Proudiddy

The more I reflect on this thread and his presser, I feel excited about Wilks' opportunity and what he can do with this roster under his leadership, but man, I feel really hopeless about Tepper. The overall tone of the presser was angry and somber, and he transposed a ton of hopelessness himself. It was pretty disconcerting. When you take offense to answering for your failures instead of owning all of them (not some of them) and offering possible solutions, that doesn't make me feel very encouraged about your leadership. Much of his answers for solutions were generic, throwaway, very disassociated statements...

I'm sorry, did you hear accounts that weren't reported? If so, would you mind sharing?

Not us. He was referring to jobs like Green Bay when that came open because a franchise QB was already in place.

Idk. I get your sentiment, but he actually lost games for us here. He didn't do that in New Orleans, but a lot of that was because he was being asked to do more than he was capable of. Again, I want to emphasize, I didn't want Teddy in the first place, because I knew he was just a game manager.

Teddy wasnt Brees when he started for them, but he was functional enough to win almost all of those games. He was not that here under Rhule.

Yeah, there was a thread but it wasn't clearly stated in the title. But yeah, it seems like Wilks was just sitting back biding his time and watching these idiots falling over themselves pretending to be coaches. I know he couldn't wait for the opportunity.

And those guys would look a hundred times better than they have/would have here under Rhule because Payton knows wtf he is doing offensively.

Honestly, I was already sensing there was some meddling going on with the creative/PR/marketing depts. as they seemed to have gone extremely tone deaf during the Rhule era. Also, the tone of the tweets and social media posts shifted more towards a college-recruitment arm than a professional team. I felt this way for the last few years, but it really came to a head towards the end of this last offseason when they tweeted out the video of the guys playing soccer with Rhule playing goaltender and he saved the kick and ran to the camera screaming "You get that??? You get that?!?!" Again, it felt like a college recruitment tool and I can't recall anything more cringey I have seen from our social media team. It honestly was embarrassing. And again, I have to ask, wtf Tepper was thinking and doing during all of this? Like why tf is your coach meddling in the creative/social media process? Doesn't he have more pressing matters? That is literally crazy.

Yeah, we can only hope. I just didn't find his answers about Fitt all that positive or encouraging. Which I think is unfair.

Idk Scot... that sounds an awful lot like hiring a GM just to not allow him to be GM, which Tepper just acknowledged he did.

I know people think I'm being naive, but I just don't think that... the Miami game was not his fault. And he still is likely the best and most prolific goal-to-go threat the game has ever seen - Wilks would not put him in a position to fail like Rhule did. Wilks also wouldn't leave him high and dry or poo on him in favor of Sam fuging Darnold. Cam's arm is not what it was, but his ability still presents unique threats to a defense and he can win in the right offense. And I maintain, he would still be the best QB on this roster by a lot. But again, it is up to him at this point whether he wants to come back, but my hunch is, he won't.

This is perfect. Great way to put it.

Agreed, despite those flashes of humility, the overall tone was standoff-ish and angry. He clearly didn't like being called out of the turnover and Rovk Hill stuff. He also did not want to fully acknowledge or own ALL of the failure that has persisted under his charge.

I appreciated his humility in those moments he showed, like the "I'm still learning" and "I understand the fans because I was one," quotes... but he also was very ornery and hostile with some of the questions that were less than encouraging moments.

Wasn't Hue Jackson fired Baker's rookie year when they were featured? And that looked pretty bad... this would've looked 100 times worse. The fact that we still had other organizations still saying it looked like college practice here during camp this season, I'm glad we avoided it. It will be hard enough to get Rhule's stench out of here, but for other teams/players to see it publicly prolly would have hurt us even more. But that being said, I'm not understanding why we would brought him back if they felt like that within the org.

