Cam Newton has unmasked this entire football team.

[SportsCrazie4172]

3 minutes ago, tiger7_88 said:

Call me crazy, but I don't see not having Courtland Finnegan on this team as a crushing loss.

He was part of the reason we were winning last year..it may not have been a big part of it but he came through for us when we needed a corner..you take away parts of a winning team in the off season to only replace with inexperience then of course you can only expect 1-4.

Sorry, but if the system was working why break it, hell it took us to the Superbowl..Cutting people left and right was probably the dumbest sh*t done by the staff..

[Zaximus]

It's really about adjustments and how we don't have any.  Rivera and them can gameplan and if it works, we look great, it did last year most of the time.   But when things go south, it's just over.  You can see it on the players' faces and everything, it's like they know.   We end up getting outcoached often like this.   That, combined with Gettleman not giving the right personnel, has created a perfect storm.  Rivera is a mediocre coach, it's always been true.  He's a step up from Fox, barely.   This is who JR likes to hire and who we'll always have in there I think.  

[PhillyB]

56 minutes ago, jtm said:

Why people are blaming Shula is beyond me. Shula didn't turn the ball over 4 times and commit 2 boneheaded personal fouls late. Also, Shula doesn't kick field goals either. 

see that's what's so damn obfuscating about trying to make value judgements on offensive coordinators. shula didn't make those reads and shula didn't throw those picks. you can't blame him for that.

but what you can do is isolate the things that only he is responsible for and make your value judgements based on them. and one thing he is responsible for is that playcalling on that final drive, which, because all three were runs, up the gut, out of the I, can't be second-guessed as someone else's fault due to bad reads. calling three runs up the gut there was terrible playcalling.

shula doesn't shoulder the blame for gano's field goals, nor anderson's interception. but he shoulders the blame for being a bad offensive coordinator.

[TheRed]

This whole ordeal has me feeling quite emotional. Who would like to spoon?

[Proudiddy]

8 hours ago, PhillyB said:

It's tough to quantify things like credit and blame. You can't bake a cake and take back the eggs. How do you assign credit and blame in an interlocking, mutually-inclusive system where success in one area is built upon success in another? You can't, which is what makes assigning responsibility for losses so elusive in most cases. Is it scheme? Is it execution? How do you judge the one against the other when they're both contingent factors?

Cam Newton's injury has removed a shroud that's been covering the team for the past year and a half. His absence has revealed several things with unadulterated clarity:

1) Mike Shula is terrible and was only ever good because he had Cam as a quarterback. Judging coordinators is as elusive a prospect as any, but those three gut-runs with the game on the line are the types of qualitative data you can actually use. Scheme aside, that's evidence of god-awful situational playcalling. It was there last year, but Cam's excellence on top of lucky breaks masked it. Mike Shula has to go.

2) Ron Rivera is a below-average head coach situationally. He is an above-average leader of men and developer of character, which is important in a coach and should not be undervalued, but he's always made poor decisions when the heat's on. Cam Newton's excellence as a quarterback has kept him out of many of those defining moments, but Ron is not strong enough as a head coach to help mask deficiencies in scheme or personnel, which is what good coaches do. Ron Rivera needs to be heavily evaluated moving forward.

3) Derek Anderson is awesome... as a backup. He's never been starting material and he never will be. The Great White Hope might be scruffy and steely-eyed and businesslike and carry a mean lunch pail, but when the game's on the line he makes questionable throws. Cam Newton makes everyone around him better, Derek Anderson is a really, really good backup quarterback who's well-liked and can be relied upon for a few plays. Derek Anderson needs to work on his decision-making so he won't turn the ball over next time he subs for the reigning MVP.

4) Dave Gettleman is an excellent general manager but he committed a huge judgement error in our secondary. He was dealt a tough hand with a ton of guys coming up for retirement, and I get the Norman situation cap-wise, but those aren't the problem. Rolling into the season with our current personnel without properly testing them was the problem. Assuming the pass rush would make up for their lack of experience was the problem. Cam Newton's transcendent talent was good enough to mask deficiencies last year and his absence now is exposing the roster as woefully insufficient to compete. Dave Gettleman needs to serious consider some bye-week trades if he wants his team to be viable in November.

 

The good news is I had to try to come up with more than four bullet points and it was a stretch. There's a ton of talent on this team. The offensive line is pretty awesome, our backs are okay considering Stew's been out, our receiving corps is world-class, and we've got a good defensive core to work with. The bad news is that Cam's absence has exposed our biggest weaknesses as our very foundations, and those are both the hardest things to convince people to address and the most difficult things to replace.

