rayzor

i'm thinking/hoping/praying that 2 things happen. 1) after evaluating the roster they get rid of the bums and then replace as many as they can with the type player "dawg" they are looking for and then fill out the rest of the roster with FAs that fit that mold we should have a core, of sorts, to work with and build around and from that they should be able to 2) build a scheme based on who we have on the roster. one that takes advantage of whatever strengths they can find and takes into consideration their limitations. part of me just wants to scrap the whole roster and start over, but that's just the emotional part of me. i understand that most of this team we saw last year will be most of who we have next year. hopefully with a few subtractions and a few additions we'll have something to build on that isn't miserable to watch. i think that's what my ceiling is set at...just don't make it miserable to watch.

post-lockout jerry i think was the bigger problem. for years you never really heard from him. then the lock out came and the guy went full on narcissist.

i don't know about hurney there...at least not in the draft. once he made that double dip in the first trade for otah in '08 he got himself in a gambling hole inspired by his old mentor bobby beathard that traded up for ryan leaf. we kept trading away firsts after that. that said, he's still probably the best one that we've had. bar not quite high there.

100%. I know it's just words, but the messages have been different from what we've gotten from previous regimes. Canales' philosophies are not in alignment with what we have seen here since ???? even with reich and brown creating their bastardized version haphazardly created scheme didn't really take into account who we had. they just tried to create something that neither of them had done and hoped that everyone would fit into it. we really haven't had anyone since probably henning scheme anything based on who we had here. chud didn't even pay attention to who was on the field when he was calling out plays.

talk and hope that this time they aren't talking out their arses.

either he didn't like them or he realized that wasn't exactly the right way to do it (because it got his old boss fired) and now he goes with what he knows....who a real football player is and not looking at what they could be if given the right situation or whatever.

i think canales has an advantage over coaches like rivera and reich in that since he was never a pro player, he's not sympathetic to the plights of older vets. and since he doesn't know these guys he won't have any kind of emotional dilemma in cutting players. this will probably be the easiest year to do that, but i hope he actually does it and that he's consistent with that approach in future years. rivera, though, was really frustrating because he didn't want to move on from vets because he knew what it was like to be one and get moved on from so he avoided it.

one (of many things) that i'm hoping is that Morgan wasn't happy with personnel decisions that he ended up having to comply with and would rather move on from some that were here before. it's his chance to get the roster right and i really hope he cares about making the panthers better and is willing to work with canales and make cuts wherever needed.

Good stuff on his philosophy in evaluating roster. Yeah...he's saying all the right stuff, but it's the mindset we need to get this team right. if they are serious about having them "dawgs" on the roster and there are a few who have been hanging around who were dogging it or just serial underperformers, hopefully they feel ok with moving on. Canales comes across like a players coach, which is fine...unless he coddles them, especially older vets like rivera did. we still have yet to see what he and morgan actually do, but i'm giving the the benefit of the doubt.

I think this might be alright. 13 players I'm not even sure how I pulled this off. I was literally half asleep doing it.

The perspective on Burns was interesting. We need someone on the other side if we keep him and if we don't then we have to find two pass rushers. Also pointed out that this defense is basically going back to what Capers ran here in the 90s and we have to have that two pronged pass rush. So now I'm like...

I gotcha.

I think we're more likely to get in the playoffs this year than see this thing completed.

You choose to find things to be hopeful for because you're tired of being pissed and feeling disappointed. There's plenty of time to be disappointed in the team if we suck again. No use in spending all year like that. It's not easy finding things to feel hopeful for and it's even harder deciding or letting yourself feel hopeful for anything. I'm just saying there was ever a time to feel hopeful about the team rather than feeling dread about another poo year, it's now and you better grab it while you can because when the season starts that window might close. It's a new year....a new GM....a new head coach. And hopefully a new outcome. Like I said before, it's not for everyone and I don't blame anyone for already mailing it in. It's not like we've exactly had a track record that would give you much room for confidence. That's just the easy way, though. Being a panthers fan has never been easy, even in the good years. It's always been an ulcer waiting to explode. But we choose to do it every year. Why? Because we hope that maybe this year we will be closer to getting that ring. We hope that maybe this year will be better. Is it realistic? Probably not, but why not choose to find a reason to feel good about the team? Bring pissed of or mailing it in at this point in the season for any reason just isn't fun and if it isn't fun any more, the why the hell bother with it?

