When a student fails, do you blame the teacher?

[Ricky Spanish]

No, you blame the parents for not giving enough of a crap about their kid to see them succeed... 

[KendrickPanther]

i blame him for the decision to spend 20% of our cap on two players (which happens to be half the money spent on D). you can't do that kind of thibg because it's not sustainable, it provides no balance, and more than likely it's going to come back and bite you in the ass, which it did.

the money spent on hardy could have been used to add much needed talent or at least depth to the OL and secondary. $13mil could have gone a long way, but we blew it.

not crazy about that second round pick, either.

 

I see the second round pick as saving money in the future. We have Eely for 4 years and he will develop. We can't expect rookie sensations every year, guys need time to learn the pro game.

 

I understand there were other players available but Eely is the future at DE. DEs have plenty of value themselves. 

 

But this is a hindsight 50/50 situation. If Hardy was playing well we would say that is money well spent. The fact Hardy got himself in legal trouble before signing a long term deal defies logic. 

 

Gettleman signed him to a 1 year deal to keep him motivated. It didn't work out.

[mc52beast]

Being a retired vet I think you can look at it like this also; when you're the captain of a ship, and something goes wrong on that ship, does the crew get blamed or does the captain? In all of my experience i can say that it starts at the top of the chain of command. 

[Ship]

I'm gonna say nate blew the block because he's new and just got lost out there. not all, but a large portion of our team is just not dialed in this year. it falls on various levels from head coach, coordinator, position coach, team captains and veterans in the position group, and then down to the player himself. it isn't ron's job to be staying with nate or any other specific player and make sure they're up and motivated for every play and every snap of practice. ron has shown himself to be a delegator and he has shown that he puts huge amounts of trust in others to be accountable and fix their mistakes. our o-line coach is supposed to be a good one and the way he has had to cobble o-lines together for us out of scraps and we somehow have managed to win games shows hes a good coach. Maybe Kalil isn't lighting a fire under the o-line well enough or maybe nate is just only so experienced and will continue to see and learn things he has to fail at before he succeeds.

 

i firmly believe our coaches are giving our guys the best tools they can give them to be successful in practice. games can be difficult to call sometimes but there are always plays before the questionable ones that our guys didn't execute properly.

 

we need some passion and we need some urgency. i personally think that has to come from the players. 

[lola]

I think Rivera needs to be more hands-on. I understand delegating and letting your position coaches do their jobs, but when there are significant issues like there are now, the head guy needs to step in. Right the ship, roll some heads, whatever.

[CPantherKing]

I am rewatching the game this morning, trying to see what the heck is happening with the offense. Going play by play, rewinding, watching again.

 

More times than not, the failings of the offense aren't at the hands of less physical talent, surprisingly. There are more missed assignments than physical mistakes. And not just small things either. Like when Clay Matthews lines up on the line and Nate Chandler does not even consider blocking him before he gets to J-Stew in the backfield. This is just a complete misunderstanding of what he should do out there, start to finish.

 

So let me ask you this.... do you blame the players? Obviously they are pro athletes that had to have succeeded at a college level. Apparently they can be taught. Or do you blame the coaches for not being good enough teachers in the film room and on the field. Are they not preparing the team adequately enough mentally. 

 

What say you?

 

Considering the coaches seemingly come out with the same game plan for the first half of every game, and that game plan is play to the weaknesses and not the strengths. Yeah I would say Rivera, McDermott, and Shula get a lot of the blame.

 

I believe you take your strongest players and find a way to put them on their weakest players. Then just keep attacking it until they prove they can stop it.

 

Game plan should always be KB and Olsen as the #1 options, all other receivers #2 option, and RBs as a dump off. You open up the running game by pushing the field with the passing game. The Panthers do not have the OL to come out pounding it on the ground. Attack with the passing game. Go to the run game when the defense gives it to the offense.

 

Stretch the safeties in the middle of the field with Philly and Stephen Hill. Even if you do not throw it to them unless they are wide open. Keep doing it and that safety will sleep on it 1 or 2 plays.