A good start would be firing Mike Shula tomorrow morning. If that happens I think Cam rolls back in this week, prepares the team, elevates their play, and leads us to a win against New Orleans. Here's to hoping.

Philly, i always love your posts, and i agree with everything you pointed out here EXCEPT Gettleman is an "excellent GM" that made a huge error.  He gets a lot of the glory because getting us out of cap hell being held up against Hurney putting us in it in the first place is where a lot of this love fest originates with him.  That's ignoring the fact that the two biggest pieces of our franchise were Hurney picks.  If no Cam, as you pointed out, there would be ZERO sustainable success.  Same with Luke defensively.  TD is also a cornerstone guy, CJ has been too up until this year, both Hurney picks.  Olsen was acquired under Hurney.  So what exactly has Gettleman done that has made him great aside from hitting the lottery multiple times on one year rentals, who 90% of the time he let walk afterwards.  He publicly humiliated the greatest player in franchise history (pre-Cam/Luke era) and then did the same to potentially the greatest CB in franchise history, and purely motivated by ego, irrationally yanked a franchise tag off of him, got no compensation for the best CB on the market, and then did NOTHING with that money.

I think a lot of the board needs to re-evaluate Gettleman in a truthful, honest way.  Great GMs dont hamstring their teams coming off a superbowl run in which they were the better team.  As much as I hate them and their entire organization, he sbouldve done what Elway did coming off their SB loss.  He ensured there was no way they'd be beaten like that again.  He was aggressive.  And guess what?  Despite the huddle know-it-alls claimjng that doesnt ensure sustained winning, they've been dominant every year since, even with Manning's struggles.  Gettleman gets far too much of a pass on this board.

[Navy_football]

8 hours ago, Promethean Forerunner said:

Shula wasn't responsible for ANY of it. Good heavens! That was all Cam. Again, if that was on Shula then he'd be a HC by now.

Not saying Shula wasn't responsible for any of it. But, the defense caused a ridiculous amount of turn overs last year that gave the offense many more opportunities with the ball in scoring position. 

My issue with Shula is his basic play calling in the passing game. Never mind his inability to take advantage of obvious weaknesses and mismatches. And adjusting to what the defense is trying to do has almost been non-existent. Maybe an offensive playcalling assistant/adviser would be beneficial - if just as a sounding board. 

However, I did notice that DA did get the plays a lot earlier this week than Cam ever does. Not sure if Shula improved, or if Cam is to blame. 

[pstall]

If we run on 1st and score instead of an int today is immensely different.  That's the kind of season it's been. Ball isn't bouncing our way fellas.

It happens. All you can do is fix what's broken and get your attitude right. 

[jtm]

7 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

see that's what's so damn obfuscating about trying to make value judgements on offensive coordinators. shula didn't make those reads and shula didn't throw those picks. you can't blame him for that.

but what you can do is isolate the things that only he is responsible for and make your value judgements based on them. and one thing he is responsible for is that playcalling on that final drive, which, because all three were runs, up the gut, out of the I, can't be second-guessed as someone else's fault due to bad reads. calling three runs up the gut there was terrible playcalling.

shula doesn't shoulder the blame for gano's field goals, nor anderson's interception. but he shoulders the blame for being a bad offensive coordinator.

I'm not a Shula fan but he gets a bad rap. Panthers offense was a big reason they went to the Super Bowl last year with very little talent on offense other than Cam. Folks give Shula no credit for that. 

[Navy_football]

1 minute ago, Proudiddy said:

I think a lot of the board need to re-evaluate Gettleman in a truthful, honest way.  Great GMs dont hamstring their teams coming off a superbowl run in which they were the better team.  As much as I hate them and their entire organization, he sbouldve done what Elway did coming off their SB loss.  He ensured there was no way they'd be beaten like that again.  He was aggressive.  And guess what?  Despite the huddle know-it-alls claimjng that doesnt ensure sustained winning, they've been dominant every year since, even with Manning's struggles.  Gettleman gets far too much of a pass on this board.

Gettleman is living off of past success. I think every one agrees he made mistakes this offseason - huge ones, that have hamstringed a potential super bowl contender. 

He needs to adjust now. Calculated risks were taken. They failed. Now it's time to adjust. This will define if he's a competent GM or not. His changes or lack thereof are mostly explainable and somewhat justified - hindsight is 20/20. However, we're five games in to the season. Players are what they've shown themselves to be, though rookies can certainly improve as the season progresses. Playcallers are what they've shown themselves to be. 

The game plan isn't working. Time to make in-season tweaks, or this year is a wash. 

[Harbingers]

Bad Philly, Bad... oh wait... the sarcasm. 

