LinvilleGorge

Good. Make him earn it on the field. He needs to be considerably better than he's been to even consider it. If he isn't, then his 5th year option needs to be spent fighting for his job against the QB we take in the top 10 next April.

Facts. Rico caught lightning in a bottle and looked like one of the best players in the league over a five game stretch. We were 4-1 over that stretch. Rico still averaged almost 7ypc in that loss to the Bills but only had 8 carries because we were getting boat raced. He rushed for 100+ yards three times. We were 3-0 in those games. Rico ran for a combined 519 yards over those three games. Bryce threw for a combined 499 yards over those same games. With a playoff berth on the line we went 1-3 over the last four weeks of the season. Bryce threw for over 200 yards only once in that stretch bottoming out in that disaster against Seattle where he only managed 54 yards in the second to last game of the season.

It wasn't a his sack production, it was about his skill set, build, and scheme fit. He's a six foot tall 280 pound DT. He's best used as an interior pass rushing specialist. He can't play the nose in a 3-4 and he doesn't have the length or burst to play he end either. He just wasn't a scheme fit. He'd be a good roster piece as a rotational pass rushing specialist DT to bring in on passing downs in an even defensive front. But you can't hand out a 3 year/$45M contract for that either. Tha type of contract means you have to try to find starter snap numbers for him and that's a problem in a 3-4 front. Hell, it's a problem in a 4-3 front too. That's why the Chiefs were willing to let him walk.

For the record, most of the loudest Bryce critics were also among the loudest Cam supporters. So... WTF are you talking about other than just wanting to dismiss views you don't like with unfounded accusations to avoid having to argue your point?

Yeah, I'm still not completely sold on Caleb but I'd take him over Bryce all day everyday and every other NFL team would too, including the Panthrs though they can never admit it since they effectively gave the Bears a ton of roster building capital while handing them the pick that eventually became Caleb Wiliams.

We ranked 15th in the NFL last year in drops. Roughly middle of the pack. So Bryce wasn't helped by over performing receivers or held back by butter handed receivers either. The Bears led the league in drops and Caleb Williams threw for over 900 more yards than Bryce

65 yards more per game is huge. He needs to basically improve his production by a third to match what Darnold did last year. That would be Bryce leaping from 27th in the NFL in passing yards per game (bottom tier starting QB) to 9th in the league (top 10 QB production). What you're asking for is a new QB because it's not a realistic expectation for a 4th year player with serious physical talent limitations to make that type of leap.

That's the problem. You act like hitting Darnold's numbers is an achievable, modest improvement. Darnold threw for over 1000 more yards than Bryce did last year. That would be a monumental leap for Bryce.

Yeah, Shula was the QB coach. I honestly completely forgot about Chud. When he took the Browns job we should've swung big for an OC instead of just promoting Shula. Yes, I guarantee Shula leveraged his "success" with Cam to get that job and just proved that yeah, it was Cam not Shula. That bum got carried for years by a generational talent.

Cam had his most efficient passing seasons under Norv after his shoulder was trashed. Meanwhile, Shula never got another NFL OC job. He finally got a college OC job at South Carolina and got his ass fired mid-season because he was making a presumed 1st round QB look like a guy who wouldn't get drafted. I give credit to Shula for Cam's rookie season and creating an offense that maximized his skills at that point at the NFL level. But Shula never evolved his offense beyond that. I desperately wish we would've seen a Norv Turner tyor coordinating the offense for Cam starting in year two or three but we let Shula ride him into the dirt.

The problem is that you have a very small handful of legit good games to cling to vs. all the rest of Bryce's career. He has to be at his absolute best. Even "good" on the "Bryce curve" is below average for NFL starting QB standards and "average" on the "Bryce curve" is "we need a new fuging QB" for NFL starting QB standards.

Damn, that'll be a historic year for QB's on IR across the league.

I was pretty shocked to see us get three primetime games. 6-11 honestly feels like a pretty rational prediction with us playing a decision winner strength of schedule.

Hate it for him personally and hope he recovers well. But honestly, reaching an injury settlement and moving on would probably be a best case scenario for the Panthers. This signing always felt like a desperate knee-jerk reaction to losing out on Milton Williams. Williams was a logical scheme fit while Wharton just wasn't. He's best used as a rotational interior pass rushing specialist in an even front. He's way too small to play the nose in a 3-4 and he lacks the length and juice to play the end. Healthy he's a nice roster piece in the right scheme at the right price but we overpaid him to play him in the wrong scheme. The signing just never made any sense to me and I said so at the time.

Sorry, everything in sports is blue to me. Panthers, Tar Heels, it's gotta be blue. LOL

Because Wade Phillips was playing chess vs. Shula's checkers. Shula very predictably countered the opposing D having success in the pass rush by keeping extra blockers in so that he could still run his same slow developing downfield route stuff. Phillips knowing we had no receivers he was scared of vs. his secondary and running primarily man coverage countered this with "blue dog" blitzing. Essentially if the man you're supposed to cover stays in to block you blitz to nullify the extra blocker, now it's back to hat on a hat football and Von Miller vs. Mike Remmers one on one is a nightmare. Shula had no plan C. There was no counter to the counter. We were cooked at that point. Screens? Chip and release routes from the extra blockers staying in to take advantage of the guy coming in hot on a blitz? Quick slants or drags to get the ball out faster? Nope. None of that. The guy was a fuging moron.

My parents went to the Truist golf tournament in Charlotte last week and a bunch of former Panthers were doing the pro-am thing. They had great things to say about all of them, even Smitty. They said they were all having a lot of fun and super friendly and engaging eith the crowd. Specific players mentioned were Smitty, Luke, TD, J Stew, there were definitely more but those guys come to mind immediately.

I mean, Bryce isn't very good but Kenny Pickett is fuging terrible. That we paid him like a good backup was insane. Pickett should be on league minimum deal just hoping to make a roster.

Reportedly heard by bystanders before he threw his beer at a fan: "let them eat cake"

Not wrong.

It speaks volumes about what a joke the field of sports journalism is.

I still reserve my right to bitch about how incompetent the Panthers are at running a football organization and point to the mountains of evidence in support.

If we extend Bryce on a franchise QB contract I'll check put as a Panthers fan until the nightmare is over. I'll just go back to being a general football fan and tuning into the most interesting games of the day. Hell, I've been halfway there for years. For years I've been alf ass watching the Panthers on one screen while watching other games on other screens.

We don't have one of those.

I came over from the old Panthers Insider site. When Fox Sports bought that platform it slowly just started dying plus the guy who ran that site was dealing with some pretty significant health issues so the whole thing just slowly fell apart. Quite a few of us migrated over here. Not sure how many are still around. I miss that place. It struck a nice balance of having enough active posters to keep productive conversation flowing but didn't have so much traffic that you end up with a lot of trolling BS. This place is getting there though since we shutdown new registrations but at some point we're going to have to open it back up or we'll watch this place slowly die off too as posters fall off for one reason or another. We just have to figure out a way to filter out the spam bots. It was a never ending battle to ban the spam bots to keep then from overrunning the site. You'd think they'd be a little more strategic. I mean, if you fill a site with nothing but spam people are just going to stop coming so it's not a sustainable model. But nope, every one of them makes dozens of duplicate threads filling up pages upon pages as soon as their account goes live.