Panthers pick up option on Torrey Smith

[TheSpecialJuan]

26 minutes ago, MasterAwesome said:

I didn’t ask about the quality of your life lol, but thanks for sharing. Not sure how you can argue that the Panthers aren’t causing you distress when 95% of your posts about the team are extremely sour. Either you’re truly upset by the moves they’re making or you’re trolling..and I’m pretty sure you’re not a troll. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to criticize them, I’m saying they don’t owe you anything so I disagree with this entitled mentality of “what are they doing to earn my support” when the reality of the situation is that you can choose to root for any other team at any time, or just quit watching the NFL altogether. If you’re looking for a team to earn your support, then why not simply jump ship and bandwagon a perennial winning franchise like the Patriots? Sounds pretty simple to me. Meanwhile, many of us have emotional attachments to this team and are able to accept the good with the bad.

Obviously everyone has criticisms of their favorite teams, but when you get to the point where you harbor more negativity towards your team than you do positivity, then that’s just a damn toxic relationship for both parties. These kinds of fans getting constantly stressed out and harboring unhealthy feelings of anger and frustration, and the teams who have to deal with these fans spouting vitriol all over the internet and attacking key members of the organization. Like these boards have me wondering who hates us more: Saints fans or our own fans. At some point, you just gotta consider it a win/win for both parties if you just walk away from the team.

Not sure why you’re assigning me homework to list out Hurney’s achievements when I explicitly stated in literally my most recent post that I’m not a fan of his. But yes I believe he has done a decent amount of good since taking over again...but obviously much of this is subjective and if you’re strongly anti-Hurney then you’ll probably perceive these very differently. Nevertheless, my opinions:

1) The KB trade was darn genius, considering we got a 3rd round pick for a player on the verge of washing out of the league a season and a half later. This is one of the less subjective points as I’m not sure how you could rationalize this as anything less than a huge win, but I’d like to hear you state your case if that’s how you see it.

2) He seems to have had a pretty solid draft. Moore, Jackson, and Thomas look like they’ll be solid starters for years to come. He certainly had some head scratchers like Gaulden and Haynes in the mid rounds, but if you can walk away with 3 solid starters from a draft then that’s pretty good. 

3) He was literally the only GM in the league with the balls to sign Eric Reid this past season. If you think Eric Reid wouldn’t have improved the rosters of at least 20 teams in the league for what was virtually vet minimum, then you’re fooling yourself. Him being unsigned for that long was purely political. It’s TBD if we overpaid him with the extension, but I give Hurney credit for at least locking up a young talented FA for once, instead of continuing to sign one-year veteran stopgap bandaids. Seriously, how many veteran safeties have we shuffled through for the past 5-6 years? We finally secure a good, young one for 3 years and people are complaining over whether we may have overpaid him by maybe a million a year (like I said, TBD).

4) He appears to be more disciplined in knowing when to let players go. Letting players like TD, Munnerlyn, Kalil, and Adams go, shows he has matured and he’s not as sentimental. Also not overpaying Norwell and seemingly not wanting to overpay Williams shows he’s being a bit more frugal with his spending. I’m withholding judgment on Torrey Smith until I see if he’s still on the roster by Week 1.

Thats all I got for now off the top of my head without looking back at some of the subtleties. Again, this is coming from someone who is not a fan of Hurney.

very nice 

[MasterAwesome]

6 minutes ago, stbugs said:

@MasterAwesome One quick note. He didn’t get rid of Kalil yet. If he’s on the roster on Friday his $7.25m 2019 salary is guaranteed.

Sorry, I meant Kalil Sr. as in not extending him...although now I’m second-guessing myself as to whether he even wanted to return or not. Not sure whether he already had his heart set on retiring or if it was one of those “if the Panthers don’t re-sign me then I’m retiring” situations. If it was the former, then you can scratch him from that list.

