X's and O's explaination of why we are moving on from TD

[panthers55]

Shaq was more out of place than Davis most of the time. His 4.65 40 yard dash is too slow to play the slot or chase any quick receiver.  His cap hit of over 9 million versus no dead cap hit at all if we cut him makes it easy to cut him.

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, stbugs said:

Rivera’s been the coach for 8 years. If he’s a 3-4 guy, he sure has a funny way of showing it. 

He coached a 3-4 in San Diego but his primary defensive scheme has always been a Jim Johnson zone blitz, which runs out of a 4-3 alignment.

Obviously, you could run a zone blitz out of a 3-4 (Pittsburgh certainly does) but I don't think we have the right personnel.

(definitely wouldn't want to shift Keuchly out of a traditional 4-3 MLB role)

[panthers55]

6 minutes ago, grimesgoat said:

I think the Panthers might be moving to a 3-4 defense.  That's why they signed Poe last year and drafted Haynes.  This is facilitated with Rivera taking over the defense (he's a 3-4 guy).  Now their talking to Pagano - a 3-4 guy.  TD is not a good fit, but Shaq is.  Watch for them to draft Polite in the first.

When he was at Philly and Chicago they played a 4-3. At San Diego they played a 3-4. He can do either based on available personnel. Any good defensive coach can play either.  We actually don't have the personnel for a great 3-4 right now 

[trueblade]

2 hours ago, Cracka McNasty said:

By removing one of these LB's, we are now forcing Ron to adapt to the rest of the NFL and move to a more nickel based D allowing Shaq to actually do things he's not bad at moving forward. 

Not to sound like a broken record today, but if you have to make roster moves "forcing Ron to adapt", should he really be your head coach?

[RumHam]

2 hours ago, Cracka McNasty said:

Good post on Reddit about how the game is changed and how we were trying to force a square peg into a round hole with 3 LB's on the field at the same time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/aeecfw/jones_an_emotional_thomas_davis_says_the_panthers/edoresr/

So from a pure X's and O's standpoint, it makes sense to move on from TD when we have a younger guy to play. By removing one of these LB's, we are now forcing Ron to adapt to the rest of the NFL and move to a more nickel based D allowing Shaq to actually do things he's not bad at moving forward. 

A lot of people have been giving Shaq flack the past few years for getting burned in the slot, but it's just not a great place to put a LB at to succeed. His failure is more on Rivera/Washington/Wilkes than it is on him entirely. Putting a LB in the slot repeatedly is not a recipe for success. It's a mismatch that any decent O-coordinator will exploit. Good coaches put their players in positions to succeed. It's why Agholor was moved to the slot in Philly and flourished. It's why CMC was used all over the place in our O this past season, and hopefully by moving Shaq to a more traditional LB role, he will succeed as well. 

Based on this, I foresee us going after a decent nickel CB in FA or the draft this offseason. I believe that a combo of Luke and Shaq can be a good duo moving forward. It sucks that TD still has some gas left in the tank but I think it might be the best for the team and D moving forward. 

this is why we need a proven veteran outside corner and move jackson to the slot, where he was intended. would hugely bolster the defense. Gaulden needs to spend a lot of time watching film and working on coverage in the offseason and Ron needs to get off a dick and be open minded about young players.

[SmokinwithWilly]

4 minutes ago, trueblade said:

Not to sound like a broken record today, but if you have to make roster moves "forcing Ron to adapt", should he really be your head coach?

No

[RumHam]

i'd like to see us target curtis riley from the giants.

[Lasus83.]

This post makes me less angry.

[Khaki Lackey]

Did we increase the use of nickle package when Ron took over the D? I've seen Ron be way more loyal to way lesser players than TD. Are we supposed to believe this is all Ron's doing?

[grateflday]

Can’t tell you how many times diring a game I would turn to my son and say “we’ve got a LB covering a slot wr again”.  It was a lot and the results were bad a lot. So I def get what this article and original post is saying.  Unfortunately this past season when it was Munnerlynn instead, the results weren’t much better.   

[CPF4LIFE]

1 hour ago, grimesgoat said:

I think the Panthers might be moving to a 3-4 defense.  That's why they signed Poe last year and drafted Haynes.  This is facilitated with Rivera taking over the defense (he's a 3-4 guy).  Now their talking to Pagano - a 3-4 guy.  TD is not a good fit, but Shaq is.  Watch for them to draft Polite in the first.

I honestly would be good with this, i like Polite and i think he could be a 4-3 DE too because he is actually pretty good against the run for his size. 

[Icege]

I can see Bene Benwikere being brought back or B.W. Webb being brought down from NY while Cole Luke and Corn Elder duke it out for a roster spot.

We used to play in the nickel more than any other team (I could be wrong, but I do remember us using it more often as our base defense than the 4-3) but then went to forcing LBs to cover slot WRs which fans then blamed on one of the two LBs being asked to do the impossible.

[frash.exe]

most teams have been running base nickel defense for several years now, including us at least once since 2014. but we have been stocking our personnel like a base 4-3 bc our previous owner was an old fart who thought the trends haven’t changed since 1982.

we’re like that one company you may have worked for in the past that strives in a hot competitive industry, but all the infrastructure still runs off of like windows 95 and sun microsystems equipment.

[panthers55]

5 hours ago, trueblade said:

Not to sound like a broken record today, but if you have to make roster moves "forcing Ron to adapt", should he really be your head coach?

It is a broken record and an assumption not a fact.