[Snake]

They want make any changes and we will tank this year. This is the Panther way and it's what we do. 

[thefuzz]

Losing a division game when you are starting your back up QB, LT, and RB?  Yea I can typically handle that.  Losing to a division rival the way we lost last night?  Nope, can't handle that.

 

I only have 10 fingers to point, and that's not enough, but this starts at the top.

Ron is playing for field goals.  Keeping it close, winning games like we did last year.  He saw it happen, why can't it continue to do so?  Last season we caught the breaks, this season, our opponents are catching them.  It's football.

Cam is off, and that was before the concussion.  He is hesitating to pull the trigger, hesitating to take off when needed, and hesitating to plow into the endzone and not risk getting hit.  Could be trouble at home, unease with the OC/QB coach...could be a rift between him and KB, and Stew, Olsen, and Oher?  Who knows, but he is off.

Our defense is offensive.  How in gods name can we not consistently stop the rush?  The pass.....I get, the secondary is young, or just not good....but pass rush and rushing D should be in good shape....it's not.

 

I could call out Shula like everyone else, but I'm not convinced it's all him.

 

Something that has never happened to me is happening this year...I just don't care about football as much as I did in the past.  I'm really only watching Panther "games", when I typically watch 6-8 games per week.  I'm not digging fantasy, and I'm certainly not planning every Sunday around the NFL.  Like I said before this game in another thread.

Football isn't very much fun for me right now, and I don't think it is for any of the Panthers either.

[PantherWake]

8 hours ago, PhillyB said:

It's tough to quantify things like credit and blame. You can't bake a cake and take back the eggs. How do you assign credit and blame in an interlocking, mutually-inclusive system where success in one area is built upon success in another? You can't, which is what makes assigning responsibility for losses so elusive in most cases. Is it scheme? Is it execution? How do you judge the one against the other when they're both contingent factors?

Cam Newton's injury has removed a shroud that's been covering the team for the past year and a half. His absence has revealed several things with unadulterated clarity:

1) Mike Shula is terrible and was only ever good because he had Cam as a quarterback. Judging coordinators is as elusive a prospect as any, but those three gut-runs with the game on the line are the types of qualitative data you can actually use. Scheme aside, that's evidence of god-awful situational playcalling. It was there last year, but Cam's excellence on top of lucky breaks masked it. Mike Shula has to go.

2) Ron Rivera is a below-average head coach situationally. He is an above-average leader of men and developer of character, which is important in a coach and should not be undervalued, but he's always made poor decisions when the heat's on. Cam Newton's excellence as a quarterback has kept him out of many of those defining moments, but Ron is not strong enough as a head coach to help mask deficiencies in scheme or personnel, which is what good coaches do. Ron Rivera needs to be heavily evaluated moving forward.

3) Derek Anderson is awesome... as a backup. He's never been starting material and he never will be. The Great White Hope might be scruffy and steely-eyed and businesslike and carry a mean lunch pail, but when the game's on the line he makes questionable throws. Cam Newton makes everyone around him better, Derek Anderson is a really, really good backup quarterback who's well-liked and can be relied upon for a few plays. Derek Anderson needs to work on his decision-making so he won't turn the ball over next time he subs for the reigning MVP.

4) Dave Gettleman is an excellent general manager but he committed a huge judgement error in our secondary. He was dealt a tough hand with a ton of guys coming up for retirement, and I get the Norman situation cap-wise, but those aren't the problem. Rolling into the season with our current personnel without properly testing them was the problem. Assuming the pass rush would make up for their lack of experience was the problem. Cam Newton's transcendent talent was good enough to mask deficiencies last year and his absence now is exposing the roster as woefully insufficient to compete. Dave Gettleman needs to serious consider some bye-week trades if he wants his team to be viable in November.

 

The good news is I had to try to come up with more than four bullet points and it was a stretch. There's a ton of talent on this team. The offensive line is pretty awesome, our backs are okay considering Stew's been out, our receiving corps is world-class, and we've got a good defensive core to work with. The bad news is that Cam's absence has exposed our biggest weaknesses as our very foundations, and those are both the hardest things to convince people to address and the most difficult things to replace.

A good start would be firing Mike Shula tomorrow morning. If that happens I think Cam rolls back in this week, prepares the team, elevates their play, and leads us to a win against New Orleans. Here's to hoping.

 

[Kevin Greene]

Absolutely been saying Cam has made Shula look good for years. The most gifted athlete in the NFL makes up for a lot of short comings. And again, just because Cam is capable of doing a thing, doesn't mean he should be. We need a Pro style offense built around Cam and he'll be healthy and our QB for another decade.