Sgt Schultz

For all our talk about which QB we should draft or what QB we should sign as a FA or trade for, none of us has any input into that decision nor should we. Neither should Tepper. Neither should Tepper's wife. Neither should Fitts, without first talking to whoever we hire as the HC who also needs to talk to his OC and QB coach. As for the original point, I don't think we are years away, but I also don't think we are as close as some here. Kinda the same reasoning. While we look at our roster and like a group of players, the new staff may not like some of the people we like. Our roster was largely constructed by an NFL moron, based on a flawed set of assumptions. Now we need somebody who knows what they are doing to figure out how much of it is worthwhile going forward. It is entirely possible some of those decisions will make some fans unhappy (to say the least). I don't think the new staff is going to approach Fitts and say that everybody has to go, but I also don't think they are going to meet with him to tell him everybody stays. All we can hope for is they decide a lot more players fit than don't, at least among the bigger names.

Nah. Juan's posts have more truth in them than anything Roger Goodell says. And as we know, that is not very much.

That is a tough one though. Who do I despise more, Al Qaeda or ISIS? The Cowboys or the Bucs? If either the Cowboys or Brady-led Bucs were playing Al Qaeda or ISIS, I would have a very difficult decision to make.

I can relate, so my best to you all. Especially on a birthday celebration that puts all that behind you.

I agree with your last sentence. By that time Ross and his handlers had to remain invisible. We have no idea what obstacles "the management" put in Flores way weeks 1-4. They can do a lot of damage, as we have seen by some just out of incompetence (49ers in 2014, for example). The Dolphins went beyond mere incompetence and into self-sabotage. I don't think a young team getting better accounts for the magnitude of the first four losses, and then going to some one-score games. Not that quickly. That may be where we diverge. The Dolphins looked worse than the 76 Bucs for those first four games. The only thing we know for sure happened around that time was scrutiny and an evil eye from the league. So it's clear to everyone, my contention is and always has been that they wanted the best QB available. That morphed over the course of the year from Tua to Burrow, largely due to injuries. Regardless of who they thought they wanted in August or even October (right before Tua's first injury), Burrow would have been their pick if he was on the board. That year, securing that would have required them securing the #1 pick (or at least ahead of Cincinnati, depending on the draft board and trade intentions of teams 2-4). If you are going to try to lose, the #1 pick probably has to be your goal for safety, but isn't always necessary to get who you want and declare victory. That year it was. Last year, if you "had to have" Pickett, even the bottom half was not necessary. In fact, changing anything about your roster or offering your coach money to lose was probably not necessary unless you were already a playoff team. Honestly, the Dolphins that year are the only time I feel confident was actually trying to lose, and I've been watching the NFL since 1969. Even the 76 Bucs tried to win.

My "idea" of tanking has not only not changed in this thread, it has not changed ever. But nice try at the straw man. I think @stbugs, who I have bantered with before on this, will acknowledge that I have been consistent. I do agree with you, tanking has more definitions than people using the term. Mine, however, has always been consistent which is why I mentioned earlier to stbugs that we did not have a common agreement on the term. The Dolphins were trying to lose games when they opened the season, from the top of the organization. It took them until week five to get within striking distance of anybody, and that is probably because the uproar was so bad they got a call from New York. The scores of their first four games: 59-10, 43-0, 31-6, 30-10. There were people calling for a league investigation by that point, and then suddenly things got more competitive. Ross admitted to prioritizing draft position over wins in the NFL investigation, that included an allegation from Flores that he was offered $10k per game to lose. The Dolphins official response is something less than a hard denial: "however phrased, such a comment was not intended or taken to be a serious offer, nor was the subject pursued in any respect by Mr. Ross or anyone else at the club." Notice they do not deny the offer was made. Gutting the roster to hit ground zero is rebuilding. Teams do that all the time. The Dolphins took that to another level. They not only decided to rebuild, they do not even deny offering to pay the coach to make sure they lose. Flores was almost certainly not involved, but do you really think the front office did not throw every obstacle in his path to hamper any chance he had to prepare the Dolphins to win? And, if he was hampered from preparing the team, the players didn't directly need to be involved either. So they gut the roster (perfectly okay), stand accused of offering the coach money to lose, do not deny that allegation (but say instead it was "all in fun"), and produce enormous losses until the fur starts to fly, at which point they magically get competitive. You can connect those dots however you wish.

