The injury excuse on defense ....

[Jeremy Igo]

Panthers still have 5 healthy first rounders playing in their front 7 plus Mario Addison who is making good money.

Still ranked near last in the league in run defense.

 

Tear it all down. Rebuild the D starting with Luke as a true MLB. 

[The Donald]

[Moo Daeng]

ok, the coach was fired you know? So we have all this talent as you say but you want to tear it down? We will be hiring a new coach so....

[Khyber53]

Lot of big hogs at the trough when it comes to our defense. You'd think they'd be harder to push around.

[TheRed]

The defensive suckage has been a collaborative effort. Need to stop making excuses. We have invested far too much on that side of the ball as a franchise over the years.

Time for some harsh truth. Next year Luke will be 29 with a 15.5 million dollar cap hit. If you think Kuechly isn't possibly following Newton out the door too after 2020 you are living in a dream world.

[Jeremy Igo]

3 minutes ago, TheRed said:

The defensive suckage has been a collaborative effort. Need to stop making excuses. We have invested far too much on that side of the ball as a franchise over the years.

Time for some harsh truth. Next year Luke will be 29 with a 15.5 million dollar cap hit. If you think Kuechly isn't possibly following Newton out the door too after 2020 you are living in a dream world.

Could be. But he still ranks, what, 6th in the league in tackles and had 17 yesterday? As long as his production stays high relative to his salary I think he retires having played for one team .

[Dex]

No one is being held accountable. Need leadership.

[TheRed]

1 minute ago, Jeremy Igo said:

Could be. But he still ranks, what, 6th in the league in tackles and had 17 yesterday? As long as his production stays high relative to his salary I think he retires having played for one team .

The problem is we just handed Shaq Thompson a lucrative new extension. That's well over 100 million in two linebackers on a bottom defense. I can't see us justifying that much cap space for linebackers beyond next year. Just a simple reality once you remove the "emotional attachment" as they say.

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

We've certainly had our share of expensive, under-performing defenses in the history of this franchise.

[TheRumGone]

20 minutes ago, Jeremy Igo said:

Could be. But he still ranks, what, 6th in the league in tackles and had 17 yesterday? As long as his production stays high relative to his salary I think he retires having played for one team .

Ray Lewis is the exception of linebackers 30+ continuing dominance. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving a 30+ year old linebacker with concussion issues another 50 million contract. I think Luke may pull a Patrick Willis and retire at 30. Or if he wants to continue playing we should trade him. Like theRed said. We can’t allocated that much money on inside linebackers if we want the team to be well rounded.

[Jeremy Igo]

2 minutes ago, TheRumGone said:

Ray Lewis is the exception of linebackers 30+ continuing dominance. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving a 30+ year old linebacker with concussion issues another 50 million contract. I think Luke may pull a Patrick Willis and retire at 30. Or if he wants to continue playing we should trade him. Like theRed said. We can’t allocated that much money on inside linebackers if we want the team to be well rounded.

Oh I agree. No where near that money on his next contract. I feel like Luke has his eye on coming back as a coaching intern at some point. He may very well retire early and do that.

[stirs]

Do we:

1. Try to rebuild a defense around Luke as mentioned, which would probably be back to a 43.  Would take some doing but could be accomplished.

2. Trade Luke for high picks knowing he is close to 30 and one concussion away from retirement and finish the transition to a 34 defense, which was started by drafting 2 OLB's for that scheme last draft.

Either way, it would take a competent coaching staff to make either a success.

 

 

[TheRumGone]

I’m building around burns and shaq without a doubt. Luke’s time is nearing a close while those two still have their primes to look forward to. Also the 34 is better in today’s passing league imo. Easier to find olb then straight up 43 de’s. We need more beef up front with a solid rotation.

[hepcat]

Kuechly is one concussion away from being done with football. Risky player to keep. Defense needs an entire rebuild