WhoKnows

Sorry man, let’s not disparage CMC. He’s a damn hard worker. Do you truly believe he would exaggerate his injuries or do you think Rhule and co put him on IR when they realized we were done for the season? RBs have a limited shelf life compared to other positions, so is it worth bringing him back if he could play or having him carry the ball 20+ times when we are eliminated? He didn’t have a Barkley ACL or anything remotely severe that he missed any offseason time. I remember his second injury in 2021 saying to myself that he didn’t appear to be hurt let alone hurt bad when they pulled him. We were 4 games out of first with 5 to play. Even in 2020, he got sat after we just lost a close game to KC in which he had 28 touches. We were 3-6 and playing a 6-3 Tampa team the next week that throttled us week 2. NO was also 6-2 at that time. The powers that be shelved CMC. No chance he exaggerated his injuries.

Eh, he’s not wrong about the fact that beating Tampa means that we wouldn’t have Young. At that point if the season I was on the playoff wagon because I figured our shot at the top QB was already gone. If Houston didn’t screw themselves out of the top spot, we also would have had no shot at Young. If Young truly becomes our hero, losing to Tampa was a good thing for the franchise. We certainly tried to win that game so ranking has nothing to do with this discussion as we didn’t tank, we just plain lost. Had we won, we don’t get Young and we would have lost to the Cowboys. I know it’s hard for folks to understand this, but losing to Tampa did help this franchise assuming Young becomes what we hope he will. If Young flails, well, losing to Tampa hurts even more.

The 2014-2017 OL was good (outside of the rash of injuries in 2016). The middle was Norwell, Kalil and Turner and during that window that was a very solid IOL. We have better tackles now but that OL was better G to G.

Lol. Dear lord, sorry that I didn’t include percentages. I use stats for Vea, Ngata and got told those don’t really count and that PFF grades can’t be used and now I use general terminology like many and all the time and they are quantitatively different. This fan base is amazing. A grading service agrees with me that 2021 Brown was below average and 2022 Brown was top 10 but we must be wrong. Hmm, I came in here because Brown was lacking due to Rhule’s scheme but according to the posts above he has progressed well all three years into a top 10 DT. Damn, Rhule was amazing at developing DTs.

Not at all. After the Steelers made the pick it was obvious that NE did it to take the only T left before a big drop out the Jets hands. They reached (value wise) on McDonald because they were thinking T.

This article said that about 2020/2021: https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/2023/02/20/panthers-derrick-brown-pff-most-improved-player/# His 2021 grade was 64, which is mediocre/below average. His 2022 grade was 84, which was top 10, not mediocre.

Do you seriously not remember 2021? Brown was absolutely getting blocked by one guy, many times. We had threads about whether he was a bust or not and clips of him getting taken out of plays by one blocker because the excuse was constant double teaming. I’m sorry but his PFF grade for 2021 was accurate. Scary that anyone could think he was anywhere near great in 2021. The improvement from 2021 to 2022 was night and day.

Damn, you guys have Rhule PTSD and can’t accept the fact that Brown had a really bad year in 2021 for a 7th overall pick and that he looked way better in 2022 even with Rhule still there. In 2021, Brown was easily blocked by 1 OL and in 2022 he wasn’t. It’s that simple. That obsessive description of our fans is spot on. You can’t be critical of favorites and there are boogeymen that can’t be forgotten.

I agree with you but do think it’s funny about the “tank” comment. I laugh because it’s considered such a bad term and anyone considering it isn’t a fan. We have 7 winning years out of 27, no back to back winning seasons and we have a high of 7 wins in the past 5 years. The people calling for a tank are just wanting the team to win consistently and find our franchise QB again. The teams with the strongest fan bases have HOF QBs and multiple SB wins. That’s all the tankers want and hopefully Young is it. Sucks we had to give up so much but if he’s it, we’ll see the bigger fan base. Right now the obsessives are the only ones really thinking about the team.

Contracts have been going up a lot. The 5th year option is guaranteed and it’s not as cheap anymore, especially for a top 10 pick. Simmons may be playing better but as a LB, that 5th year option may be pricy, especially if guaranteed. I don’t think ILB is a separate class from OLB/edge rusher so probably not cost effective for interior folks.

Sorry, but that’s way too rosy IMHO. I can’t say he was the best DT aside from Donald. I’d put him top 10 in 2022, but he needs to do that consistently. Also, saying he was good to great in 2021 is just being a homer. He had a terrible sophomore slump and he was not disruptive at all. PJ Walker, according to Mahomes, threw the best pass of the year last year. Every player makes a good play here and there but Brown had a down year in 2021. It was a big topic of discussion with many people throwing out the bust label. 2022 was completely opposite but it doesn’t mean 2021 didn’t happen. Here’s a link about his improvement from 2021 to 2022 and it starts: “With two mediocre seasons behind him” and he went from a 64 to 84 in PFF ranking. 64 is just above bad (50s) and well below elite (mid 80s/90+), kind of below average. 70s are average to above average/good.

I’ll be honest, it will be nice when Rhule isn’t blamed for everything. He’s gone. Brown showed promise his rookie year and played terrible in 2021. He was blocked by 1 OL all the time and he wasn’t winning those 1 on 1s. Had nothing to do with scheme or coaches, just not beating the guy in front of him. He looked much better in 2022 even with Rhule offseason and first 5 games. Personally, I felt like he just looked like a different player effort wise last year and that clearly lead to better results.