To be honest, I don’t have strong feelings about the Matt Kalil situation cause I’ve heard so many different takes on whether cutting him will save us money or not, and how much exactly if so. That would be necessary in me having an opinion on whether keeping him is justified or not. I’ve never bothered learning the intricacies of the salary cap cause I feel like that would just stress me out more about things that are out of my hands.

[MasterAwesome]

17 minutes ago, top dawg said:

That was a pretty awesome response. Bravo!

Cheers for actually reading it all lol.

[Car123]

On 3/9/2019 at 3:39 PM, stbugs said:

This is where you are missing my point. Considering that we MAY keep Smith, Kalil and Searcy, we may not have had enough cap for Weddle. If we said Mose Frazier is WR4, then we may have had enough cap.

You are assuming that we have no other plans. Assuming $7m for rookie cap, we’ve got $8m free. If we planned to spend $5m on a C or G then no we didn’t have $5.5m for Weddle. It becomes a different conversation if we have $23m free.

If Samuel gets hurt, our starting two would be Moore and Wright.

If either Moore or Wright gets hurts too, Mose Fraiser would be a starter. You and the other big mouths here would lead a lynch mob.

[Pejorative Miscreant]

12 minutes ago, Car123 said:

If Samuel gets hurt, our starting two would be Moore and Wright.

If either Moore or Wright gets hurts too, Mose Fraiser would be a starter. You and the other big mouths here would lead a lynch mob.

I think this was where their minds were when they made the decision.  

Moore is in his second year and could be a superstar 

Samuel is in his third and could also be a superstar but he has had issues (football and no football) the first two years. 

Wright seems to be the consistent guy but not sure if he gives the locker room/WR room what they need.  

Smith is good insurance at least temporarily.  I’m not in love with the idea and the cost but they may be doing themselves a favor. 

[top dawg]

Wright is not a legit starter, guys. Norv knows this. Hell, lots of people know it. Can you imagine him being double-teamed? He'd not be as nearly as effective. Honestly, when the Vikings got really thin at the position, he wasn't. He's a good third down merc that is known for moving the chains to the next series.

[top dawg]

11 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Ok, yet he was far better than Smith. What don’t you like about a guy who’s our WR3 (why would he be double teamed?) and has a top 10 catch rate? You’d rather a one trick injured pony for double the cost and stone hands that were unrivaled over the past 4 years?

I’d love to see a poll on here to see just how many people would rather have Smith than Wright. Now your jumping down a rabbit hole that makes no sense again trying to defend the decision to keep Smith.

Also, using your words, where’s your crystal ball that is telling you Norv thinks more highly of Smith and that Wright isn’t a starter? It’s pretty clear that Wright was brought on because of his experience with Norv.

Norv obviously thinks highly of Wright, or the slot receiver wouldn't have been acquired (with a two-year guarantee iirc). Wright was acquired because of his ability in the slot and knowledge of Norv's system. If you or any other want to tell me that you'd be more comfortable with a career slot guy playing outside as opposed to Smith, then I seriously question your judgment and knowledge of maximizing skill sets and setting players up for success. Now who is jumping down the rabbit hole?

Perhaps you should stop trying to put words in my mouth. That's really unbecoming of you. I expect that out of some of the other experts.

[Toomers]

2 hours ago, MasterAwesome said:

I didn’t ask about the quality of your life lol, but thanks for sharing. Not sure how you can argue that the Panthers aren’t causing you distress when 95% of your posts about the team are extremely sour. Either you’re truly upset by the moves they’re making or you’re trolling..and I’m pretty sure you’re not a troll. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to criticize them, I’m saying they don’t owe you anything so I disagree with this entitled mentality of “what are they doing to earn my support” when the reality of the situation is that you can choose to root for any other team at any time, or just quit watching the NFL altogether. If you’re looking for a team to earn your support, then why not simply jump ship and bandwagon a perennial winning franchise like the Patriots? Sounds pretty simple to me. Meanwhile, many of us have emotional attachments to this team and are able to accept the good with the bad.

