WhoKnows

True but his passer rating against was 91+. If he took away the other team’s best WR, we should have seen some sort of impact. I’m not saying he’s good, just haven’t seen elite.

That Brooks over Zack Frazier pick still stings. Grabbing a RB who isn’t going to play much in year 1 (before he got hurt again) makes no sense with the loaded 2025 RB draft. There’s so much talent that we’ll see some solid day 3 RBs. Not just surprises like 2024’s day 3 RBs but a few that would be day 2 picks every other year like Brooks.

See my post edit above, he certainly hasn’t had that lockdown/on an island type of effect. Josh Norman has that type of effect for a couple years with us and I’ll be honest that I haven’t felt like that for Horn yet. Looking at his 2024 stats (https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/jaycee-horn/83375#seasonStatsWidget) doesn’t scream top QB. I think he’s good but I cringe a little when I hear he’s elite when healthy since his most healthy year was when we set a record for points against.

Has he truly been elite? I don’t recall our defense ever looking good over Horn’s career. I mean, is there even a noticeable scoring difference when he’s healthy? We have always, always overrated our guys and it’s pretty damn rare we actually have a player like Luke that it’s true. I loved Cam and he was a monster at times but we (most of us) revere him for his special plays more than results. Outside of the special 2015, he won 1 playoff game against a 3rd string QB. Don’t get me wrong, Cam was unbelievable at times but he’s a great example of us overrating players. Just for shits and giggles, I checked points against. We gave up 25 ppg from 2021 to 2024. In Jaycee’s 37 games, we’ve give up 26 ppg. I’d say Brown is far more valuable as our points against went from mediocre to record breakingly bad.

Sounds like a recent Panthers top 10 pick. Ugh, why’d we have to win another couple meaningless games? I’m tired of the we need a dawg culture/can’t tank mentality when we lost out on Sewell/Chase/getting 3 1sts from SF one year, Herbert the year before and had to give up the farm to get Young. We have cost us so much marquee talent since the 2020 draft chasing 8 wins and not getting it. I feel like this draft is exactly the same. We were in line to get a bounty or get one of the few marquee guys to end up with a guy who might not fit future schemes when Evero leaves. It’s the Panther way lately. We haven’t been lucking into Cam, Peppers, Luke, Gross top 10 picks.

Exactly, mocking a ranking of top 5 QBs in 2022 is stupid. No top 5 QB list in the 2022 draft had anything. The only person I remember saying they liked Purdy was Rhule but he played against Purdy several times. Rhule also was on the hot seat and not in control of the draft anymore. That said, Purdy would have been awful on the 2022-2024 Panthers.

He is but it’s stupid to point at his 2022 draft rankings to show he sucks. There were 4 guys at those positions (QB, RB, TE and WR) that made a single pro-bowl. None of those guys made more than one pro-bowl. McBride (his 2nd TE), Purdy, Jake Ferguson (had to be a replacement) and Kyren Williams. So, 3 of the 4 skilled position pro-bowlers were day 3 picks, i.e. on no analysts top 5 lists and the one 2nd rounder was his 2nd TE. His rankings look bad, but that’s because the QBs absolutely sucked that year and the skilled positions weren’t either. Some solid defenders but terrible offensive players.

Just admit that you don’t follow all the draft discussions on here. If draft results were so random, how come some teams tend to be perennial losers like us and some teams are perennial winners and it all starts with the draft? It’s almost comical these type of stupid responses. Oh, why aren’t you the GM? Gee I wonder since I work in a completely different field. How about you give us some examples of where the huddle consensus drafting was worse than our drafting from 2018 to 2025? I know I’ve given a ton of examples and you just shoot this generic poo of oh you couldn’t possibly done better as an armchair GM. Why don’t you dispute any of my examples? Let’s go to Brooks. I wanted Frazier at C because I still feel like that’s a hole. Other Huddlers mentioned DeJean at CB. Here’s why many of us didn’t want Brooks because 1) he might not play due to tearing his ACL late in the college season, 2) any scout/GM worth their salt would know that the 2025 RB draft class was loaded and 3) trading up multiple picks knowing 1 and 2 seems silly. Heck, after the draft, pretty clear that day 3 was where the RB value was. The huddle was right on Brooks and at most, we’ll get 2 years of Brooks while Hubbard is still under contract. If you know so much about the underlying machinations of the draft, you should be able to dispute the actual examples and how the huddle’s picks were just plain lucky and how Dan, Scott and Marty’s picks were just unlucky. Pulling the why aren’t you an NFL GM is a much repeated response when an actual reasoned response isn’t possible. Our drafting hasn’t been unlucky the past 7 drafts, it’s just been bad with lost of idiotic moves that were far worse than the huddle consensus.

