are plenty for me.

Smart teams wouldn't give Miles Sanders the biggest FA RB contract of 2023 and then invest one of their few draft picks on another RB. I think the whole point of giving Sanders that money was so we didn't need to worry about RB on draft day and focus on other higher value areas where we need more depth (WR, pass rusher, O line, CB, LB). Chuba and Blackshear are more than enough behind Sanders, but if you're not thrilled, throw an UDFA in the mix as camp competition. But any more than that is a misuse of limited resources.

I'm not sure I'd read too much into it. We're talking about a former 6th round pick who last played 2 years ago. We targeted Tuttle early and gave him a decent sized contract. I still think he's the starting NT. Not to mention, McCall and Roy are basically fringe roster guys. More likely that Penisini is bringing brought in as a low risk potential upgrade as the primary backup. Or even to serve as a rotational guy on run defense packages with Tuttle shifted to DE for select plays. Honestly if we're planning on going into the season with Penisini, Roy and McCall battling it out to be the starting DT, that'd be a pretty glaring weakness on the team.

Bill Barnwell has an article on ESPN suggesting logical fits for free agents/potential trade candidates. Full article here: Barnwell free agent fits Here's what he suggests for DeAndre Hopkins: Possible deal: Traded to the Panthers. In this deal, the Panthers would send the No. 93 selection to the Cardinals, who would pick up $10 million of Hopkins' $19.5 million base salary in 2023. Carolina would also guarantee Hopkins' $14.9 million salary for 2024, putting it on the hook for two years and $24.4 million. For the Panthers, this would lock in a No. 1 receiver for the first two years of their new quarterback's career. They would sport a much older receiving corps than we see for most rookie quarterbacks -- they would be starting Hopkins and Adam Thielen in Week 1 -- but there's nothing wrong with locking in experienced receivers before working in cheaper options as the quarterback (hopefully) gets closer to earning an extension. Hopkins wouldn't get an extension, but he would get his 2024 salary guaranteed and have one more shot at free agency in 2025. This isn't a perfect deal for everyone involved, but he would get an additional year of guarantees, the Cardinals would unload salary and get a meaningful draft pick, and the Panthers would get two years of a WR1 at a cost well below market value. So we give our late 3rd, Arizona eats $10 million of salary and we get Hopkins for 2 years and $24 million? Seems like a great deal for us. Not sure if there are legit talks going on but if this is felt to be reasonable value, hopefully we are having conversations.

A bargain deal in a weak FA class? Sure, no problem. Paying a guy like a potential WR1 whose career best season was 59 catches, 693 yards and 2 TD (in 17 games) catching passes from the best QB in the NFL? Absolutely not. I think the reason no one has signed him is he is waiting out for more money than he has demonstrated he is worth. Ginn is a good comp. But we signed him to a 2 year, $4.2 million contract in 2015. We could double that to account for inflation of the cap and a weak FA market to get around 2 years $9 million. I'm sure he's looking for way more than that, in which case, no thanks.

Interesting. Basically Shaq took his salary in 2023, spread it out to 2024 effectively giving us a "free year" and spreading the cap hit even more by adding the dummy years. Now granted it's not really a free year because we would've alternatively just cut him and he wouldn't have seen any of that salary, but he could've recouped that and perhaps more on a new free agent contract elsewhere. We basically ripped up his old contract and gave him a 2 year $12 million contract so it depends on whether you think he'd get more or less than that on the free agent market. This feels line a fair compromise for both sides.

Stop quoting the $25 million. We are obviously not paying a 35/36 year old Thielen $9 million. This is very likely a 2 year $14 million contract effectively, with the last year thrown in for cap purposes. It's essentially a foregone conclusion that he'll be cut after 2 years. I'm guessing the last year has around an $8 million cap savings if cut, with a dead cap of only $2.5 million. Overall a solid signing in a position of desperation. Hopefully he'll serve as a strong mentor and rub off on the young guys like TMJ and Shi Smith too.

https://thecomeback.com/nfl/bears-raiders-draft-asking-price.html Stumbled on this article that said Chicago wanted the following from the Raiders for the #1 pick: Pick 7 Pick 38 2 Future 1sts (Presumably 2024 and 2025) Future 2nd Let's compare to what we gave: Pick 9, Pick 61, 2024 1st, 2025 2nd, DJ Moore Let's assume they were OK with a 2025 2nd from Las Vegas to simplify things. That means DJ Moore was valued as: 2025 1st Value needed to get from pick 61 to 38 (at least an extra 2nd) Value between pick 9 and 7 (probably a 3rd and 4th?) That would put DJ's perceived value by Chicago as roughly a future 1st, 2nd, 3rd AND 4th. Even if you assume Chicago would have to come down a bit since that was too much for the Raiders and that some of this was posturing, even anything close to that is tremendous value for DJ. It sucks to lose him, but in this case I think it justifies the price.

You can't get too cute with BPA when you have glaring needs. We almost have to take a WR with pick 39. Hell, if the value isn't there, trade back, get an extra pick, and take a WR at a better value later in the 2nd and then fine, take a TE with the extra pick. WR is even more of a glaring need than usual with a rookie QB. The other issue is people are by and large not great at evaluating talent. What seems like a great TE draft might end with 2/3 of them busting. One of our least successful drafts of late was 2016, when we took Vernon Butler as "value" in the 1st when we had 2 great DTs and then spent the rest of the draft trying to fill Josh Norman's shoes, mostly unsuccessfully (although Bradberry came through). Sounds like some want to repeat that by taking TE in the 2nd and then multiple WRs in the later rounds.