i mean over what we've had to deal with the past few years? oh yeah for sure. but what if the team didn't have to be carried on cam's back? what if it was built right and we had a coaching staff whose plan wasn't "let's run cam until his wheels fall off". could we have won the superbowl (or stood a better chance against that PoS referee crew) if the team was built and run better? could we have even had back to back winning seasons? you aren't always going to be able to have or depend on a superman. build the team right and run it right. that should be the #1 thing. then if you get a stud or two on the team, you'll be almost impossible to stop. teams that are put together well can get it done and be consistently competitive without a superstar QB. should we have gotten one for what we paid for? yes. did we get one? trending towards hell na. but we've got who we've got for a couple years. my hope is 1st that we get the team built right and run right so that the whole shebang doesn't rely completely on the QB being a superstar. 2nd that we can get bryce to be the guy he was drafted to be...or at least close. if bryce doesn't work out, then we get a replacement. if/when that happens then we've at least got a team put together better than the crap we've had since tepper bought it.

honestly after the first year, it doesn't matter where a guy was drafted. they'll either do good or they won't. and they (QBs), if everything works out they are just one part and they shouldn't have to carry the team on their shoulders. Cam did and where did that get us?

not yet.

i'm going to give it a half a season. good or bad, i think we'll have a real clue. for starters, it could take half a season to get everyone on the same page. it's one thing to get it worked out in TC and other practices. to get it worked out in games against live bullets is another entirely. bucs led by baker looked like any team led by baker for the first half a season, but then things started to click. maybe it takes that long? also, if they do look better initially, you have to question whether or not it's sustainable or if it's something that defenses had trouble figuring out for a few weeks but then someone figures it out for everyone else. remember we looked good with rhule for a few weeks a couple years but then completely fell apart. either way, i'm not going to buy anything until i see what's happening at the half way point.

or just get rid of chark. was he on a one year deal? upgrade him in the draft. we should be walking out of that draft with at least 2 good pass catchers that will be a huge upgrade from what we had to deal with last year. bar not set particularly high, but still...time for a WR upgrade. guys that can get open and actually catch the ball.

we're at ground zero with bryce. he's got tools that made him successful in the same areas that all others drafted before him were. he didn't do things the same way, but he found ways to make it work. the hope is that canales, idzik, and harriger (the QB coach) can work with bryce well enough to get us in a productive offense. he is what he is and we've got him for a while. if anyone can help him make that year two trend upward, i think it's canales.

i kind of don't think he needs to be a offensive guru. he just needs to find something that will work with who we've got. we all know that even with bryce not playing like we think he should have, he was in a poo situation with 2 coaches from 2 different schemes trying to create an offense that was dissimilar to anything they had run before and for most of the year having that patchwork offense with no cohesion called by a dinosaur who repeated half of the things he said thinking it made more of an impact. plus, who was coaching bryce? how many voices and ideas did he have thrown at him? plus, whatever "scheme" we ran wasn't something that made the OLs job easier. i think a lot of what happened with the downturn in the OL last year was due to a badly designed offense (and a poo ton of injuries). also the WRs were crap aside from thielen. i know that this looks like a laundry list of excuses, but it's a serious clusterf*ck of a situation for any QB, especially a rookie. it would mess with anyone. if we can get those other issues addressed and then have just one voice coaching up bryce (and ever young QB needs coaching up, regardless of where they were drafted), i think we could have something there. i don't expect a quick and dramatic turnaround that gets us in the playoffs, but i would expect bryce to play much better than he did last year with just the external things getting corrected.

i'm hoping that this is the kind of stuff they are going to pick out in the "self-scouting" phase and Canales' detailed and specific plan for BY. i REALLY hope that canales is what he was hyped up to be.

i feel ya. i'm just starting to get tired of dealing with what should have been. all that does is piss me off. now it's just on what we can do with what we've got. i'm hoping that the morgan/canales team can make chicken salad out of chicken poo.

Who are you talking about?

I don't blame you. Like I said, I'm tired of feeling like crap about the team so I'm going to choose to be ok with allowing a little hope to shine in. Tepper has made poo decisions for sure, but one thing that you can't deny is that he's willing to throw everything at the wall hoping to find success. Hopefully he threw the right poo at the wall and it sticks. So far what I hear from Canales and his plan so far and also the focus Morgan is showing...I don't know. If you're looking for something to hope in, I think you've got it right there. Might I be setting myself up for disappointment again? Probably. But I'm used to that roller coaster. I'm stuck on it and there's nothing I can do to change what the team is doing so my choice, as I see it, is to choose to be a bit hopeful or let myself feel like poo about the team. It's all just my way of dealing with being a panthers fan. It's probably not for everyone. Or most people. Just me.