Obviously everyone has criticisms of their favorite teams, but when you get to the point where you harbor more negativity towards your team than you do positivity, then that’s just a damn toxic relationship for both parties. These kinds of fans getting constantly stressed out and harboring unhealthy feelings of anger and frustration, and the teams who have to deal with these fans spouting vitriol all over the internet and attacking key members of the organization. Like these boards have me wondering who hates us more: Saints fans or our own fans. At some point, you just gotta consider it a win/win for both parties if you just walk away from the team.

Not sure why you’re assigning me homework to list out Hurney’s achievements when I explicitly stated in literally my most recent post that I’m not a fan of his. But yes I believe he has done a decent amount of good since taking over again...but obviously much of this is subjective and if you’re strongly anti-Hurney then you’ll probably perceive these very differently. Nevertheless, my opinions:

1) The KB trade was darn genius, considering we got a 3rd round pick for a player on the verge of washing out of the league a season and a half later. This is one of the less subjective points as I’m not sure how you could rationalize this as anything less than a huge win, but I’d like to hear you state your case if that’s how you see it.

2) He seems to have had a pretty solid draft. Moore, Jackson, and Thomas look like they’ll be solid starters for years to come. He certainly had some head scratchers like Gaulden and Haynes in the mid rounds, but if you can walk away with 3 solid starters from a draft then that’s pretty good. 

3) He was literally the only GM in the league with the balls to sign Eric Reid this past season. If you think Eric Reid wouldn’t have improved the rosters of at least 20 teams in the league for what was virtually vet minimum, then you’re fooling yourself. Him being unsigned for that long was purely political. It’s TBD if we overpaid him with the extension, but I give Hurney credit for at least locking up a young talented FA for once, instead of continuing to sign one-year veteran stopgap bandaids. Seriously, how many veteran safeties have we shuffled through for the past 5-6 years? We finally secure a good, young one for 3 years and people are complaining over whether we may have overpaid him by maybe a million a year (like I said, TBD).

4) He appears to be more disciplined in knowing when to let players go. Letting players like TD, Munnerlyn, Kalil, and Adams go, shows he has matured and he’s not as sentimental. Also not overpaying Norwell and seemingly not wanting to overpay Williams shows he’s being a bit more frugal with his spending. I’m withholding judgment on Torrey Smith until I see if he’s still on the roster by Week 1.

Thats all I got for now off the top of my head without looking back at some of the subtleties. Again, this is coming from someone who is not a fan of Hurney.

Nicely.done. Just a few points

1) While Hurney made the right decision(thank you BB) on trading KB, at this moment, we haven’t gotten one thing out of it. That could change quickly. But even with the colossal failure of KB, at least we would have had a WR in the playoffs. It’s real hard not to have more value than KB has, but right now, we havent gotten it. Not disputing the decision. But the results certainly don’t scream huge win. Yet. 

 Only other thing I disagree is Reid last year. If Hurney has balls, Reid would have been here in the summer. What took so long if you thought he could play. It shouldn’t have taken Colin Jones and desperation to get him. I hardly think Tepper was saying no.

 Draft was exactly as you put it. Whole post is good. 

[frash.exe]

2 hours ago, MasterAwesome said:

I didn’t ask about the quality of your life lol, but thanks for sharing. Not sure how you can argue that the Panthers aren’t causing you distress when 95% of your posts about the team are extremely sour. Either you’re truly upset by the moves they’re making or you’re trolling..and I’m pretty sure you’re not a troll. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to criticize them, I’m saying they don’t owe you anything so I disagree with this entitled mentality of “what are they doing to earn my support” when the reality of the situation is that you can choose to root for any other team at any time, or just quit watching the NFL altogether. If you’re looking for a team to earn your support, then why not simply jump ship and bandwagon a perennial winning franchise like the Patriots? Sounds pretty simple to me. Meanwhile, many of us have emotional attachments to this team and are able to accept the good with the bad.

