Final Roster - Biggest concerns

[Daddy_Uncle]

This is the most talented roster we have had in a long time. I'm very excited

[raleigh-panther]

as long as Cam Newton breaths, this team has a chance.

dont believe me, replay last year’s wildcard game, and that was with Shula 

luke Kuechly, pray for his health

[CarolinaNCSU]

One good thing about opening with Dallas...even our CBs should win the battle against their awful WR group. If we're as good against the run as we were last year, game over.

[Mr. Scot]

Jourdan Rodrigue's latest article is a cautionary piece about the risk of bringing Darryl Williams back too soon. It cites the story of Trent Williams as an example of what can go wrong. I'd call that a legit concern, for sure.

Most of the depth at various spots has already been touched on. I'd add with the secondary that corner is one of the more difficult college to pro transitions. Jackson has seen mostly  vanilla route combinations at this point. It's gonna get a whole lot more complicated when the live bullets start flying. Gotta hope his speed helps him adjust quickly.

Another rookie who's adjusting: Eric Washington. Mentioned it before. As high as everybody is on him, don't be surprised if there are few bumps on the road. This is also true of Taylor Moton. He's not a rookie age wise but is tackling (so to speak) a new, and difficult position. He'll make some mistakes. Cut him some slack.

I know it almost always feels like we're thin, but we are razor thin at a few spots this year and relatively old as well.  Ryan Kalil in particular looked his age at points this preseason. If he's not better now, that could be a problem.

Mind you, the age factor in general isn't necessarily likely to show up early. It's around week ten or so that you might start seeing some effects of that. Also not long after that is when the rookie wall kicks in. Rivera teams have typically had the profile of starting hot in games and fading in the second half. The season could conceivably follow that same profile, and if it does you want to hope that the first half of the season goes really, really well.

Last thing that comes to mind: We saw lots of really quick passes used to nullify the pass rush in the preseason. That MO probably shows up a lot against us this year. Rivera's defenses rely very heavily on pass rush, so if other teams can blunt that we'll really need our secondary to step up (folks likely don't want to hear that, but yeah...)

I'm never one to tey and predict how good we're gonna be too early because there's no way to know. Everybody's basically just guessing. Some people guess right, some people guess wrong.

I'm just hoping for the best.

[FugAllY'all]

It's definitely the secondary. I'm not as in love with our group of defensive ends as some folks on here, but I think the strength of our interior D tackles will make them look better than they are. If the group can collectively generate a lot of pressure, then that will make our secondary look good. The problem is when we bring a blitz, don't get home, and Mike Adams is left alone with a burner down the middle of the field. That's 6 every time.

 

Bottom line is this is the new NFL and we can't spend too much time worrying about how crappy our defense might be. The best secondary in the league (Jacksonville) got fuging 40 burger put up on them by a guy who they just signed last year. Our model needs to be a team like Manning's colts, put up points early and often, then just play fast as hell on defense against a team trying to play catch up. That's really always been our model, the Rivera/Cam era Panther's teams have been front-runners from day one and this is really the culmination of that strategy. Expect to win a lot of games big, but also have some ugly performances where things just don't work and we get beat 40-10. 

[Mr. Scot]

I don't remember seeing mention of this.

 

[TheSpecialJuan]

even with free agency, minicamp, training camp, final cuts, we still have questions at cb, safety, o-line, and backup qb. this does not bode well for us at all. take a look at the saints, falcons, and even bucs rosters in comparison. 

[Pup McBarky]

7 minutes ago, TheSpecialJuan said:

even with free agency, minicamp, training camp, final cuts, we still have questions at cb, safety, o-line, and backup qb. this does not bode well for us at all. take a look at the saints, falcons, and even bucs rosters in comparison. 

Out of that group, only the Saints look good. The Falcons had a horrible preseason and look completely out of sync. The Bucs have a brewing QB controversy and they are the Bucs. We don't have questions at safety, CB, or backup QB. As much as people want to complain about those groups, they are settled for the time being and across the board appear to be upgrades from last year. And while there are legitimate questions about our OL, they are far less alarming than they were even a few days ago.