 

Nope the Panthers coaches are going to start the offense off running the ball and using Olsen and KB as decoys in the first half. They will keep trusting the defense to win it for the the team just like in Green Bay giving the Packers the ball to open the game against an exploited, frustrated, and deflated defense.

 

The coaches simply do not have their finger on the pulse of this team and continue to put the players in bad positions in the first half of games. Even in the Panthers wins the players seemingly have to overcome the coaching errors in the first half. You could say the coaching is more of a factor than the opposing defenses the Panthers have been facing.

 

We are running into the strengths of these defenses. Why? Aaron Rodgers was outright laughing at how easy the Panthers defense was to play. Aaron Rodgers knows his weaknesses and he was baffled at how the Panthers chose to play him like Russel Wilson and keep him in the pocket.

[Davidson Deac II]

Fwiw, when a student fails, I usually blame the parent.  Not always, but most of the time.  So if the players are out of place, its the parents fault. 

[Kakarot]

I'm putting this mostly on Gettleman. Rivera and the coaches get a lot of the blame, but Rivera is working with what was given to him by Gettleman.

Not a good recipe, especially since Rivera isn't the best of coaches.

[shelbypanther]

You could give Shula the Denver offense and he would screw it up.  Shula sucks balls, period.

[CAB]

I know this is superficial, but I want to see Rivera go off on the sidelines. I know we do not see everything going on but when there is yet another missed tackle or 12 guys on the field, I want him pissed and the whole stadium to know. At some point you have to snap to get your point across, if nothing else, just to prove to everyone else you are thinking "wtf" as well.

And an aside....I am so depressed with the FO saying it is a rebuilding year. I understand the cap issues, but I just worry all of our talent will age out waiting for that year x that never arrives. The Panthers have been breaking my heart for 20 years now.

[Rise of The Hive]

No, not at all.

[Panthers8969]

Coaches more so the. Players. You can game plan to make up for players weaknesses and limit other teams strengths. I don't think RR gets that

[*FreeFua*]

My read is that Gettleman wasn't as sold on guys like Bell and Godfrey, but he deferred to Rivera.

It's all perception though. Supported, I think, by the narrative, but still just perception.

You can't seriously be deflecting this off of Gettleman and on to Rivera. It was Gettleman who extended Rivera. If Gettleman trusts Rivera with talent evaluations on losers like Bell and Godfrey, that says more about Gettleman's inability to evaluate than it does Rivera's.

[panthers55]

Truth is that their is blame across the board.  Gettleman is trying to bring in talent on the cheap and lost almost every player who performed well last year and were eligible for free agency.  Say what you want but that has hurt us on both sides of the ball.  Lets be honest here. Gross left because Gettleman wouldn't pay him and he didn't want to stay for what Gettleman would pay.  How many other guys left or retired for similar reasons How about how many we lost to free agency.

Rivera, Shula and McDermott have all taken responsibility for the problems although honestly I don't see them to be the primary culprits.  You can only work with the talent you are given.  If your child is mentally challenged he is not going to be an Einstein no matter what you do.  And several of the players that are starting on our team would not start on another team in the NFL.  Our coaches are actually noted for being very good teachers and in my opinion what has saved Gettleman's bacon and allows him to keep going on the cheap is the ability of several of the coaches to make NFL players out of guys with marginal talent.  The fact our receivers are performing is due to Shula and Proehl.  Cam is not improving in a vacuum.  Who do you think works with him week in and week out to improve?  Yeah the same guy everyone wants to get rid of. Knowledgeable guys in the NFL would tell you that a major reason that Can continues to improve is due to being in the same scheme and becoming more familiar with it every year.

 

As for the players, I believe Davis and McDermott when they say players are not executing, missing tackles and then not swarming to the ball to make up for the mistakes.  Last year not only were guys better tacklers but other players swarmed to the ball to make sure the players was down if something was missed. This year 1 missed tackle ends up in a 50 yard TD.  Players are not executing and playing hard.  It is lack of effort more than anything.  The problem is that the talent among starters let alone backups is marginal so you can't threaten players with sitting if they don't perform when you don't have anyone better to replace them with.