LinvilleGorge

Likely has plenty of agent and other insider contacts and gets word of things and passes them along. In other words, he just does his job and does it well. Panthers fans just aren't used to a beat writer who actually does this.

I'd prefer to leave Bene as a starter, but kick him inside and let Ball play on the outside when we go nickel which honestly is most of the time anyway.

I'll go with a 3rd option, "it depends". If we took Gurley over a guy like Jaelen Strong, I'd be pissed.

Honestly, the guy breaks more Panthers news than anyone else.

Well, at least Voth is attempting to confirm. Joe Person hasn't even heard the news.

Read the article I posted. Evidently, when allowed to play press man he's very effective, but it does sound like he sucks at everything else.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/05/23/secret-superstars-2014-jacksonville-jaguars/ Sounds like he's a pure press man CB.

Ahahahahaha!!!

I like Abdullah, but the fumbles worry me. He reminds me of Gio Bernard. Haven't watched him enough to say whether it's technique related and fixable or whether its his small hands. His hands measured almost a full inch smaller than Bernard's.

100% of it. It's always a piece of the puzzle. I'd be curious to hear your take on why so many highly drafted USC skill position players have failed to live up to their billing. What causes NFL teams to continue to miss in their evaluations? Or is butthurt fan just butthurt?

Didn't work out long-term for us, but that's still one helluva 6th round pick.

butthurt USC fan When a school as produced as many skill position busts over the past 15 or so years as USC has, it's something you have to factor into your evaluation. I don't know what the root cause of it is, but it's real.

Did I say that? All I'm saying is that when you're assessing that individual ability, you also have to factor in the surrounding talent. There's an absurd history of USC producing busts at the skill positions.

You can say the same for USC skill position players. Bust after bust after bust after bust.

I don't trust them. That Bama OL is always dominant. Any decent RB looks like a monster there.

I agree that the Murray contract was dumb, primarily because of his injury issues (he's only played 16 games in one season and has missed a total of 11 games in 4 seasons). But, the reality is that he has nearly matched Stewart's 7 season career production in only 4 seasons. His per game production has been on pace to get to 1000 yards in every one of his seasons. Stewart has only been on pace for 1000 yards in one season - the season he actually got there. Murray is also a bigger factor in the passing game having surpassed Stewart's career receiving yardage in 3 fewer seasons. Again, I like Stewart, but Murray is just better. That's not a knock on Stewart seeing that Murray was the best RB in the NFL last season.

He fancies himself as some kind of NFL renaissance man. I don't care what era of the NFL you're talking about, 28 year old RBs with a long injury history and an ugly contract don't have much trade value. The reality of the situation is that due to injury restraints, Stewart has only one 1000 yard season in his 7 season NFL career and in the past three seasons, he has only played in 28 of a possibly 48 games. In the past 5 years combined, he has a total of 10 rushing TDs. This after having 10 rushing TDs in each of his first two NFL seasons. I like Stewart, but he isn't worth a ham sandwich on the trade market.

You can't talk about draft position with veteran players. Draft position ceases to matter after a season or two. At that point, the player is judged based on what he's done in the NFL. I agree that Spiller and Ingram proved to be unworthy of their 1st round draft positions, but they still proved to be valuable commodities in free agency. If you're gonna knock Spiller and Ingram for being 1st round picks, you have to admit that both McCoy and Murray would've been 1st rounders if those drafts were re-done today. We're okay for right now at the RB position, but are we still okay if Stewart gets hurt again? You're comfortable with Fozzy being the bell cow? What about next year at this time if (more likely when) Stewart is released?

Truth. At the time, I hated both the Beason and Kuechly picks. When we took Beason, I wanted either Greg Olsen or Brandon Meriweather. When we took Kuechly, I wanted either Dontari Poe, Stephon Gilmore, or Michael Brockers.

Yep, they're a dime a dozen. That's why Buffalo just traded a very good young MLB for McCoy and then gave McCoy a fat new contract. It's why Philly paid Murray big time. It's why Ingram got a decent contract from the Saints even though they're in cap hell. It's why CJ Spiller got $9M guaranteed. The media has overplayed the diminished value of RBs in today's NFL. Good RBs are still very valuable.

There are VERY few cornerstone defensive players in the NFL at any given time. Luke is one of them. The reason those types of guys are very rarely traded is because it's almost impossible to get the value you deserve in a trade. Even if you get two #1s, what are the chances that the combination of those two players proves to be a bigger impact on the field and in the locker room than Luke? Slim to none. The only way you move a guy like Luke is if you know you don't have the cap flexibility to keep him. If he was a Saint, I could see them making a deal to move him. Fortunately, we have cap flexibility moving forward. Luke is going to be a Panther for a loooooooong time.

This. I agree that we have other bigger immediate needs, but this is a deep RB class and we all know Gettleman treasures value in draft picks. While RB isn't a HUGE need immediately, it could be a huge need if you fast forward a year - or during this season if Stewart goes down. Kind of reminds me of how DE wasn't a huge need last year, but we took Ealy in the 2nd anyway. Imagine how big of a need DE would be right now if Ealy wasn't taken last year. Now, obviously it isn't fair at all to compare Hardy's situation to Stewart's, I'm just saying that Gettleman thinks ahead. He knew last year at this time that Hardy was probably playing his last season in Carolina and I believe he's thinking that same way about Stewart currently.

We've been linked to both Gurley and Tevin Coleman recently. Sure looks like we're taking a hard look at a RB early. Almost certainly not #25 early, but looks like a RB in the 2nd or 3rd round could certainly be in play. I'm not against it. DeAngelo is gone now and this is very possibly Stewart's last season as a Panther too. You can't count on him staying healthy anyway. I'm not sure why RB as a need hasn't gotten more talk.

We have that guy in our fanbase too. He posts under the name of "gettlemanjack".

I agree. I would've taken that deal and never looked back. If the deal is on the table for the Eagles I'd be all over it if I was Kelly. The Browns sure do love pissing away 1st round picks on QBs.