We’re splitting some hairs but IMHO, the pass rush does move a DT into elite zone. None of these guys are in the Donald or even Short, in his prime, category, but going 7th or even 12th means you better be pro bowl material if you aren’t racking up sacks. I point out the higher sack years because that shows me that Vea and Ngata did get enough pressure on QBs to get some luck and make a bunch of sacks some years. 5-6 is a very good DT sack year especially to 300+ guys.

Vea had 6.5 sacks last year. That’s 0.5 more than Brown in 3 years. Brown went 7th, Vea 12th. Ngata went 12th as well and in year 4 started a run of 5 straight pro bowls with three years of 5+ sacks. Do you see Brown starting a run of 5 straight pro bowls or getting 5-6 sacks? There’s a huge difference between 12th and 7th. Herbert was the QB that went right before Brown. Rosen was the QB who went 2 picks before Vea. Star went 14th. Brown was as good as we could get unless we wanted to go tackle (I wanted Wirfs) or WR (Lamb or Jefferson would be fun). That draft was tough and we likely should have traded up then if we liked Herbert so much. I’m not dissing Brown, but he hasn’t gotten to Vea/Ngata level and IMHO 7th is too high for a NT without sacks. Only way the pick was worth it over say Wirfs or a trade up for QB (would have cost less), is if he ups his pass rush game this year and becomes a pro-bowler. Vea and Ngata both made it year 4.

Agreed on the lanes, but I do think that with bend of the lines, a taller QB could have some additional views. I think Young clearly finds his lanes and is used to that and clearly effective in doing so. I recall Brees talking about how he tilted his head up to get additional height when looking downfield. If Brees had to do that to get a better view then we can’t say that QBs only use lanes.

He had 8.5 sacks his last two years at Auburn so I disagree that we weren’t expecting pass rushing. You don’t take just a nose tackle at 7. You take an elite DT at 7. I think we expected a bit more than 1 sack last year but he was still way more disruptive and active than 2021. That’s why I don’t consider him elite. Maybe that pass rush/sacks will come as a 3-4 DE.

Might be interesting to see but OL are not standing straight up when blocking. A 6-5” QB may in fact be looking over an OL who’s not standing straight up. Again, lots of variables (like height with helmet on and knee bend/base) but I think that it’s not a fully true statement that QBs can’t look over an OL and that Young does in fact have less chance to look over in some cases.

I think you guys are missing why GB did it. 2024 was Love’s fifth year option, which was $20.1M fully guaranteed. They gave him the opportunity to earn 10% more but it also gives GB the opportunity to save $6.5M if he blows this year. Seems like a decent risk reward. If he’s all that GB wants, paying an extra $2.4M is no big deal but it takes 1/3 of the risk away from a fully guaranteed 5th year. It’s similar to what we didn’t do for Darnold. We didn’t take any risk off the table for the what if he sucks option. Love deserves a bit of extra $$$ because unlike Sam, he didn’t have a track record of he sucks. Sam did have that he sucks track record and we still have him the fully guaranteed money instead of making our risk having to pay an extra $4M if he was so hood we had to franchise. The franchise tag is a lot more expensive for QBs now so GB took the correct approach.

If that helps you sleep at night…

TMJ played a lot when not hurt. Even his rookie year he was the WR3. He played almost half the snaps and we played two TEs the other half. His production made it seem like he was never out there but he was. Last year he was WR2. Everyone said the same thing about BC who after week 4 or 5, played 60% of all snaps. He was behind Robby and once Robby was traded, Marshall was only behind DJ. Marshall played 77% of offensive snaps in the 14 games he played last year. Chosen played 78% of offensive snaps in 2020 and had 1100 yards. Marshall wasn’t close to as productive as Chosen was in 2020 playing the same snap count rate. Marshall was slightly better than 2021 Chosen (prorated yards were 10-15% more and TDs were way less). Rhule sucked but lack of playing time had nothing to do with Marshall’s lack of production. Again, I’d be more than happen to see Marshall as a stud because I want Young to succeed but the “breakout” is a bit exaggerated. 490 yards and 1 TD while playing almost 80% of the snaps in 14 games isn’t amazing. Sure, if he was buried and barely played, but he wasn’t, he was our WR2.

He’s a hood above average DT but he’s not elite. Elite IMHO means you are stopping the run and rushing the passer as well. Damn autocorrect keeps changing good to hood. I literally just watched it do it again and fixed it.

You forgot Bresee, the Saints pick at 29.

If he was a really good player, don’t think Jacksonville dumps him that fast. We got fleeced on that deal.

Seemed like he had a bright future? Lol, dude was the consensus best non-QB in the draft and taken right after Burrow. He was considered to be Myles Garrett level talented. Pretty sure he was also considered better than the Bosas when he came out. He’s been a massive bust after being the DROY. He’s been hurt for two years but even when he played 12 games in those 2 years he only had 1.5 sacks and 5 QB hits. I don’t recall what his injuries are but he really dropped in year 2 while starting 9 games. Washington already declined his 5th year options so they obviously have reservations that he’ll ever reach his potential but I don’t think they’ll trade him for peanuts because he was the #2 pick and has been hurt.

Slow? Second best DT time. 4.81 for a 290+ lb guy is not slow at all. This seems like a solid pickup.