Sure, the target before the season by name was Tua. In reality, the target before the season is the best QB available, and at that point it was Tua. Then they decided to tank. Not just rebuild the roster and shed cap, but try to lose games on a weekly basis to get the best QB available. At least two funny things happen between that fateful day and the draft. First, Tua gets beat up and goes under the knife twice. By season's end he is no longer the top QB prospect. That belongs to Burrow. There were a lot of concern's about Tua's future, if my memory is correct. Second, no matter how hard they try, the Dolphins can't lose more than the Bengals, Foreskins, Lions, or Giants who are not trying to lose, they just can't get out of their own way. Purposely losing games was part of the tank. In fact, in my mind it can't be considered a tank without that. Teams tear down rosters all the time and don't try to lose games. They accept they will and go out each week trying to win. But trying to be a complete clusterf#*k and invent new ways to do it each week does not happen that often (although some teams seem to do it naturally). Our point of difference is that you believe if they had tanked enough to secure the #1 pick, they would have still picked Tua. I don't believe Miami picked Tua because they wrote his name down on a piece of paper in August, stuffed it in an envelope marked "do not open until draft day" and then obeyed. They took him because the tank failed.......they did not lose enough to pick the best QB available. I remember a lot of people scratching their heads when he was the second QB taken. By draft day, Herbert was not considered a sure thing (worries about whether he could function outside of Oregon's offense) and Tua's health was considered a major risk. That created a perceived gap between Burrow and door #2. I also don't think Cincinnati was going to trade that pick to them, even with the ammo they had. They only would have done that if they had Herbert ranked roughly on par with Burrow, and I never heard any mention of the Bengals focusing on anybody but Burrow. My conclusion is that the decision to rebuild the roster has been a success. But the other part of the tank, trying weekly to lose games, was not. Had they managed to succeed at part 2, maybe the entire thing would be a home run for them because I believe they would have Burrow throwing to Hill and Waddle. But, yeah, Herbert, Hill, and Waddle would be pretty deadly, too.

The only reasons for optimism are that the interview list looks solid, the fact that whoever he is listening to, they are not name Marty "Meatballs" Hurney, and The Process made him look like such a huge moron that he will probably take a pause before doing anything. None of that guarantees success, but at least they point toward a path to it. But am I optimistic? Hardly. We've grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory before. I'd be more upbeat if we had somebody with some experience in this area playing a major role in it.

Regardless of who they thought they were going to tank for before the season started, had the tank been successful they had the option of re-evaluating. It's not like they are required to declare who they planned to draft prior to a down being played. Nor were they likely to adhere to their preseason draft chart after the season, regardless of what played out during the season. Who they were actually tanking for was the best QB they could get. They, and a lot of people, assumed that would be Tua but he wound up getting beaten up enough to have two surgeries during and after that season. As a result, he dropped and Burrow climbed. In essence, if you are going by the literal idea they were tanking for Tua, they were successful. Unfortunately, the Tua they got was not the same Tua they wanted prior to the season. Being at #5, Tua was still available which sounds like a win, but only if they had him still ahead of Burrow on their draft chart after the season. I don't think they did, and I doubt anybody held that order the way the season turned out. I'm not going to pick on them for taking Tua over Herbert, as a lot of people had reservations about Herbert as a top 5 or 10 pick. Those concerns turned out to be wrong (at least so far), but you act on the best information you have at the time. Drafting right or wrong is a different discussion. Deciding to purge the roster of salary cap and rebuild is, again, not tanking in my mind. Tanking is purposely trying to lose games each week, regardless of who is on the roster. As for our purge, I would agree we never did it in a way to reach ground zero. We thought we could get rid of the dead weight and at the same time try to win games and start a rebuild in the FA season. We were attempting to purge dead cap or cap expenditures that were providing diminishing returns. As it turned out, we did some of that, but at the same time we added some. Not exactly textbook, but then again, what have we ever done that was?

We disagree at the very core of this. Their effort secured the #5 overall pick. While they still had a shot at Tua and Herbert, they did not have a shot at Burrow, who was very likely their target when they went down that path. By your own admission, they picked the wrong QB. That might be because picking #5, they had to select what they thought was behind door #2. Had the tank worked, that third name would have been in the mix. To me, that means it didn't work. Just because they made it work out fairly decently after the fact, that does not mean their effort was successful. And I don't consider deciding it is time to clear cap space tanking. That is what we essentially did in 2020. What they did was try to lose, which goes beyond just purging the roster. Tanking is both strategic and tactical. If you are going to do that, you had better hit the bullseye. So, our very definition of whether it worked is different, thus there is no common ground to compare.

