45catfan

Per Spotrac: Converted $10.08M of 2022 base salary into signing bonus, clearing $5.04M of cap space with Carolina (CAR)

The results? A ton of dead cap after he's released in a year or two, you know...like how we are eating $8.3 million of Paradis' dead cap this season as he's technically still on the roster but won't ever play a down or even suit up.

Rhule is trying to create more cap room so he can go shopping in FA in an attempt to save his butt. He knows rookies are not going to help him win this year.

He had the 2nd highest cap figure this year just barely below Darnold's.

Boy, some of those days team's scouts are going to be spread thin! The 9th and 23rd are jammed packed.

Here are the Pro Days as one site has them currently: https://gbnreport.com/2022-pro-day-schedule/

We shall see. People crapped on the 'Wine and Cheese" crowd when the Panthers started. Why? Many of them showed up late, left early, got upset for cheering loudly or standing up. Not the least of, many of those folks couldn't tell you much about the team itself or football in general. It was a trendy thing to do to at the time to watch the Panthers game, plus they had plenty of disposable income to treat it like going to see a movie. Again, this is a shiny, new object for Charlotte. Granted the Carolinas have their share of true soccer purists, but I have a hard time believing it's at the level being implied by opening night attendance numbers.

Keeping Darnold accomplishes three things here and outside of the short term pain for us fans, it's all positive. Settling on Darnold this year keeps us from drafting a QB in a very substandard class. It almost assures us of a bad, if not horrible, season. Thirdly, when this happens, Tepper almost has to fire Rhule. So 2023 sets up like the onset of Rivera's tenure; new staff, new outlook and almost certain to be drafting the franchise QB of the future.

How general are we speaking of? I mean are we talking Premier League general fan knowledge or typical American fan knowledge. Hit me back up in 10 games or so and let me know if the stands even remotely are as full and Charlotte indeed has 74,000 rapid soccer fans in that are packing BOA each home game. I'm sure there were some die-hard soccer fans there, I don't doubt that, but football is America's sport and you have people that attend just to be seen/say they were there. Even with only 17 regular season games a year, many stadiums are not sold out every game and even the ones that are have their share of socialites that just want to be part of excitement and could care less about the nuances of the game or honestly the team they are there to supposedly be watching.

Pipe dream incoming!!!!! Your Picks: Round 1 Pick 6: Ikem Ekwonu, OT/OG, N.C. State (A) Round 4 Pick 19 (PHI): Cole Strange, OG, Chattanooga (A+) Round 5 Pick 1: Isaiah Likely, TE, Coastal Carolina (A+) Round 5 Pick 6: Troy Andersen, ILB/OLB, Montana State (A+) Round 5 Pick 11 (PHI): Leo Chenal, ILB/OLB, Wisconsin (A+) Round 6 Pick 4 (HOU): Brian Robinson, RB, Alabama (A+) Round 6 Pick 21 (HOU): Danny Gray, WR, SMU (A+) Round 6 Pick 30 (TENN): Kalon Barnes, CB, Baylor (A+) Round 6 Pick 38 (TENN): Dane Belton, FS/OLB, Iowa (A) Round 7 Pick 31: Matt Araiza, P, San Diego State (A+)

I literally yelled at my TV when Detroit took Sewell. Did Detroit necessarily need a tackle? No, but again teams stack their board and he was likely the top guy remaining when they were on the clock. Last draft stung me twice early by having both Lance and Sewell...my #1a and #1b guys snatched up before we had a chance to draft them.

Don't get your hopes up dude, Ekwonu will be gone. Cross is our best hope and right now I'd say it's a 50/50 chance he'll be there at #6.

But the Giants don't need an OT... or so I've been told by some here. Even though countless mocks have them doing so. Yes, Cross is our best option unless the Jets go defense...which I've stated a few times now. The Giants may pass on Cross if Ekwonu/Neal are gone because he's a pure tackle without the guard flexibility.

I played soccer for years and for people that never played it, or at least at an advanced level the part they don't get is the unscripted nature of the game. That's where the creativity and wonder comes in to play. The shot that beat Charlotte FC...that shot doesn't happen 99% of the time, let alone actually score. It was a freaking masterful dart of a shot. When I say it was a perfect shot, it was absolutely perfect. That dude probably couldn't replicate that shot if given 20 more attempts. That's the awe and beauty of it! In football...plays are called, basketball you run sets, baseball there are set places to throw depending on where the ball is hit into play and what opponents are on bases. The closest mainstream sport to soccer is hockey (lacross is closer, but not a main sport). People that can appreciate the way hockey is played should like soccer to some extent. In hockey, they don't run plays or sets unless on a penalty. Same with soccer, the only quasi-scripted plays are penalty sets. Best I can describe it is you are trying to outwit, outplay and outlast with stamina your opponents, on the fly, for 90 minutes. Between evenly matched clubs, the difference in a game comes down just one mistake or really, REALLY brilliant play!

