1of10Charnatives

i'm comfortable saying that not even Stroud or Young is any kind of guarantee. The reality is we just traded up to give ourselves better odds of filling the most important position by far with talent. Not guaranteed success. Better odds. How much better is really anyone's guess.

i'm talking about the long term outlook for the drafted QB's success, which looks beyond merely this year's FA crop. I'd agree there is no immediate upgrade to DJ, but that does not mean quality FA WR's won't be available in the next couple of years. I don't think anyone could reasonably expect whoever we draft to lead us to immediate SB glory next year, so thinking in terms of the next few years seems valid. in that regard, i'm concerned that we just gave away a substantial chunk of our assets that could help put offensive weapons in place, but acknowledging that there are still avenues to doing so. it's just that the margin for error got smaller. Miss on a FA next year, or first round WR the year after, and the risk you leave the QB you traded up to get with poor offensive weapons gets a lot bigger a lot faster.

For the record, I don't think we got fleeced, but I don't like the deal because history says it's unlikely to be worth it in the end. The price was to move up was low to reasonable given what one might have expected Chicago to demand, but I am not optmisitic that Stroud or Young or whomever will now be in a great position to succeed long term. They do seem to be able to step into throwing behind a decent offensive line, but with both DJ and CMC gone now, who is the offensive weapon that will make a young QB's job easier? Oh and over the next 3 drafts including this one, we just gave up several of the most valuable picks we might use to acquire such weapons. Devil's advocating my own post, most years quality WR's can be had in FA, just not this year, and solid RB's do not require first or second round picks, so all is not lost. I'd love to see them use one of their highest remaining picks this year to get a promising TE prospect if one is available.

Personally I think we need a top flight midfielder, or maybe even a solid bowler. Why do basketball commentators insist on using the term quarterback to describe point guards, while football commentators go on about point guard like quarterbacks? My theory is a lame attempt to mask their limited abillity to describe the position using the actual terms for the game their commenting on, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, the thing they are actually paid to do and largely suck at.

Emphasis added. I just wanted to repeat this post because it seems vaguely important somehow. fug you and your refs Roger Goodell. You blatantly allowed headhunting on our QB while at the same time blatantly enforcing unspoken don't touch rules on other QB's.

Given that Julio is no longer with the team and they never won anything of substance with him (one nightmare sb appearance), it's fair to question that move. he was a great wr, but what did the falcons give up to trade up? i think that one could be argued either way, since to be fair jones did have a solid career with the falcons. let's talk about the chiefs traded up for mahomes, but did they really mortgage the future in doing so? i'm not just talking about trading up, i'm talking about a trade up that causes the trading up team to have to give up a boatload. in mahomes case the price of moving up was a third and one future first rounder. That's not peanuts but i wouldn't consider it mortgaging the future. You're gonna pay at least a first to move up double digit spots in the first, but that trade still left the Chiefs very capable of drafting plenty of talent in the next few years to put around Mahomes. Ravens trading up for Lamar: was a great move, but did they mortgage the future? in hindsight ozzie newsome's last move as a drafting gm was a steal. The Ravens gave up only their current 2nd rounder, and the next year's second rounder plus a late round pick in order to move into the end of the first and get a slightly lower late round pick in return. given what they got in jackson, they gave up very little. In summary, of the three examples you gave, julio is the only one i'd agree might be an example of giving up the farm to move up and it working out, but even that one is iffy. The Chiefs moving up for Mahomes and the Ravens moving up for Lamar were savy moves, but I don't think the teams doing so gave up a eyepopping bevy of picks to trade up.

Question: when has a team ever given a boatload of picks to move up and it worked out for them? not saying it hasn't happened, i just don't recall any instance of anyone mortgaging the farm to get a single player and it looking good in hindsight.

Good idea from fan's perspective but players would hate it and bail more than they do already.

MIght be true, might not, but either way it's akin to saying cat poo smells better than dog poo.

Fight me. The service at the Bojangles near Johnson C Smith is absolute garbage, but i'll take a cajun filet biscuit any day of the week. That's right, even tuesdays.

I agree but it is steak, and therefore still better than 95% of what you could be eating, in the same sense that while bad sex is bad sex, it is still better than 95% of what you could be doing with your day.

My experience with Dallas fans is that as a group, they are the biggest bandwagoner bunch of know nothings in NFL fandom. Any individual fan might or might not be knowledgable, but as a group, they strike me as the most clueless.On average Green Bay fans and Steelers fans tend to really know their stuff, so if it those comments came from those fan bases, i'd lend them more weight, but Dallas fans... nah.

Post of the week along with the OP.

