45catfan

I said if he took a 'hometown' deal I'd be cool with it; end of story. The Saints STILL have no cap space and need a long term solution for a franchise QB along with a bunch of pricey veterans. That's the fuzzy math gimmicks you admire erstwhile keep kicking cap 'can' down the road? I guess digging out of cap hell every year is something to be admired? The difference? If Winston can stay healthy and avoid a ton of picks, the Saints are better situated for the wildcard than us. But hey, at least we can compete with their cap futility! Take that New Orleans!!!!

Wow, understand something here....I TOTALLY GET why Rhule wants to blow money to improve the roster, but as a fan that understands the long game, it's NOT...going...to...matter! We will be a middling team in 2022, but end up with a 2023 cap hole of a top team competing for a Super Bowl. See the way the cap usually works is bad teams have cap sapce and good teams....with LOTS of good players, have very little cap space. So for us (bad team) to have little cap space (as if we were a really good team) makes no freaking sense. But yes, lets add these older FAs to save Rhule's @ss and still miss the playoffs. I couldn't think of a better scenario!

I'm not doubting Dunlap still can get it done, my problem is it's a band aid on a gunshot wound. Yes, it will help somewhat in the short term, but what about down the road? This team is in a long term rebuild and these one or two-year deals with FAs isn't going to get it done. Hired mercenaries aren't in the long term interest of the organization. FYI, I almost stopped in at the Ingles in Powersville to see you last week on the way home from work, but I had a hot dinner waiting on me. If you are on location again around me, I'll pop in to say hi!

Gifting a guy his last substantial payday to get Rhule over the 5-win hump is exactly what we need.

You are funny. At BEST we will be on he outside looking in at a wildcard.

FACT: Not winning the division, that would be the Brady and the Bucs. PROBABLE: Not getting a wildcard, that would be a NFC West team and Central/East team. So we are burning cap to get an extra win or two so Rhule can say there is progress. On to year four of Tepper/Rhule and more negative cap space. Yippy!!!!!!

We are talking about another sh!t year, but go ahead and shoot for the stars bud.

Bingo. But will he? Obviously if TGM is hurt or just ends up sucking, sure, give Dunlap the snaps. However, Rhule is looking at those sack numbers and probably envisioning Dunlap as a 3rd down specialist.

Are all those money downs for Dunlap? I mean, I can't see us giving YGM a new contract as two down guy. I am not saying YGM needs 100% of the snaps and never did. I did say he needs to be the starter and given the the lion's share of the snaps. FYI--Lion's share does not mean all.

We have historically either cut bait with young under-performing DEs by year 3 or given them year 3 as their 'prove it' year (outside of Peppers). Rucker and Hardy were nothing special in years one and two, but took off in year 3. They also were tabbed the as starters in season 3. I'm not sure they would have blossomed like that had they been heavily rotated or usurped by a short-term FA pass rush specialist.

Really? That is truly fascinating! Tell me more..... Splitting reps or even starting a likely one-year mercenary over a 2nd round pick that needs a lot of PT to prove if he's the right guy going forward isn't the smartest move. We are talking about the Panthers though.

Tepper has been quoted saying Rhule has at least 5 years, lol! "Will he be around beyond this year? Absolutely not." FIFY

Season 3 for YGM should be his breakout season. If he's splitting snaps or Dunlap eventually takes over the starting role, then that not a great scenario.

This is about Dunlap. Unless I'm mistaken, he is a DE, correct? If he lines up at DE and taking more snaps than YGM, then that is impeding his growth. The Reddick reference is how he used this team as a springboard to a better deal, likely what Dunlap will try to accomplish. You are either trolling or jumped into the thread late.

Yes, but he used his 1-year deal based of his sack numbers to get paid handsomely elsewhere. He was a rush/edge LB. Semantics dude and yes, I'm well aware of the difference between a LB and DE.

Agreed, if YGM isn't the answer DE is a day 1 or day 2 priority next draft. We won't know if he plays behind a veteran whose obviously better than him now and said veteran likely will be using us for a Reddick scenario and bounce after a solid year. What does that accomplish? Dude helped pad our sack numbers for a season and we still don't have a firm idea about YGM? Wow!

With each additional quality veteran signing our cap number is getting worse. For what? Again, the only signing that will make the needle move much at all THIS season is QB. Jimmy G. or Mayfield. For Rhule, digging the hole even deeper for one of those two guys to get a wildcard spot would definitely be worth it. Rotational veteran pieces for 'a veteran presence' is just eating up more cap down the road. Teams in the red for 2023:

Unless he's coming here on a 'home town deal', then it's not a good signing. I don't have a problem with a good veteran signing if a) it's going to make a good team even better and b) doesn't hurt the cap much down the road. We know the first scenario is isn't a factor and we will see about the second scenario.

Will Dunlap take this team from a non-playoff team to a playoff team? Again, Rhule sending mixed messages. He goes from a seemingly young roster-building approach to these type moves, which is more win now signaling. Apparently he can't make up his mind. It's like 'I want to build this roster through young guys'. *SQUIRREL* Older FA veteran available....must sign now!!!!

Let's see the contract numbers and then I'll tell you if it's a positive or negative. Again, this roster is 99% built. So unless we find an elite level QB somewhere, adding a piece here or there isn't going to move the needle much at all and just digging us in a deeper cap hole for next year.

Oh boy, here we go throwing money away again. Dunlap will not put this team defense on his back and turn it into an elite unit. At this point the 2022 Panthers are what they are. Adding older, more expensive pieces here or there is just eating up more rollover cap money for next year. Rhule will never learn.

That would make sense if we didn't have HC on the hot seat. Tepper can go to bat for Rhule all he want to, but another sub-.500 season almost forces his hand to part ways with Matty-boy.

If I remember correctly, prior to the restructures to clear room to sign Watson, our cap room for 2023 was top 1/3 instead of almost dead last.

The cap fug-up is on our owner, don't blame the cap manager. Moneybags Tepper is the one that had a boner...yes, pun intended, for Watson. Our cap space for 2023 was just fine before we started restructuring all these contracts to clear space for creeper-massage-guy. Even though we didn't get Watson (THANK GOD!) enough damage was done in the courting/pining process.

Yeah, a couple of accusers very well could be gold diggers. Up to 24 now? Nah, dude messed up big time. I was against it from the rip. People wanted to see how it played out. Well, the Browns are finding out the hard way. Fully guaranteed contract too? Whewwww.