Yup, watching a baseball game is like watching paint dry to me. That's one sport I have never understood watching. Crazy thing is they are in a lockout and they lost a ton of fans years ago when they pulled that stunt. Now MLS is growing in popularity and the NHL keeps expanded teams and fans, baseball is going to find itself competing with Cornhole tournaments on ESPN Ocho before too long.

At this point, I just hope we have a shot at Cross. Absolutely NO way Neal or Ekwonu falls to us. If the Jets go LT, we are likely screwed. Our only hope is they fall in love with a defensive guy. Mock after mock after mock after mock....have the Giants taking the best OT left on the board. Why? You can never have enough elite offensive linemen and they know we pose zero threat to take a defensive player in front of them at #7. Yes, most mocks have the Giants going defense almost exclusively at pick #7 after taking the tackle at #5.

Haven't you heard? Linderbaum has 31" arms. Rhule has forbid him to even be put on his draft board.

He's under contract the next two seasons; there's too much dead cap to not keep him. I'm not a fan of him as the starting center, but the alternative is to go out and blow more money in FA. Even if we draft a guy this year, he likely won't start over Elflein. Long story short, unless he's injured, Elflein is our starting center.

I wouldn't hate it. I would keep BC as the swing tackle and give Brown a shot at RG first. Brown is a pure guard; he needs to be given the nod at RG instead of trying to force BC into a spot he's not suited for. If BC beats him out, then so be it, then we know the Brown pick is a bust.

NE is missing a 5th rounder and 7th rounder. I doubt they give up their 3rd or 4th straight up for Robby and shorten their draft even further. Maybe we get their 3rd and they get Robby and one of our 5th rounders?

Why is everyone shocked the opening match to a brand new franchise was well attended? Give it 10 or so games and dwelling in the MLS basement and see if 75,000 fans are still in the stands. Charlotte is become more and more like LA. People attend things like this for the pomp of the event, not to actually pay attention to the event. They want to say, "Yeah, I was there!" I doubt most of the crowd has ever watched an entire soccer game, let alone know the rules. 'Why don't the offense just post a guy up in front of the goal the entire game???' {Because it's offsides} 'What the crap is an offsides?'

Again, if you saw the draft video, Fitt was facilitating the trades, making sure the value was there and Rhule was the trigger man. Rhule let his WIFE make a pick for crying out loud. Apparently Rhule had a bro-mance with the LS at the Senior Bowl. That was another 100% Rhule pick. Do you think Fitt was going to be like, "Matt, fug your wife's choice and your LS crush from the Senior Bowl"?

I neither like nor dislike Fitt, the jury is still out for me. The structure he walk into put him behind the eight ball is all I am stating. Simply put, this is like a company that moved on from it's long time head executive. They promote some young, mid-management guy to lead the company with a super-thin resume, but the board likes his moxie. To help the guy along they bring a guy in from another company who was a former CEO to wet nurse the newbie, but tells him "look, help the new CEO along, but all final decisions are his." Does that sound like a favorable situation to be in? When Hurney was canned, I don't remember candidates busting down Tepper's door for the opportunity to be the GM here. Why? The Panthers weren't a complete joke...yet. Why would people be hesitant to take a NFL GM job? Why did they conveniently make an offer to the one candidate that worked under the same football ops structure in Seattle (HC with full roster control)? While Fitt is not blameless in all this, Rhule is the ringleader of this poo show and it reflects on the whole organization.

Not defending, simply stating the football ops structure. You don't give a NFL novice HC control over full roster decisions and hire a GM with deference to said newbie HC. You're correct, at that point the GM is a "yes man" to a large degree. I doubt Rhule had his final say powers stripped by Tepper, but knowing he's on a short leash, Rhule had better make this a true collective effort. I mean, If Rhule and staff are canned at the end of the season, Fitt could make a case for staying as Tepper knows full and well he neutered the GM position by giving Rhule full roster control.

True, but since Rhule has final say so over the roster, Fitt is more like the Door Dash employee...Rhule orders the goods and tasks Fitt to go fetch it. That was the relationship prior to this year, but I think Tepper is leaning on Rhule to make it a true partnership. Yes, Fitt singed off on the Robby extension, but who was the one that REALLY wanted the ex-Temple product to remain in the fold? I doubt Fitt was the one banging the table to not let Robby walk in FA.