Not necessarily. 2019 draft alone had AJ Brown, DK Metcalf and Deebo Samuel in the 2nd round, averaging over 900 yards their rookie years. Tee Higgins, all the rage now, was a 2nd rounder with over 900 yards as a rookie as well. Obviously it's hardly a guarantee, but there's no reason to assume we can't get get a productive rookie WR as an early 2nd round pick

I'd consider 39 but I would wait till draft day and see how the draft unfolds. If there's a run on WR prospects in the 1st round, offer 39 and see if Cincy bites. Obviously Higgins is extremely likely better than anyone available at 39, but the amount we'll have to ultimately pay him per year will be more than double the entire 4 year contract value for the 39th pick. But if there's no WR worthy of the 39th pick, its a reasonable price to pay. I don't like the idea of trading Chinn because I think he's poised for a big year in his more natural role and we don't have anyone lined up to replace him, creating another hole to fill. Also, there's precedent for trading for a WR on draft day; take just last year with AJ Brown going to Philly.

Unless Foreman is willing to take peanuts, I'm not sure it makes sense to sign him. Hubbard costs $1 million. Is the difference between him and Foreman big enough to justify spending a few million more for your backup RB? That's the kind of wasteful spending that smart teams don't make. My guess is the Panthers have given Foreman a low ball offer and don't really care if he takes it or not. Foreman will try to get more on the open market but if it's not there, I can see him taking it and the Panthers being happy to have him back at a discount.

This signing has no bearing on whether we can get a WR. 1st year cap hits are always Iow; Sanders is probably going to account for $2 million in 2023. That's not the difference between us affording a good receiver vs not. The bigger issue is there aren't really any WR1s available in free agency. Probably our best bet is getting an ok #2 like Parris Campbell and drafting one with pick 39. Or we could consider trading a day 3 pick for Hopkins. But all of those are still very feasible after this signing.

Maybe he'll be this team's Greg Olsen, former 1st round pick that didn't live up to his 1st round status until arriving in Carolina and suddenly becoming a top TE. One can only hope. As far as the contract goes, what did you realistically expect? He's getting about $1.5 million more per year than Ian Thomas with an inflated cap. He's getting almost the same amount as Josh Oliver who had 14 catches for 149 yards for the entire year. That's definitely fair market value, if not a decent bargain for today's going rate.

I really like Williams as a team leader and positive locker room presence; I'm a big fan and would be happy to have him as a Panther. But he's not a game changer as a running back and we certainly shouldn't break the bank for him. Hopefully the market dictates he and/or Foreman getting a very modest deal

Jury's out but our most dominant team in franchise history had Ted Ginn as its #1.

This trade was probably realistically our best outcome. 1. We kept our high 2nd round pick - I don't think all the pundits panning the trade realized that. ESPN on the trade grade said this trade left the Panthers without a 2nd round pick this year. 2. Not giving away a 2025 1st gives us the chance for a quick reset. Let's say our rookie QB bombs. Well we're not going to trade this much and give up on him after 1 year. But if he's not showing any improvement after year 2 and our team sucks, we can draft his replacement in 2025. 3. The competition to draft a rookie was so high that it inflated the value of all the top picks. Moving up to 3 probably wouldn't have been a huge discount and we'd be stuck with the 3rd QB. Look at what San Francisco gave up in a year with less teams angling for a rookie qb. 4. While losing Moore is sad, we took advantage of Chicago's desperation to improve their receivers and got probably the most value out of him. Realistically, I have to think Chicago would've wanted our 2025 1st and the higher 2nd round pick this year. Adding Moore increased our leverage significantly and gave us the heads up over the other teams trying to trade up.

Keep him and coach him up. We could take Bryce Young and he gets injured for the year in week 3 and Corral plays admirably in his stead. He's got a dirt cheap contract and his value is horribly depressed. What do we benefit by trading him for peanuts? There's precedent; think Robert Griffin and Kirk Cousins in Washington.

I'm not ready to quit on Tremble. Almost all of his tenure has been under the stink of Rhule. And the little time he got away from Rhule, we became a super run heavy team with Darnold as our starting qb, so how much production can you expect from your TE 2 in that scenario? In the limited touches he gets, he seems to make the most of it. And keep in mind, he was drafted for his blocking prowess and is playing a position which routinely takes a few years to translate to higher production in the NFL. I don't mind going for someone like Gesicki if the price is right but I also would love to see the new offensive staff give Tremble a chance to succeed.

I was hearing he has a $60 million cap hit that the trading team would absorb. It would take some impressive gymnastics to fit that and have enough to fill out the rest of the team. For that reason and more I don't think so

I started to have my suspicions we were consciously factoring it in after we hired Adrian Wilson too. Whether we truly are or not, can't say. All of them seem to be excellent and deserving. It's obviously not the main reason. But as a conscientious tiebreaker? Plausible. And honestly the league must have partly hoped for that by instituting the rule. I've always thought it was a smart rule. Give minorities a chance to shine in higher profile assistant positions. If they flounder, you set your team back and get no compensation. If they earn a promotion elsewhere, you get valuable picks to compensate for losing an important member of your team.

For those saying Stroud at QB, probably more realistic to not have half of our receiving corps and our rb picked with 2nd and 3rd rounders this year since at least a couple of those will go towards the trade up

I think the options are too open ended. If any of the following happened, I'd be happy, roughly in order: 1. Trade 2 1sts and change for Stroud or Bryce Young 2. Stay at 9 and take Richardson 3. Sign Carr to a deal of no more than $30 million per year with 90% of the guarantees accounted for in his 1st year. 4. Combination of 2 + 3 is fine as well So what do I not want? 1. Trading 3 1sts for anyone 2. Trading up for Levis or Richardson 3. Not drafting any qb and having only Corral and someone like Darnold or Brissett 4. Giving Carr a big multiyear deal with guarantees that tie him to us for at least 3 years.