Obviously everyone has criticisms of their favorite teams, but when you get to the point where you harbor more negativity towards your team than you do positivity, then that’s just a damn toxic relationship for both parties. These kinds of fans getting constantly stressed out and harboring unhealthy feelings of anger and frustration, and the teams who have to deal with these fans spouting vitriol all over the internet and attacking key members of the organization. Like these boards have me wondering who hates us more: Saints fans or our own fans. At some point, you just gotta consider it a win/win for both parties if you just walk away from the team.

Not sure why you’re assigning me homework to list out Hurney’s achievements when I explicitly stated in literally my most recent post that I’m not a fan of his. But yes I believe he has done a decent amount of good since taking over again...but obviously much of this is subjective and if you’re strongly anti-Hurney then you’ll probably perceive these very differently. Nevertheless, my opinions:

1) The KB trade was darn genius, considering we got a 3rd round pick for a player on the verge of washing out of the league a season and a half later. This is one of the less subjective points as I’m not sure how you could rationalize this as anything less than a huge win, but I’d like to hear you state your case if that’s how you see it.

2) He seems to have had a pretty solid draft. Moore, Jackson, and Thomas look like they’ll be solid starters for years to come. He certainly had some head scratchers like Gaulden and Haynes in the mid rounds, but if you can walk away with 3 solid starters from a draft then that’s pretty good. 

3) He was literally the only GM in the league with the balls to sign Eric Reid this past season. If you think Eric Reid wouldn’t have improved the rosters of at least 20 teams in the league for what was virtually vet minimum, then you’re fooling yourself. Him being unsigned for that long was purely political. It’s TBD if we overpaid him with the extension, but I give Hurney credit for at least locking up a young talented FA for once, instead of continuing to sign one-year veteran stopgap bandaids. Seriously, how many veteran safeties have we shuffled through for the past 5-6 years? We finally secure a good, young one for 3 years and people are complaining over whether we may have overpaid him by maybe a million a year (like I said, TBD).

4) He appears to be more disciplined in knowing when to let players go. Letting players like TD, Munnerlyn, Kalil, and Adams go, shows he has matured and he’s not as sentimental. Also not overpaying Norwell and seemingly not wanting to overpay Williams shows he’s being a bit more frugal with his spending. I’m withholding judgment on Torrey Smith until I see if he’s still on the roster by Week 1.

Thats all I got for now off the top of my head without looking back at some of the subtleties. Again, this is coming from someone who is not a fan of Hurney.

you literally have zero clue what you’re talking about on multiple points

first of all let’s go over you basically dismissing some of hurney’s picks like everybody makes mistakes in the draft, but when you talk about gettleman it’s a completely different tune. “his drafts suck”, yea sure. he picked at least three guys in 2017 that are panning out, so idk how that doesn’t pop up in your head when you think about a good draft (you basically  say that three starters makes a pretty good draft), and a lot of players that ppl use like punchlines had contributed for a short time. i think that speaks a lot about how a guy can build a roster, well if 4 out of 5 seasons making the playoffs isn’t a good enough explanation. 

but just bc they didn’t turn into ten year all pros ppl act like these drafts didn’t make the team into a consistent force. meanwhile hurney can draft every misfit player after his freebie top 15 layup pick that he should thank ron for being mediocre enough to earn so that he can have better talent on the big board, and everybody that has a big mouth on here about the matt kalil contract and the fuging vernon butler pick turns into fuging alan watts, like we’re all supposed to remember that it’s just football and not life and death.

other things like letting norwell go you’re basically giving him credit for which is really irrelevant considering that guy was hitting the market no matter who was the GM. trai turner was already extended and we’re not spending like half our cap money on offensive guards every year. hurney hasn’t showed he’s changed much at all. yea, thank god he’s not sending daryl williams a blank check while torrey smith earns 5 million more loafing his way to another >200 yards receiving and dontari poe continues to be the spiritual successor to ma’ake kemoeatu.

other than that there’s the eric reid part which completely ignores the fact that if JR was still here, that contract would never have even existed as a suggestion out of marty’s crooked lips, even if you can accept that it was his idea and not tepper’s.

the fact that ppl are actually praising this post says a lot about how awful this place has become since 2017.

