LinvilleGorge

This is my concern with Ekwonu. I'm not certain he's a LT in the scheme that we want to run.

I mean, he has a history of seemingly being blind to young talent that even fans can see. So the way I see it is that Ron is either an atrocious evaluator of talent, even worse than a decently knowledgeable fan or he's simply not paying any attention to the guys down the roster. As unbelievable as the latter is, it's more believable to me than the former.

None of this should be surprising to a Panthers fan. That "thing" that Rivera lost as a head coach was prime Cam Newton. I think that much is obvious.

I'm still clueless as to what to expect. I think our schemes both offensively and defensively have been largely kept under wraps in the preseason but nothing would shock me in week one.

He'd probably be running the scout team.

It needed to happen but I just can't celebrate a guy losing his job unless he's a known POS. Looks like he's made roughly $4M so far in his career. After agent cut, taxes, etc. it's not set for life money but it's a damn good financial head start if he's been smart with it. If he's done he could work an average Joe job and live an average Joe lifestyle and be very comfortable.

Walmart merchandisers aren't dumb.

It'll be interesting if Taylor challenges this. Is he actually hurt? If he's not he may force the Colts' hand to prove the PUP list is justified. This very much feels like an Irsay personal pissing match at this point. It sucks too. A RB like Taylor could really help with easing Anthony Richardson into the NFL taking some pressure off of him.

Hindsight will tell us. I do think we had to make moves at WR. You couldn't go into this season with TMJ and Shenault penciled in as your starting WRs. Thielen made sense. Steady vet on the decline but he'll be a security blanket for Bryce. Chark honestly made sense too. He's shown the ability to produce in the NFL injuries have just gotten in his way and the contract reflects those injury concerns. So now we have two solid vets as our starting WRs with plenty of snaps still available for guys like TMJ and Shenault.

It was worth having a look, injuries have just left him a shell of his former self. Just an unfortunate reality of the game. Avoiding career derailing injuries is a huge part of the battle. There are a nearly endless number of "what could've been" stories in football that were ended by injuries. Just with the Panthers alone you have Cam, Luke, Morgan, Beason, off the top of my head. And that's just sticking with guys who showed legit HOF type potential on the field. Luke will be there anyway but I honestly think all four of those guys were Canton bound before injuries struck.

The guys I have the most sympathy for are the guys who are going to make the initial 53 but then get bounced by subsequent roster additions from the rubbish pile of the newly flooded FA market. What a gut punch that has to be.

In general.

Especially watching the games. He was still the same guy throwing the ball. The talent around him just had a massive drop off. We just learned that wow, this guy can actually run too. But the NFL took that info and came to the conclusion that he was nothing more than a poor man's The Golden Calf of Bristol. Baffling.

Stay salty.

That's the sucky thing. There's a lot of guys on all 32 rosters who bust there asses and are loved by the coaches who just simply don't have the prerequisite talent to hack it in the NFL. Every coach at every level has guys they wish they could take the talent from this slacker and give it to this guy who busts his ass and just isn't nearly as naturally talented.

I think anyone paying attention this preseason realized that there were gonna be quite a few guys on our week one roster that weren't on our preseason roster. My pipedream that hopefully better coaching would reveal there was more talent hidden in this roster than we realized got shattered pretty quickly.

I'm still just baffled how the NFL thought that Howell couldn't play because he lost all of his offensive playmakers. Like they just completely forgot about his prior two seasons in college. Hell, most UNC fans didn't even know that Howell could run until his final college season because the staff didn't want him running because they weren't comfortable with the depth behind him.

Meh, I have no personal ill will toward the guy. I mean, if we're playing our #3 QB we're already fuged anyway so whatever.

What did my dumbass do? I haven't had my second cup of coffee this morning so I'm operating at a level that I shouldn't be attempting any form of communication yet.

Works for me. We gave up virtually nothing and Bieniemy should be familiar with him.

Well, gotta give them credit. They really nailed the "error" part.

All I'll say is that I wasn't exactly happy about Howell landing with Rivera. I liked that o saw a clear path to him being the best QB on the roster pretty early on, but I didn't trust Ron to A) recognize that and B) develop him as an NFL QB. I hope Bieniemy wasn't just a product of Andy Reid.

Howell's scrambling ability and Ron's hot seat status combine to make me nervous. God knows Ron will run a QB into the ground. Washington has a much better receiver corps than Cam ever did but that OL has some serious questions.

He didn't name Cam as the starter until right before the regular season IIRC.

If Heinicke hadn't come to Ron and basically forced his hand to play Howell there's a 100% chance Washington goes into this preseason with Jacoby Brissett penciled in at starter and unless Bieniemy threw a fit demanding Howell there's a good chance Ron sticks with the vet. It's just the way of the Ron.