That's awesome lol

A few of them are inferred from what was said/intentionally not said, but here we go: *Rhule was indeed responsible for most, if not all of the roster moves while he was here. So that should put most of the "Fire Fitterer" crowd on snooze, at least for a little bit... this was inferred from a question about learning from the experience of giving a HC complete control over roster building and Tepper replied that in the future he definitely thinks more balance is needed in say between HC and GM. So, as I and many others thought, the bad deals, like Darnold were executed at Rhule's behest. I think Fitt and the FO staff mainly just did scouting and fished for deals and then presented them to Rhule for approval or rejection, other than ones he sought out himself (like Darnold). *Wilks fired Snow himself. Now this one is juicy. Tepper, when initially asked what went into the decision in firing Snow, said the media would need to ask Wilks in his presser tomorrow. Another reporter followed that up because of the implications that Wilks needed to be asked about it, and Tepper replied, "Typically a head coach gets to choose his staff." He again told them it was better to ask Wilks tomorrow. Yikes. Also, this would be more confirmation of the Twitter rumor from a few weeks back. Wilks just pulled a GoT-style coup. *Despite Rhule having been the main architect of the roster, it sounds very much like Fitterer is on the hot seat as well. This doesn't make much sense to me, as Tepper essentially confirmed the roster was built under Rhule's direction. And with that being the case, the hiring of Fitt doesn't make much sense from the beginning outside of scouting purposes. If he didn't have final say, but is being held accountable for the roster now underperforming, I'm not really understanding this. And what was the point of hiring him? Has he even really been a GM to this point then? And what good would firing him do? *Tepper gave mostly short answers with a very irritated tone. He also closed the presser out with very hostile exchanges with Scott Fowler and another reporter. He seems to regularly read Fowler's pieces and doesn't appreciate them, nor did he want to entertain his question about what the threshold was that finally convinced him to fire Rhule. The question before that was about the ridiculous amount of turnover in the upper echelons of the FO and the failure to follow through on the Rock Hill site. It ended the presser on a very awkward, uncomfortable note. All that being said, I appreciated Tepper accepting responsibility and he gave very thoughtful, nuanced answers regarding fans and their role in all things Panthers. He offered how he shared the perspective as a fan because he was one before he became an owner, and he appreciates our passion and desire for success but he really wants to give things room to develop without being impulsive. But, he did add, which I agree with, that he shouldn't be making any moves driven by fan sentiment. Everything should be about winning. *One thing I particularly didn't like though was Tepper still seems to lack a vision. When asked what improvement/winning culture looks like, he said "winning more than the last season." When asked about what was the deciding factor in firing Rhule, he repeatedly said "getting over the hump." When asked what getting over the hump meant, he said winning. Ok, but what does that look like? How do you get there? What do you want it to look like? He also then repeatedly said we've shown improvement, but we just couldn't get over the hump, and then even cited that we won 5 games two years in a row before this debacle of a season as signs of progress. He still just seems very tone deaf still and has no clear plan of how to get it on track or what markers he looks for that are definitive signs of progress aside from winning. To me, this seems very naive and like he's skipping a lot of steps which I don't really feel comfortable with. *His initial answers sounded like Wilks was just getting these games to finish out the season for that reason and that reason alone... but the further we got into the presser, he prefaced every question about the next coaching search with the statement that it would be unfair to discuss that because Wilks deserves the rest of this year as an opportunity to earn consideration for the full-time job, and he will be given that opportunity before anything else is considered. What Tepper said about why he chose Wilks as the interim was also very glowing and encouraging as he called him a leader of men, and essentially a guy that has the respect and the ear of the locker room and a constant pro.

I appreciate CMC, especially since he's been healthy this year... but, honestly, as a RB, his value is going depreciate rapidly, but he may be the piece to put the Bills over the top... and thus, if they want him, I would demand a first, and I would do it.

That's prolly the best candidate for this quote. I said despite the contract DJ was still a possibility because Smitty has been a bit of a direct mentor to him. But, honestly, with the wave of news that we've gotten today, and in the manner in which these events have unfolded, Burns makes a ton of sense... mainly, because those Twitter rumors from the "insider" seem to be confirmed more and more with each piece of news - such as the Wilks/Snow beef. Part of the beef they said was due to how the defensive players were being used, and it came along with the bit that Burns was likely going to leave when his contract was up because of how he was being used. Makes a ton of sense now. I'm hoping Wilks and Holcomb will use him in a way that encourages him to stay.

DJ is locked in with his contract, so he'll be here, but it's still very likely it was him. That being said, I fully expect a ton of stories to come out now about Rhule... these players are coached up on how to handle media and avoid controversy from HS on nowadays. No matter how they personally felt about him, they were just trying to toe the company line and get through week to week. Now they're not bound to him and I expect a lot of the issues are going to come out publicly.

Damn this is exciting. fug you and your cronies, Matthew.

Just wanted to reiterate... The more that has happened, the more it looks like those rumors were completely spot on. Wilks was fuming behind the scenes, and I didn't really buy it before, but it is starting to look more and more believable that Snow was the actual guy calling the shots in the Rhule regime - which is fuging insane. This is just amazing how this had all unfolded. Wilks gives me hope that we can put something in place that resembles a functioning, professional football team again.

I think Ryan deserves a shot. He had a good reputation before coming aboard this trainwreck.