Matt Rhule interview

[Mr. Scot]

7 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I'm still firmly of the opinion that this is either going to be a long-term raving success or an absolutely abysmal failure. Either way, I predict a painful couple of seasons before we know which way it'll ultimately go.

This coming season is likely to be a sh-t show of epic proportions. I'm not expecting to read much of anything into it.

The season after, I'll be looking for signs of improvement but still not expecting much.

Year three is when it's gonna need to start turning the corner or we're likely in big trouble.

 

[Mr. Scot]

4 minutes ago, trueblade said:

We did. I can't wrap my brain around it but we did. We chose Teddy Bridgewater over Cam freaking Newton.

I'm of the opinion that Joe Brady had a lot more to do with that than anybody is saying.

Mind you, that's just my own hunch, but I think it's a logical one.

[RASTAN66]

17 minutes ago, Cpt slay a ho said:

I’m not too in love with the fluff he’s adding on players we moved on from, sounds counter productive.

Rhule's saying all the right things from a PR/PC perspective but what he's doing here is eliminating distractions.

Rhule's foremost coaching mentor is Tom Coughlin and they share a disdain for distractions and lack of discipline. 

(note his comment about creating "a serious football place"...)

[steven8989]

28 minutes ago, 4Corners said:

That’s exactly what they did, and the panthers will pay dearly for this awful decision. 

Hey when Cam gets on a team go pull for him as a backup.

[Cpt slay a ho]

18 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

Tepper doesnt care

Ok and.......

[Mr. Scot]

6 minutes ago, AggieLean said:

Mistake letting go Cam, and then Eric Reid.

Looking at how they're retooling, I don't think Eric Reid would have fit their defensive scheme at all.

Reid was a box safety, basically a fourth linebacker. That's the kind of safety Ron Rivera loved, so he made sense in that scheme. Under Rhule and Phil Snow, they're looking at more athletic safeties like Juston Burris. And given the talk of "positionless players" I won't be surprised if that's true at all three levels.

[pantherj]

I really liked player x and he has a lot of talent and he's a special player, but ultimately we felt it was best for us to move on.

Oh well we're not finding out much.

[Cpt slay a ho]

19 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I'm still firmly of the opinion that this is either going to be a long-term raving success or an absolutely abysmal failure. Either way, I predict a painful couple of seasons before we know which way it'll ultimately go.

Right, just not a fan of him adding that extra fluff in there like it means anything, it’s already at the point where I don’t really believe anything that he says in a interview. Just say we moved on because of scheme or whatever and be done with it, acting like there was some neck to neck battle between teddy and cam puts in question if he’s really lookEd over the roster, same can be said about Reid to a lesser extent 

[run-run-pass-punt]

33 minutes ago, RASTAN66 said:

Reporters need to follow up with "why was it the best thing for you moving forward"?

(even though the reason is clear)

Then you'll get, "Lots of decisions are made in the best interest of team building, and sometimes that means you end up letting go of good players." or something to that effect.

If they don't want to answer with the unfiltered truth, they simply won't. Nothing you can do about that.

[TheMostInterestingMan]

36 minutes ago, RASTAN66 said:

Reporters need to follow up with "why was it the best thing for you moving forward"?

(even though the reason is clear)

I hope by that you mean that he was the worst starting safety in the NFL in pass coverage...

[LinvilleGorge]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Looking at how they're retooling, I don't think Eric Reid would have fit their defensive scheme at all.

Reid was a box safety, basically a fourth linebacker. That's the kind of safety Ron Rivera loved, so he made sense in that scheme. Under Rhule and Phil Snow, they're looking at more athletic safeties like Juston Burris. And given the talk of "positionless players" I won't be surprised if that's true at all three levels.

Yeah, Reid is basically an '80s style safety trying to play in the modern pass happy NFL. It's not that he's a "bad" player, it's just that his particular skill set has a lot less value in today's NFL.

[TheMaulClaw]

37 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

It wasn't just the media.

From what I've read and heard from people with inside access, I've come to believe that Tepper was never really "all in" on Cam Newton. He said the right things (sort of) but there was always an "out" in his statements.

Take for example his saying that when healthy, Newton was "an elite player' rather than "our starter", or his constant kicking the can down the road saying they'd evaluate him once he was healthy, only to cut him one day after he passed a physical. Throw in also the report from Jourdan Rodrigue that both Rivera and Hurney wanted to extend Newton, but Tepper nixed it.

These things and more are why I'm of the opinion that parting ways with Newton was always an option for Tepper. If it wasn't this season, it would have been next year after his contract expired. Newton's injuries just facilitated it happening sooner rather than later.

To be perfectly honest, I think it's possible Newton's path to the exit started the day Jerry Richardson sold the team.

That definitely could be the case. Also it's fairly obviously Tepper wasnt sold on Cam otherwise he wouldnt have been released. Iim just saying that it's likely that even though they werent sold on Cam there was no way they could actually evaluate him because of the Virus.

[Mr. Scot]

Looking over the answers...

 

The Right Fit - This is likely the chosen and agreed upon verbiage for any discussion of Teddy Bridgewater and Cam Newton. Rhule wants to say that wasn't an "either/or" choice but I'm calling bullsh-t. For better or worse, they picked Bridgewater over Newton. As mentioned, I think Joe Brady had a lot to do with that, but it's arguable that David Tepper had the most to do.

Pro Readiness - That answer stuck out to me when they were talking about the draft. They're looking for guys that they can plug and play as much as possible, and that likely means guys from bigger programs and/or programs that run more complex systems. That's likely also gonna be true of any quarterbacks if they take one, and in a manner of speaking you could also apply it to the Bridgewater-Newton debate in that Bridgewater would have been more "system ready" than Newton.

Pronouns - Lots of "we", not much "I". "We felt", "we believed", "we decided", etc. Not terribly surprising given that Rhule's "the new guy" but it's also a little dodgy. You're allowed to say what you thought too, Coach. Worth noting though that Rhule indicated he didn't have as much of a say on prior players (guys like Newton, Reid, etc) that he hadn't coached. I'd love to know just how those internal dynamics are working.

McCaffrey - One player Rhule apparently does have an opinion on is Christian McCaffrey. And while he deferred on the contract questions (to Marty, ugh) he did describe CMC as "someone who's all about the game", "a centerpiece" and "a guy you can build around". Given that the team is indeed in a rebuild (regardless of a certain GM refusing to acknowledge it as such) it definitely sounds like that rebuild will have McCaffrey as a foundational piece.

Positionless Football - This sounds like more of a focus on defense than on offense, but either way I'm just not a fan. The whole "draft athletes and just use them wherever" was tried by the Redskins under Vinny Cerrato and produced less than ideal results. Likewise the Saints tried it under Rob Ryan and produced one of the worst defenses in NFL history.  This strikes me as something way better suited to college than the pros, but if that's the way they're going, here's hoping they can make it work.

 

FYI: I know Rhule also talked some about the Draft but most of that just sounded like standard pre-draft coachspeak to me. Not sure there's much to be gained from it.

[Mr. Scot]

9 minutes ago, TheMaulClaw said:

That definitely could be the case. Also it's fairly obviously Tepper wasnt sold on Cam otherwise he wouldnt have been released. Iim just saying that it's likely that even though they werent sold on Cam there was no way they could actually evaluate him because of the Virus.

To be perfectly honest, I think that's more of a problem for other teams than us. Worth noting that prior to his release, he had been working out at team facilities, so they'd have had plenty of time to take a look at him.

And as far as evaluations, other teams may not be able to give him a physical, but we did. He passed it.

Twenty four hours later, he was gone.