[top dawg]

19 minutes ago, frash.exe said:

you literally have zero clue what you’re talking about on multiple points

first of all let’s go over you basically dismissing some of hurney’s picks like everybody makes mistakes in the draft, but when you talk about gettleman it’s a completely different tune. “his drafts suck”, yea sure. he picked at least three guys in 2017 that are panning out, so idk how that doesn’t pop up in your head when you think about a good draft (you basically  say that three starters makes a pretty good draft), and a lot of players that ppl use like punchlines had contributed for a short time. i think that speaks a lot about how a guy can build a roster, well if 4 out of 5 seasons making the playoffs isn’t a good enough explanation. 

but just bc they didn’t turn into ten year all pros ppl act like these drafts didn’t make the team into a consistent force. meanwhile hurney can draft every misfit player after his freebie top 15 layup pick that he should thank ron for being mediocre enough to earn so that he can have better talent on the big board, and everybody that has a big mouth on here about the matt kalil contract and the fuging vernon butler pick turns into fuging alan watts, like we’re all supposed to remember that it’s just football and not life and death.

other things like letting norwell go you’re basically giving him credit for which is really irrelevant considering that guy was hitting the market no matter who was the GM. trai turner was already extended and we’re not spending like half our cap money on offensive guards every year. hurney hasn’t showed he’s changed much at all. yea, thank god he’s not sending daryl williams a blank check while torrey smith earns 5 million more loafing his way to another >200 yards receiving and dontari poe continues to be the spiritual successor to ma’ake kemoeatu.

other than that there’s the eric reid part which completely ignores the fact that if JR was still here, that contract would never have even existed as a suggestion out of marty’s crooked lips, even if you can accept that it was his idea and not tepper’s.

the fact that ppl are actually praising this post says a lot about how awful this place has become since 2017.

Thank goodness the 2017 draft was better than his others (probably all of them combined), and the fact is that it could have been better. Hell, Loomis schooled the GOAT every which way but loose. It's a good thing that Rivera coached his ass off and made G-man look better than he really is. And Gettleman's drafts, which were uninspiring to say the least, were arguably not even his biggest problem, lest you conveniently forget his other head scratchers.

[Peon Awesome]

At first I was flabbergasted that we actually picked up Smith's option. On review, it makes a lot of sense. A few others seemed to have made similar points somewhere in this 23 page thread, but there is literally no downside to doing it. Let's review in more detail:

1. The money is not guaranteed. We can cut him today, tomorrow, training camp, preseason week 3, and we are scot-free of our remaining obligations. Until we decide to use our cap space on any free agents, we don't need Smith's extra 5 million right now. If necessary, we can make a good faith agreement with a free agent, cut Smith the same day, and then have free agent X sign the contract the next day. But otherwise, his 5 million is like our other 16 million - just sitting there doing nothing.

2. Right now, our WR corp is only 4 deep. Lose Smith and we're at 3 and feeling pressured to scour the waiver wire or draft to plug in holes. Now we can stick with filling our other needs and if a good value WR falls in our lap, either in the draft or free agency, we can sign them, make sure they make the cut in training camp/preseason and cut ties with Smith then.

3. People love the idea of Moze Frazier as a 4th wr, but what has he done other than rack up some garbage time catches against 4th string defensive backs? At the very least, let's wait till preseason, give Moze some real snaps against real competition, and see if he is actually serviceable before deciding he's a 53-man roster quality wide receiver. If it's not sinking in yet, we can always cut Torrey Smith at that point if Moze proves himself and lose nothing.