Both are absolutely true. As I have said to the "we should tank" crowd, you can never engineer more losses than some bad teams naturally will produce. For the umpteenth time, the year the Dolphins went all-in on tanking, they wound up drafting fifth, not first. It just doesn't work out the way people think. This clip has a Three Stooges look to it. All they needed was for someone in blue to pick the ball up and run it into the wrong end zone. You really can't orchestrate this level of buffoonery.

For those interested in Harbaugh, I just saw this: JUST IN: Report Surfaces About Harbaugh, Michigan Contract Negotiations - Sports Illustrated Michigan Wolverines News, Analysis and More There could be a lot of gamesmanship in this whole soap opera.

The short answer is J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets. All told, Saleh has probably done about as well as anybody could be expected to up there.

I know I am old. Kellen Moore looks like the 16-year old kid that just got his license and is knocking on the door asking if he can take your daughter out. Some good prospects on this list. Both Steichen and Johnson have shown the ability to come up with game plans based on the week's opponent and their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps the others, too, but that is something we have not seen in.....well......maybe ever.

I just took a look at OverTheCap's valuation of Carr, and they have it at roughly $28.5M. That is less than the roughly $40.5 he will be due on his current contract, but more than I'd be willing to give him. But, somebody might. Once he is a FA, I think we have to make the phone call. I am just not optimistic that there would be a meeting of the minds, unless the response is "I always wanted to be a Panther, at almost any cost."

Good luck. If your house is anything like mine, it is your fault and you were wrong.

His contract guarantees his entire 2023 salary and $7.5M of 2024 if he is on the roster February 15. His next three years are almost all salary ($33M, $42M, and $41M in that order). As @Murph said, his dead cap is a tad over $5.5M, so it's not likely anybody is going to trade for him with those numbers. Moral of the story is he enters the FA pool with Darnold and a few others. We probably need a vet, so if the numbers work, he's worth considering but my guess is somebody will offer him more than we want to or can shell out. His numbers were down a bit this year, but the ones that were down the most make me wonder if it was more due to McDipstick's offense. Good ole' Josh had the same MO in Denver. He almost immediately made their starting QB public enemy number one. Nobody is going to confuse Cutler (Denver at the time) or Carr with Montana, but the fact he followed up Cutler with Kyle Orton and then drafting The Golden Calf of Bristol makes you wonder what he will want do for an encore. The guy is lucky the Raidahs are too cash poor to fire him and pay a replacement. A lot of their fans are asking how this genius could turn a QB good enough to take them to 10-7 and a playoff berth last year into one who rolls 6-9.

I guess not having a chance to hire McDaniels was one positive from hiring Rhule. But that choice is like facing a firing squad but hanging yourself in your cell the night before. Neither turns out well.

The cynical part of me (which these days is the biggest part, especially when the Panthers are concerned) wonders if the determination of the size of the interview pool is largely for show. Like, Tepper making a public statement saying "we're not as dumb as we looked the first time."

Even more frightening is that all his experience prior to being a head coach is on the offensive side of the ball.

Of course, they are yet to disclose the frontrunner: Paul McGonagle. He's the very successful head coach of the Endicott College Power Gulls. 6-0 this year in the Commonwealth Coast Conference, 10-1 overall with their only loss being a nail-biter to Springfield in the NCAA D3 playoffs. He's never had a record in his four seasons at Endicott. And I hear his wife makes a great meat loaf. Gawd, I hope Tepper is not reading this!

I came to the same conclusion looking at that list. Prior to Olsen it looked pretty good. After Olsen, it is a different story.

What has always concerned me is that Tepper would "shoot safely" after looking like a fool with The Process. If he does, and he seems to be getting a lot of urging in that direction from the media, Wilks will be the HC. Whether Tepper is listening to that urging all that much is another story.

Sometimes the cap forces teams to make tough decisions on vets. The Panthers have traditionally not done that very well. Worse, we've made some bad decisions in the past with other teams vets. I don't follow the front office's every move as well as some on here, but I think we have done a little better job of assessing value in FAs than we did when Hurney was cleaning out the meat balls near Panther HQ. We haven't done that with QBs, unfortunately, but at least as of today we are out from under that and have an opportunity to start fresh without any baggage. Whether we seize that opportunity or not remains to be seen.