There are many factors contributing to a QB's success or failure at the NFL level. Some, like drive, learning curve, ability to process at the speed needed in the league, are extremely hard to measure, so while QB prospects are put under an intense microscope pre draft, what often gets overlooked is how unmeasurable these things are, and how this contributes to the crapshoot nature of drafting a QB. The other thing that I think is overlooked and borderline ignored most of the time, his how big a factor the specific circumstances a young QB finds himself in influence the outcome. The quality of the OL he plays behind, his skill position players, the fit of the scheme to his skillset, the quality of the coaching he receives. Keep in mind all these things matter, and they can vary greatly from team to team. A common fan perspective is to lament that we could have had so and so player and we didn't draft him. I believe the problem with this idea is the notion that player x's outcome is mostly about him, and that if he were here, the outcome would largely have been the same. I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that environmental factors play a much bigger role in a prospects success or failure at the NFL level than most fans are inclined to consider. What if we had drafted Hurts? Maybe he'd have had not nearly as much success if he'd come here.

...and will be better than Fhule.

FIFY

Both cities have pharmacies, so why not?

I was thinking of exactly the Fhule hire when I wrote my post and specifically the circumstances where he Pied Piper Tepper and Hurney. If they make themselves go home and think it over a week or two, then bring Fhule in for meet and greets with other staff etc., maybe cooler heads prevail in the end and all the fluff pitch of a guy who is a brilliant snake oil salesman and little else has time to wear off. In the end they definitely hired on emotion, and I think the short hiring cycle, and fear of bare cupboard drives a lot of this, but the reality is most hires don't work out in the end, so it seems to me the opportunity to go against the grain would be to refuse to succumb to that way of thinking. Every year there is a collective perception that a few candidates are the "hot" options and if you don't get one of those, you'll lose out. The vast majority of those "hot" candidates are fired within the next five years anyway. How often do NFL teams miss out on a hidden gem, a less obviously great option, because of this short, emotion driven process?

@Evil Hurney Thank you for not only putting this study together and the great job in doing so, but in bringing a relevant, refreshingly new, not retread topic of discussion to the table.

Interesting analysis. Great chart. I am guessing that two of the factors driving quick hiring (guessing when you look at non sports industries, the hiring of highly visible, top level, multi million dollar positions do not normally play out nearly as quickly), are the limited pool of perceived viable candidates (pro teams tend not to consider the literally hundreds of professional and college level head coaches and coordinators that make up the nominal hiring pool, but rather almost immediately focus nearly exclusively on a handful of these candidates), and the pressure of impending duties the new coach and his as yet to be hired staff will assume. What's the first non draft activity a coaching staff needs to be prepared for, OTA's? KInd of makes for an interesting question: Are NFL teams doing it all wrong? In the grand scheme of things, what's more important, being sure you've got the right head coach in place for the future, or making sure that coach has as much time to prepare for the draft and OTA's as possible? Given the rate of league turnover at head coaching positions and the presumed ability of any competent FO staff to prep for the draft without constant hand holding by the coaching staff, is there Moneyball like opportunity for a team or team to buck the trend and decide it's more important to not rush and take their time hiring a coach? Is this even a workable approach given how firmly entrenched hiring norms in the league are at present?

I am pulling for the asteroid to hit the stadium and not the children's hospital/puppy rescue/baby seal aquarium, but knowing Brady and the refs, some kid with stage 4 leukemia will get called for roughing the passer anyway.

Has anyone ever said this about Detroit? Hell, has anyone actually ever been happy in Detroit? Okay maybe some of those old Pistons teams, but anyone related to the Lions? Happy? It just seems weird to even think it.

I want to win too, but not at all costs. To me winning has to be done within a context you can at least live with. The Watson thing was not great at all, and likely if he had come here, I'd have found something else to do with my sundays. I don't expect everyone to be a choir boy, hell I'm still a huge Steve Smith fan and the dude clearly has his failings, but there is a point beyond which I cannot lend my support or look the other way, and hiring a guy who paid his players to hurt other players goes beyond that point. I'm not judging anybody else for thinking differently, you just wanna win football games, I get that. This is just how I personally feel about it, and since this is a discussion board for Panthers related matters, I chose to state that pretty clearly. As always ymmv.

Lol, I'm flattered you'd even notice. I'm not around that much compared to a lot of the mainstays on this board. I tend to come and go with the demands of life and the fortunes of the team. It helps a lot that my job's busy season coincides with the nfl's offseason, but if your interest in something is completely destroyed, it's funny how you can always find something else to fill that time in your life. Incidently, if nothing can destroy your interest in something, I think there's a term for that: addiction Now if you'll excuse me, this black tar heroin isn't gonna shoot itself.

No, only because we never actually made the trade. There is tons of rumor, speculation and reporting that we wanted Watson, but none of that is verifiable fact the way hiring someone would be. I agree it's highly likely he was after Watson and didn't care about the baggage, but there's not verifiable proof of it because we didn't actually trade for him. Also Watson hasn't admitted to what he's accused of. Those might seem like thin threads to a lot of folks, but to me there is a meaningful difference between having a strong suspicion your team owner doesn't have a moral compass,and having actual proof of it in the form of hiring a scumbag.