panthers55

Sam was under a decent amount of pressure all day. He had to throw off balance and with guys in his face. On that TD to Robby he had to slide left twice to find a window and had to throw it off balance to the right and couldn't totally set his feet. Under the circumstances it was actually a very good throw. All this he looked OK is way underselling the reality. Our playcalling in the second half was not great and we didn't score but 3 but for our first game after limited preseason play it was great from the stands. And that defense was very good. Snow brought the heat and we looked pretty good getting pressure.

Gonna be in my seats and see how it goes. This is my first game in the Covid era.

On running plays I want him to clog up the middle and force things outside. On pass defense I want him to collapse the middle of the pocket to keep opposing QBs from stepping up to avoid outside pressure. Sacks are really not the primary mission of a nose tackle.

Don't elite QBs elevate the level of everyone around you? So if you have good stats and the rest suck are you really elite. Didn't Cam take us to the Superbowl with the worse receivers in the league and we averaged 30 points a game in 2015? And many folks don't think Cam was elite.

And since they slowly lost their talent they have been losing and looking bad. No matter how he plays he can't do it alone.

No quarterback is elite on a crappy team. It takes a team to win not just one guy.

Mahomes wouldn't have been Mahomes if he went to Chicago, he would be decent but not considered one of the top 2 or 3 QBs in the league.

It isn't they would have been set back but they wouldn't have been in the Superbowl twice and he wouldn't be considered one of the top QBs in the league. KC has a legitimate offense and defense. Chicago has a good defense.

If Mahomes went to Chicago they would still be sucking. Mahomes showed in the Superbowl that without a good line and talent due to multiple injuries, any QB can look ordinary to bad.

I think Darnold is going to work out. As for whoever plays QB for Chicago when was the last time they had a QB ranked in the top 10?? Chicago is where receivers and QBs go to disappear.

This is likely affirmation that he has bought into the Rhule mantra of being accountable for everything you do and focusing on being the best version of yourself. He isn't blaming others and feels no matter how well he does, it can always be better. As long as you can bounce back and not beat yourself up over mistakes and strive to fix them in the future then you have a good shot at success. Truthfully everything I hear and see from Darnold has been largely positive. Obviously Sunday starts the great reveal where we see what actually happens, but he has done everything asked of him so far.

Seems most of these guys were leaders in the offseason who encouraged voluntary attendance and were vocal leaders in practice and helping the new guys. No surprised really

Truth is we were 5-2 and your prediction was looking bad. Losing 9 in a row was so improbable given how many were by 7 points or less. So lets temper the praise. And we do better than 7 wins. Unless the defense plays that 3 man prevent defense of last year, which they didn't in the preseason I was thrilled to see, none of those rookies are going to beat us. I see New England and the Giants as wins as well. If we can snatch another on the road or home we are at 10 games. It will take more than 7 wins to keep players believing the hype. After all for guys like Shaq, he has had 2 winning seasons in his career. The losing is getting contagious.

Not really. NFL won't let it download but 2019 highlights were 12 minutes long.

Let's be honest you can say that about any QB. Cam is a perfect example of a guy who made some amazing throws and had some amazingly bad head scratchers. Highlight and lowlight videos rarely tell an accurate story.

Best case scenario is 10-7. Worse case is 7-10. The factors to me are injury and health. If we stay relatively healthy, Darnold doesn't get hurt, the rookies like Horn don't hit the rookie wall and we don't cave late due to a tough schedule we should win 10 games. If we get hit hard with injuries and our young guys don't grow up fast we could end up on a losing streak like last year. Guys like CMC and Darnold are crucial to our success as their backups are big drop offs in talent. In other positions the next guy up will have to play inspired. We will need some winning this year to convince players the process is good and Rhule knows what he is talking about.

I think we get 200 yards of YAC as our skill guys shine. CMC shows he is back and Darnold is a good game manager. The defense is actually legit and we bring pressure for once. It is a good day to watch football in the 80s and sunny.

Darnold will be a captain based on player feedback about Sam that I have read. But he will still be the qb and main guy on the offense whether he is a captain or not. So it makes no difference.

There you go. It won't take much improvement to realistically be an 8 or 9 win team.

He hasn't played a regular season down here. If he screws up it won't be long before he is replaced. Given all the churn on this roster it is clear Rhule won't keep a guy starting if he has a better option and will move on from anyone like he did with Teddy after 1 year

You know the rookie will screw up but you don't know the vet will. In fact you expect him not to screw up. That is why he is starting. Seems to me there is no reason rushing someone to.play when you can ease him into the lineup. Brown for example is a road grader but not great in pass blocking. So give him some play when we are trying to ground and pound but don't put him in in a 2 minute drill where you are passing every down. You can use him situationally while he improves on practice until he is a complete player. Then he can become the starter.

If we had split our 1 score losses last year we were an 8 win team. Darnold should be better than Teddy in the 4th and in the redzone. I think we could do well enough early to contend and be a tough out for anyone.

I like playing rookies to spell the vets unless they are the best guy for the job like Horn. Then play them and live with the results. Even great rookies struggle more than vets until the game slows down. Usually around week 8 or so. Few guys drafted after the first couple of rounds can come in and start right away. If tons of rookies are starting your talent level is usually suspect.

Not by his comments. He didn't want to take a sack and put us out of field goal range so he threw the ball at the ground close to his player. Now he should have taken the sack and not try to dump off the ball but he did have logic in his reasoning which is just the opposite of pure panic. Rhule set him straight for sure but he didn't panic to me. Hurried and unsure at times but moved well in the pocket against a constant blitz. I thought he held up fairly well.