I don't know about you all, but the current events makes me sick to my stomach.

[The Huddler]

out with the old in with the new

[Moo Daeng]

Cry me a river

[Ivan The Awesome]

5 minutes ago, Moo Daeng said:

Cry me a river

you want me to send you my tears so you can start that river?

[pantherclaw]

Change. That's life. Adapt or die. 

While I wasn't expecting Luke to retire, and it is sad, on the other hand, it's good that the franchise is making the changes it's making. 

 

[OneBadCat]

Rivera was a good coach but he definitely had his flaws that kept us from getting over the top. He was riding talent instead of using it to the best of its abilities. I blame him for a lot of the punishment Cam has taken but at the same the players did fight for him.

In regards to the Super Bowl we weren’t allowed to win that game. Yeah our o line was getting beat but the league did everything they could to give Manning his retirement trophy that night. I don’t blame the staff for that. Simply put the calls and non calls changed the game and we weren’t allowed to compete. Cam was also blasted in the head multiple times. The NFL wanted to teach him a lesson for being unabashedly himself and confident and to show everyone that only certain types of QBs win the big one. It was a disgusting display of bias and makes me sick to this day.

And it sucks that the GOAT MLB had to suffer defeat as well. But he is a champion regardless of a trophy. Hands down the best since Ray Lewis. Really makes you wonder though. To be as good as he is requires the ferocity that causes concussions. Like Dan Morgan before him unfortunately.

[TheMostInterestingMan]

6 minutes ago, pantherclaw said:

Change. That's life. Adapt or die. 

While I wasn't expecting Luke to retire, and it is sad, on the other hand, it's good that the franchise is making the changes it's making. 

 

Yep. I had a friend really upset today after the news while I was really excited about the Joe Brady addition. Luke is my favorite player in the team. He didn’t understand how I could possibly feel excited.

All I could tell him is that I feel like we will be in a much much better place in a couple of seasons than we have been for the last 2 years

[Eazy-E]

I've been on record for years now saying I have wanted Ron gone since 2016.

He may have been a good mentor and overall person but he was a terrible head football coach.

The Panthers had so much talent from 2012-2016 and Ron and Dave some how managed to completely fug everything. There are members of the Huddle I would have rather had coaching the Panthers on gameday than Rivera and Shula. I don't even want to know the amount of 1 score games we managed to lose over those years.

In 2015 alone I can recall 6 or 7 games Rivera almost managed to blow due to his total lack of clock management skills and his conservative shut the offense down and rely on the defense approach to closing out games. 

A lot of the players have blinders on because it would be like talking poo about your dad but Rivera wasted the primes of a bunch of rare and talented players.

I am not even going to dive into his handling of injured players.

Luke and the rest of the guys deserved better.

[GoPanthers123]

2015 window can’t last forever, learn from the lesson and hire a good coach with good staff.  We did that.  Good times ahead.

[weyco2000]

Why is RR responsible for Luke retiring? Why is he responsible for Cams injuries? Give it a rest and move on, some of guys need to take some time off from the huddle.

[Ivan The Awesome]

2 hours ago, emhoward said:

Dear God... I wanted Rivera gone as much as the next guy, but this constant and growing narrative that he ruined or wasted Cam and now Luke is a bit ridiculous.. First of all it's extremely vague... what do you mean Ruined? Luke literally had a hall of fame career with RR, how did ruin or use him up? This is football. People get hurt. Cam, Luke, everyone. It's the game... Is this all because he didnt win a ring...? So if a hall of fame player doesnt win a ring that means his coach ruined him? Underacheived? Absolutely. But some of yall make it seem like RR put voodoo dolls inside their lockers to destroy them. 

 

They only give 1 of those suberbowls out per year...not getting one doesnt mean your talent was wasted or ruined. It's hard to win one. RR couldnt get the job done.. goodbye, on to the next, but it doesnt mean the guy destroyed their careers. It's just a very weird perspective...  " He had two hall of fame level talents." So has a lot of coaches that havent won it all. 

 

 3-9 winning seasons with this much talent is all you really need to know. To me, that's a waste. A huge huge waste considering other franchises are doing more with less or more specifically, guys with talent drafted in later rounds. 

 

Mismanaging Cam's injuries and letting him play when he was clearly hurt doesn't seem odd to you or a way to waste his talent? Like seriously? 

[Reebis21]

I woke up and still feel sad. I’ll admit I love Cam, but his injuries over the last 2 years has at least made it easier in my mind to understand why moving on from him would be a possible option. And after that concussion vs philly a few years ago, I knew it was only a matter of time until Luke retired. But man this is genuinely hurting for some reason. A sick stomach feeling that I can’t seem to shake. I don’t think this franchise will ever see a combination of athletic ability, drive and wisdom as we saw in Luke. Romo is a goat in the booth already for his diagnosing of play before it happens. And here we are fortunate as he11 because we’ve had our defensive goat on the field for the last several years. How lucky are we to be able to call him a Panther? I think this sick feeling is just knowing that somebody that talented never got to rightfully celebrate a Super Bowl victory. Here I am not having any affect on that, yet somehow still feel guilty. F concussions! 

[KillerKat]

Even with 3 winning seasons out of 9, keeping Shula way too long as OC, hiring nothing but his buddies as assistant coaches, putting incompetent coaches at DC after McDermott, having no idea how to manage crucial moments in football games, having an outdated philosophy where part of it involves letting off the gas and letting teams back in games, even with all of that there are still people here that don't believe Rivera not only wasted the talents of Cam and Kuechly but many others.

[WUnderhill]

Yep, Kuechly, Olsen, TD, Kalil, and Cam, 5 of the 7 greatest Panthers of all time, were all on the same team and should all be retiring with rings. Makes me sick.

[CardiacCat]

8 hours ago, Ivan The Awesome said:

The retirement of Luke Kuechly has come as a shock to many of you as myself. Some saw it coming. Others broke the news and we didn't believe. (shout out to you Jamos14 for that.)

 

Honestly its' a huge mixed bag of emotions. I completely support Lukes decision, we all saw what happened to him with the concussions. We all knwo he's an amazing player on and off the field. Honestly I feel ike I'm beating a dead horse but Rivera and his former staff may have screwed a lot of exceptional players out of a Championship in 2015...

 

Imagine if they'd won that SB....Luke would be riding into the sunset a Champ. Not this moral victory rhetoric that we are all familiar with. He'd be an actual Champ. This guy literally did so much hands on coaching and correcting of the defense and I can't help but think that Rivera failed him in every damn way possible. It honestly makes me despise him a bit. Seeing TD leave last year and now Luke...This defense..what will become of it?

 

Sorry guys, I am a bit emotional as some of you know I do wear my heart on my sleeve a bit but this just shook me. Sadly we're going to go through more downs on the way up. But this feels like rock bottom. 

What a f'ing ridiculous statement.... We went 15-1... couldn't stop Von Miller... our QB did not fight for the ball after fumble... and we were denied by the umps.  The fact that we did not win had NOTHING to do with RR.