4. If we ultimately decide Smith is worth keeping on the 53, we can still renegotiate his contract. But like others have said, if we do that now, we will have to include some guaranteed money and lose our infinite leverage if we later decide we have better wide receivers and want to cut him loose. 

Bottom Line:

Let's wait to see if he makes the 53 man roster, and at what salary, before we bust out our pitchforks.

[Toomers]

1 minute ago, top dawg said:

Thank goodness the 2017 draft was better than his others (probably all of them combined), and the fact is that it could have been better. Hell, Loomis schooled the GOAT every which way but loose. It's a good thing that Rivera coached his ass off and made G-man look better than he really is. And Gettleman's drafts, which were uninspiring to say the least, was arguably not even his biggest problem, lest you conveniently forget his other head scratchers.

NT who did exactly what we asked him to and was sorely missed. Place did cartwheels. 

All-Pro DT(2)

All-Pro RG(3)

All-Pro LG(UDFA)

2nd team All-Pro RT(4)

Top 5 RB

Samuel, Moton, Thompson, Butker, Armah, Benjamin(still brought a 3rd back) Bradberry, Boston, Bene, 

Thats 15 starters in 5 years. With an All-Pro a year almost. And Moton and CMC might be best yet. So if 3 starters is so great for Hurney, why does it suck for DG? 

[frash.exe]

14 minutes ago, top dawg said:

Thank goodness the 2017 draft was better than his others (probably all of them combined), and the fact is that it could have been better. Hell, Loomis schooled the GOAT every which way but loose. It's a good thing that Rivera coached his ass off and made G-man look better than he really is. And Gettleman's drafts, which were uninspiring to say the least, were arguably not even his biggest problem, lest you conveniently forget his other head scratchers.

ron rivera has not had one playoff appearance without gettleman running his offseasons.

i don’t conveniently forget anything. you put your negative spin on his body of work at a molecular level because he cut your favorite route runner. and hurney comes back and magically your optimism returns.

lump off

[Peon Awesome]

When did this become a Hurney vs Gettleman thread? It seems like Gettleman's mom is in this thread the way some people are supporting him so wholeheartedly. Objectively, this is the way I see it:

Hurney's first run as GM was just awful. The main thing I will give him credit for is knocking his 1st round picks out of the water, but his drafting was otherwise pretty awful on top of the fact that he would routinely trade next year's higher round pick to draft a bust in the current draft (e.g. Everette Brown, Armanti Edwards). Then he would vastly overpay our homegrown talent and limit our ability to spend on other players to fill out our team. Just bad all around. 

Gettleman inherited cap hell from Hurney and his moves need to be evaluated in that context. He did a fantastic job of finding value free agents who overachieved. In many ways he was the anti-Hurney. Terrible at first round picks (although not particularly great at drafting in general) and strongarmed our talented players in negotiation to the point of driving them out in frustration. The way he handled the Josh Norman contract situation was just awful and seemed to sap the electricity out of our super bowl team. Once he actually had cap room, he used it on Matt Kalil, which was one of the worst contracts in our history. We were successful during his years, but you have to give both Hurney and him credit for that. Hurney made the draft picks on the majority of the leaders of the team and Gettleman helped us navigate out of cap hell and fill our roster with enough cheap talent to succeed. Thinking Gettleman gets all the credit cause we had our best years under him is short-sighted. Thinking Hurney gets all the blame for the past 2 years even though Gettleman's fingerprints are all over this roster (or lack thereof in the case of the numerous draft picks we have already cut) is also putting on blinders. Either way, they both deserve their fair share of credit and blame.

I for one think Hurney deserves some praise from learning from his mistakes. He has done an infinitely better job than he did the first time. Even the signings that didn't pan out seemed to make some sense at the time, like Dontari Poe, and didn't break the bank and put us in cap hell like before. No GM is perfect, but I think he has been well-deserving of another year to right the ship. And we'll see what happens after that.