[LinvilleGorge]

Pretty much what everyone else has said - secondary and OL depth.

For the future, DE is a huge concern too. Peppers is retiring, Mario is on the wrong sode of 30 himself, and Horton will be pushing 30 too. We have some interesting young developmental guys but in terms of guys we can comfortably pencil in as starters beginning next year? Not seeing them. A 1st round DE next year is probably likely, especially considering our defensive philosophy under Ron.

[LinvilleGorge]

14 minutes ago, Pup McBarky said:

Out of that group, only the Saints look good. The Falcons had a horrible preseason and look completely out of sync. The Bucs have a brewing QB controversy and they are the Bucs. We don't have questions at safety, CB, or backup QB. As much as people want to complain about those groups, they are settled for the time being and across the board appear to be upgrades from last year. And while there are legitimate questions about our OL, they are far less alarming than they were even a few days ago.

Ron himself recently said they down played Seymour's injury status to try to hide how desperate we are for corner help. That doesn't sound like a team whose CB position is settled.

[Mr. Scot]

2 hours ago, Daddy_Uncle said:

This is the most talented roster we have had in a long time. I'm very excited

I think that title probably belongs to the 2015 roster.

This one's yet to be seen.

[Captain Morgan]

2 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

 

Another rookie who's adjusting: Eric Washington. Mentioned it before. As high as everybody is on him, don't be surprised if there are few bumps on the road. 

 

needs to be noted that we have a new OC with a new system, and our 3rd straight year with a new DC.

If we can win the first two games, I'll feel a lot better, but adjusting to 2 new coordinators could very well mean losing a game we could have won.

[Pup McBarky]

1 minute ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Ron himself recently said they down played Seymour's injury status to try to hide how desperate we are for corner help. That doesn't sound like a team whose CB position is settled.

He never said nor intimated we were "desperate," that's your spin. We are in the market for CB help. That's no surprise considering 2 guys we were gonna rely upon are now on IR. Would you rate our current crop of CBs worse than last year's?

[PantherNation123]

2 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Jourdan Rodrigue's latest article is a cautionary piece about the risk of bringing Darryl Williams back too soon. It cites the story of Trent Williams as an example of what can go wrong. I'd call that a legit concern, for sure.

Most of the depth at various spots has already been touched on. I'd add with the secondary that corner is one of the more difficult college to pro transitions. Jackson has seen mostly  vanilla route combinations at this point. It's gonna get a whole lot more complicated when the live bullets start flying. Gotta hope his speed helps him adjust quickly.

Another rookie who's adjusting: Eric Washington. Mentioned it before. As high as everybody is on him, don't be surprised if there are few bumps on the road. This is also true of Taylor Moton. He's not a rookie age wise but is tackling (so to speak) a new, and difficult position. He'll make some mistakes. Cut him some slack.

I know it almost always feels like we're thin, but we are razor thin at a few spots this year and relatively old as well.  Ryan Kalil in particular looked his age at points this preseason. If he's not better now, that could be a problem.

Mind you, the age factor in general isn't necessarily likely to show up early. It's around week ten or so that you might start seeing some effects of that. Also not long after that is when the rookie wall kicks in. Rivera teams have typically had the profile of starting hot in games and fading in the second half. The season could conceivably follow that same profile, and if it does you want to hope that the first half of the season goes really, really well.

Last thing that comes to mind: We saw lots of really quick passes used to nullify the pass rush in the preseason. That MO probably shows up a lot against us this year. Rivera's defenses rely very heavily on pass rush, so if other teams can blunt that we'll really need our secondary to step up (folks likely don't want to hear that, but yeah...)

I'm never one to tey and predict how good we're gonna be too early because there's no way to know. Everybody's basically just guessing. Some people guess right, some people guess wrong.

I'm just hoping for the best.

Nice analysis and agree with pretty much everything. Regarding the 2nd half of the season, luckily we have one of the best December records over the past few years (I think only Pats ahead?), so let’s hope that continues. 

 

Eric Washington should have good insight into what Wilks did right and wrong last year.  I personally think he will be better.

All eyes on Dallas now though, let’s take care of those scrubs first