See my post above. Any pissed off people were likely pissed because we again ignored OL in yet another draft and signed poo in FA. I might have also been pissed by every pick from Hubbard on that we still wouldn’t take a chance on Trey Smith.

It’s not a crap shoot. Sorry, but I hate when people say that. We aren’t just unlucky. We have been terrible since the 2017 draft. There seem to be good teams that draft well overall and it’s not just luck. Taking TMJ in 2021 over the best C in the draft or taking injured Johnathan Brooks over a BPA C the year before a historic RB deep draft when we needed a C of the future both times is being stupid. The teams that grabbed the Cs right after we passed where KC and Pittsburgh who seem to know what they are doing. We (the draftniks on this board) have absolutely been better than the GMs/scouts from 2018-2024. I’m sorry again but if you’ve actually followed the draft discussions, it’s been 100% true. Also, just an FYI, the whole reason most people poo on our picks in 2021 was because our OL sucked and Fitterer’s response to that was to ignore the guys like Slater and Darrisaw in the 1st (PFF graded Slater 2nd and Darrisaw 11th among tackles in 2024), Humphrey in the 2nd (PFF 2nd rated C) and take a long snapper over Trey Smith (PFF 14th rated G). Add in Moton and another young G drafted day 3 in 2023 or 2024 and we could have easily had the best OL in the NFL. Slater, Smith, Humphrey, 2nd round G and Moton. That’s what pissed U.S. officials about the 2021 draft when we said nah, we good with Cam Erving and Pat Elflein and just taking an old BC and a terrible overweight Deonte Brown.

Well, it can be annoying when we don’t even draft well. If we drafted well, no one would care but we don’t. I remember one year Marty 2.0 decided to go XFL hunting and not one of them ever did anything. I’m sure there were UDFAs that actually did something that year. We have a lot of day 3 picks. Personally, I’d like every single second of offseason time to be spent on actually making a successful day 3 pick for once without having Mrs. Rhule show our scouts how to do it.

Gates didn’t play football in college but Saban recruited him to play at Michigan St. Saban didn’t want him to play basketball in college so he went to Kent St. It wasn’t like Gates had never played football. He just didn’t play in college. Graham did play a year of football at Miami.

I chose Walker and not trade back because trade back is probably not going to happen anyway.

1st round TEs scare me. I don’t know what it is but the top TEs don’t get taken in the 1st round. Even if you would say what about Olsen or Hockenson, I’d come back with they weren’t top TEs on the teams that drafted them. Not sure what it is but 1st round TEs, especially top 10 ones, do not have a good history, especially for the team that drafted them.

Yeah and I hate that about us. It’s been our MO since Hurney came back. We seemed to completely ignore people who drop. Maybe they drop for a reason but when it’s us, typically it means we have tunnel vision and/or way overvalued the guy we picked. All I know is we need to actually get a top 10 pick who plays like a stud right away without any buts. We better have every player in the top 10 graded as a just in case.

Same thing was said about Burns. There are only 7 picks before us. Walker could go but if he does, it would mean someone like a Graham would drop to us. The only way I’d be afraid is if no QBs go early. If Walker was bigger, then I’d be more concerned.

I think a big assumption was that Reich was a QB coaching guru. Rivers and Manning were already in their 30s when Reich worked with them. Luck was at the end of his career. Wentz was the only young/rookie QB he worked with and his familiarity with him is why he brought him in at Indy. Wentz was also a 24 year old rookie. I don’t know if Reich would have been successful with Stroud who was a 22 year old rookie and Canales was clearly better with Young.

Crappy QB play? Here’s Reich’s 4 QBs: 2018 10-6 Luck 4600 yards 39 TDs 2019 7-9 Brissett 2900 and 19 TDs but also had 2130 rushing yards and 17 rushing TDs due to a standout OL 2020 11-5 Rivera 4200 yards and 24 TDs and once again a solid OL and running game with 2000 yards and 20 rushing TDs 2021 9-8 Wentz 3600 yards and 27 TDs (only 7 INTs) and a ridiculous running game with Taylor of over 2500 yards and 22 TDs Outside of Cam’s MVP year, Reich had better passing offenses overall with solid vet QB play. Saying Reich overcame crappy QB play is completely false, especially when you look at how good their OL/running game was outside of Luck’s 39 TD season.

