LinvilleGorge

RB has been a devalued position for decades now. It's just been hard for Panthers fans to notice as we never caught on as we continued to spend premium picks and big money on the position.

Here comes the fleecing and yet another government handout to a billionaire while that same government entity will say they don't have the funds for infrastructure and other basic community needs.

I have no idea how anyone watches anything on ESPN that isn't live sports and even then I usually find myself thinking "Damn, I wish this game was on some other channel" because ESPN constantly does annoying ass split screen views as if seeing their announcers and/or whatever dumbass graphics they want to show matters to the audience. No. We just want to see the damn game. Show us the game. We'd be watching on any other channel. You're not special ESPN. We don't care about your coverage and bullshit. *rant off*

Let's hear it.

I'm inclined to say probably not but the division might be bad enough that we do. We'll see I guess. I'm mainly watching this year to see progress being made and signs we're heading in the right direction and hopefully that we've solved our QB issue. I'm not really expecting to contend.

Really hoping he can be an impact player in the secondary. Lord knows there's opportunities to get ok the field if he is. In the ideal world, he's the ball hawking FS I've been begging for for years. Literally for decades. The NFL has been progressively getting more and more pass happy while we have continued to field two strong safety types on the back end much to my dismay and dissatisfaction.

I have talked about that. Thanks for largely rehashing Gerry's arguments that the thread has moved past though.

Yep, very pleased with Icky. I honestly didn't know if he'd make it as a LT in the NFL but one of the reasons I likes the pick is o felt it was a safe pick because with his physicality and run blocking abilities if he didn't work out at LT he probably had positional versatility in his skill set to be a good player somewhere along the OL. The problem with the finesse LTs with prototypical LT measurements is that if they don't work out at LT, where do play them? They don't really translate anywhere else along the OL. With all the OT busts on the past couple of decades Icky's potential positional versatility made me more comfortable.

Maybe they weren't TE centric during that time because Hurst wasn't the guy they thought he was going to be? I mean, some teams actually do adapt to their rosters. Trust me, as a Panthers fan it's sometimes tough for me to wrap my head around that one too.

It just frustrates me because I feel like we rarely take advantage of the strengths of drafts.

I just think we're a gigantic question mark with an all new staff, all new schemes, a new #1 overall pick QB, etc. It's gonna be exciting to find out. But as far as expectations go? Honestly, I don't have any. I just hope we show that we're heading in the right direction.

What about the other two teams? Hurst has busted for three teams now. We're team #4 and we paid him like a legit starting TE. I hope we prove to be right in that decision but it honestly doesn't look like a smart gamble. I get that we were basically borderline desperate at TE, but that's why I wanted to draft a TE considering this was one of the strongest TE draft classes on paper in recent memory while this year's TE free agency class was basically hot trash.

Bust up until this point is very fair. And Hurst is knocking on the door of 30. It's not like he's some young prospect. We've all seen NFL teams paying former high draft picks with physical talent far more for far longer than they should based on the info available to them.

But honestly the baseline talent isn't as close as I thought it was. I knew Olsen had a very nice combine but I thought Hurst had a better performance than he did. The earlier poster suggesting Hurst might be out most athletic TE ever... just laughable. Hurst: Olsen:

Olsen had 600+ and 8 TDs in his third season before Martz came to town. Martz was famous for not involving TEs in his passing game. The Bears hiring Martz at OC was the gift that allowed us to steal Olsen from them. He was progressing nicely after an underwhelming rookie year getting better every year before Martz came along. The situations just aren't very comparable even though the baseline talent probably is.

Thanks for proving my point.

This is one of the dumber semantics based arguments I've seen someone try to make. You can be hopeful of the Hurst signing based on stat cherry picking and athleticism. Cool. Makes sense. I can understand that. But don't try to play revisionist history and act like the guy isn't a bust as a former 1st round pick who has bounced around because he hasn't produced. That's just clownish.

Hurst is definitely better but as of now on paper that just means we have two bad contracts on paper at TE. Lots of these former high round draft picks make way more money for way longer than they should as team after team thinks they can find in the guy what no one else has. Every now and then it turns out to be the case but more often than not it turns out to be a mistake.

This will be a valid comparison in four more years.

It's not so simple to say that a guy catching 75% of his targets would perform so much better with more opportunities. Clearly three teams have decided that wasn't the case since they didn't use him more. We're betting on that being the case. I hope we're right and those other three teams were wrong but cherry picking numbers and selective narratives to fit a viewpoint are pretty comical if I'm being honest.

Yeah, we would definitely be laughing at division rivals had they signed a TE to a 3 year/$21M contract who had 1700 yards over the course of five seasons with three different teams.

The only definitive statement I've made is that to this point in his career he's a bust. Because he is. I hope he turns that around here. It's okay to be honest and objective about our own players. The reality is that we'd all be pointing and laughing at a division rival if they gave Hayden Hurst $21M over 3 years.

I've cited both his bouncing around the league and his stats. You just bounce back and forth based on whichever is convenient for you at the time. You seem to just be arguing for the sake of argument. Name me another player that has bounced around four different teams over six years while posting subpar stats who isn't widely considered a bust.

If he's a former 1st round pick and he's bounced around the league largely due to lack of production and his former teams seeking out better option, then yeah it would be fair and customary to consider that player a bust. You sure are choosing a strange hill to die on.

I honestly hope he's great for us. All I'm saying is he hasn't lived up to his 1st round draft status and he has bounced around the league and hasn't latched on anywhere long term. That is generally referred to as being a "bust". Not sure why this reality is triggering you so hard.