That’s a lot of words to really not say much. Everyone doesn’t have that issue. You are trying to act like our scouts and GMs are doing everything right and it’s just a flip of a coin. It’s funny because I know in the 2021 (our best recent draft lol) there were two OL that many of us in here wanted because A) we all thought our OL was the biggest issue (it was) and B) we had easy chances to get a top C and a talented day 2 guard who dropped due to a medical concern. We got TMJ and a long snapper who didn’t make the team instead of Humphrey and Smith. The team who got the two OL? Kansas City, who went on to win 2 SBs with them after losing the 2020 SB due to their bad OL. It’s not just noise and everyone isn’t the same. If you really think our GMs/scouts are on the same level as the Chiefs, Eagles and Ravens to name a few, and that they just have better luck then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Film can lie. Greg Little had great stats coming out. It was his combine drills and testing that showed that he didn’t really have the athleticism and balance to make it in the NFL. Trey Smith’s RAS score showed the difference between him and Deonte Brown because both were pre-draft day 2 guys. Our problem is our recent/current GMs/scouts haven’t shown the ability to use all of the data to confirm that a good tape guy can transition to the NFL or a good athlete can transition because he wasn’t used right or in the best scheme. We seem to take one of the pieces of data and run with that and ignore the other pieces. The good, consistent drafting teams seem to know what works well for them and how to find those good players.

Good scouting trumps all. Game tape sometimes has to be taken with the grain of salt that the combine does. Greg Little was in fact a top 15 pick just based on his college play. Remember how few pressures/1 sack given up in his career? There are a lot of players that prospects play against who aren’t good enough to play in the pros. Unfortunately, our scouting and GM have been terrible from 2018 to 2024 and we happen to have a lot of examples where RAS scores don’t guarantee success and game tape doesn’t guarantee success. Look at Deonte Brown. His RAS score was horrible but he had Nick Saban’s seal of approval and was listed at a day 2 pick just on his college play. The RAS score and playing on a loaded line should have been our red flag. We ignored Trey Smith who also was listed as a day 2 pick just on his college play. Both players dropped but Smith performed because KC handled his medical concerns as NFL Teams should with their resources. Our problem was we ignored Brown’s horrific RAS score and ignored the fact that Smith’s great RAS score backed up the game tape. Anyway, our issue isn’t that we go game tape over RAS scores or vice versa. Our issue is that we seemingly can’t put everything together and find good NFL talent.

Until we scout well and actually draft the real BPAs instead of drafting for needs, our drafts will continue to suck. Our best draft since 2017 appears to be 2021 according to the huddle. Not one other fanbase would be satisfied with a top 8 pick that played half of his games in his rookie contract and an OK RB as a “good draft” and no, I’m not mentioning backup level guys. This is Morgan’s last draft unless we can get more than one impact starter.

I agree. I still can’t believe that people actually want to say he never got a chance. This thread basically says 2021 was Fitterer’s only “good” draft and Rhule was in charge (his wife liked Hubbard). Fitterer had control in 2022 and 2023 and look at those. Again, the big posters said Rhule was on the hot seat to start 2022 and that Fitterer owned the draft and personnel. People want to blame it all on Tepper but to anyone that read the draft articles saw how Fitterer described how he and Reich were in agreement before and after the draft process on Young. He also mentioned that he had Young as his top QB the year before when they were looking at the 2022 QBs like Corral. Fitterer was 100% on Young for 2 years and he’s the guy (Morgan agreed with this as well) who turned down the Burns trade. Fitterer was truly awful and his utterly awful decisions can’t be blamed on everyone else. The only thing that makes sense for how bad he was is that Seattle saw an opportunity to cripple our franchise and Fitterer intentionally made all those bad moves.

I wanted Fitterer gone (whole GM/scouting) with Rhule. I was told I was wrong by so many and it set us back another 3-4 years.

Not me, just another reach and waste of a 3rd and 4th (Fitterer special). Then again I wasn’t in charge of a record breaking defense last season so I really shouldn’t comment.