Matt Rhule interview

[LinvilleGorge]

I think our best chance of long-term success very well might be short-term colossal failure.

[Bama Panther]

3 hours ago, Mr Mojo Risin said:

So the truth finally comes out, FINALLY one of these cowards had the balls to say they straight up CHOSE Teddy fuging Bridgewater over Cam Newton. Glad to hear one of them finally admit it.

I CANNOT wait to watch Teddy sh*t the bed next year, if there even is an NFL season

Not that there is a test for fandom, but one does not ordinarily “wait” for (see anticipate, hope for, etc) their team’s QB to sh*t the bed. What a strange way to be a “fan.”

[top dawg]

4 hours ago, RASTAN66 said:

It is perfectly clear that Cam is healthy as a horse and neither the foot nor shoulder were the reason for moving on from him.

At some point all will come to this realization.

There may be some validity to what you're saying, but most people just don't want to contemplate it. I always knew that with a new owner and coach that they ultimately may not want Cam based upon his weaknesses as a purely pocket QB. 

[jfra78]

28 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

One potential downside is that the rest of the division knows it well and we don't have their talent level.

I very much doubt it will just be a copy of the Saints offense

[Mr. Scot]

3 minutes ago, top dawg said:

There may be some validity to what you're saying, but most people just don't want to contemplate it. I always knew that with a new owner and coach that they ultimately may not want Cam based upon his weaknesses as a purely pocket QB. 

I wouldn't claim to know the specifics of why, but I have come to believe that all of the "if healthy" talk was basically meaningless.

In my opinion, Tepper was ultimately going to move on from Newton no matter what. The injuries might have hastened it, but it's also possible it was going to happen this offseason anyway, next offseason at the latest.

And yes, as hard as it may be to wrap your head around, that means the man made a conscious decision to part ways with Cam Newton but hang on to Marty Hurney.

[trueblade]

2 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

The crucial point you left out... won five games with a great team surrounding him. Payton really pared down that playbook with Bridgewater out there and leaned on his D. We're not going to have that luxury.

The Seattle game in particular was won by their Defense and Special Teams.

[Mr. Scot]

8 minutes ago, trueblade said:

The Seattle game in particular was won by their Defense and Special Teams.

To be fair, couldn't we say the same thing of a lot of games we've won over the last several years?

The Panthers have forever been known as a defensive team. That's how every head coach we've had wanted it.

[top dawg]

18 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

I wouldn't claim to know the specifics of why, but I have come to believe that all of the "if healthy" talk was basically meaningless.

In my opinion, Tepper was ultimately going to move on from Newton no matter what. The injuries might have hastened it, but it's also possible it was going to happen this offseason anyway, next offseason at the latest.

And yes, as hard as it may be to wrap your head around, that means the man made a conscious decision to part ways with Cam Newton but hang on to Marty Hurney.

Yeah, the Marty Hurney thing is an aside to think about (for those given into that sort of thing), but the story here is Bridgewater over Cam. That's plenty enough for many to wrap their head around. 

For me, I thought Cam was a great humanitarian and a good QB, but I never thought he was the best QB as much as I thought he was a great athlete. I think that he got a raw deal with a supporting cast at times, and then injuries upended his growth, but I never thought he was a great decision maker or touch-passer, and that he himself left too much meat on the bone at different times in his career due to it. 

As for Teddy, as much as some Huddlers want to belittle him, the truth is that this will really be the first time in his veteran career that he will get a good, genuine and serious look! Sure he was good as a rookie, but that seems like aeons ago. This is his time to make his stamp! If he continues to win, then what can we say? That's the name of the game!

[Mr. Scot]

48 minutes ago, top dawg said:

Yeah, the Marty Hurney thing is an aside to think about (for those given into that sort of thing), but the story here is Bridgewater over Cam. That's plenty enough for many to wrap their head around. 

For me, I thought Cam was a great humanitarian and a good QB, but I never thought he was the best QB as much as I thought he was a great athlete. I think that he got a raw deal with a supporting cast at times, and then injuries upended his growth, but I never thought he was a great decision maker or touch-passer, and that he himself left too much meat on the bone at different times in his career due to it. 

As for Teddy, as much as some Huddlers want to belittle him, the truth is that this will really be the first time in his veteran career that he will get a good, genuine and serious look! Sure he was good as a rookie, but that seems like aeons ago. This is his time to make his stamp! If he continues to win, then what can we say? That's the name of the game!

Said it before: I know the decision ultimately lies with David Tepper, but my gut feeling is that Joe Brady had a lot more to do with that choice than people realize.

Brady is obviously the reason Bridgewater is here. And if it did ultimately come down to Bridgewater over Newton, you have to figure Brady was one of the people in on that discussion.

[JARROD]

6 hours ago, NYPantherFan said:

Rhule looks like he hasn't slept days...

Too much cheese

[TheSpecialJuan]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I think our best chance of long-term success very well might be short-term colossal failure.

What we have here is a colossal military disaster. 

- Dunkirk 

[RASTAN66]

2 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

And yes, as hard as it may be to wrap your head around, that means the man made a conscious decision to part ways with Cam Newton but hang on to Marty Hurney.

Marty is not the GM.

It may say GM on his business card, but he is not a "GM" akin to say Brandon Beane or Bill Belichick or John Lynch -- those guys are real/functioning GM's.

Since Tepper took over Hurdog's title and pay package have remained the same, but his role has changed dramatically.

Marty takes direction, gathers information, responds to feedback, sets the table, and lays out the buffet of choices...

...Tepper & Rhule then make the decisions on what gets plated up.

All who are worried about Marty screwing up should rest easy, Hurndog has no autonomous power whatsoever.

I expect this arrangement to remain in place for a good while.  At some point Tepper will identify a highly talented young person to come in and grow into a GM role but I expect it to be a very deliberate process.

Tepp, Rhule, Hurndog & Co. have a good thing going, no need to mess with it!

Rhule's Rules rule.   Teddy Time.

[kungfoodude]

I remember when Rivera talked about "instilling a culture here." 

That turned out so well.....

[Woodie]

5 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

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.

Yes, I have no doubt Brady had a lot to do with the decision.  Rhule's the type of coach that oversees, but also defers to his coordinators on the specifics.  And to be honest, Bridgewater IS a better fit for this offense than Cam.  While we may not know the specifics about how he wants to run the offense, we can see the basics of it simply based on Brady's experience with what NO and LSU ran.  And one of the foundations of both is that they are a timing and precision offense, which just happens to be Cam's greatest weakness.  While TB is probably little more than a game manager, he is very much a timing and precision QB.  So, he is clearly the better bridge QB than Cam would be...even though Cam is the better QB in general.

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.

I agree.  I expect most of the picks to be guys from bigger programs and I don't see any conversion or developmental projects.

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.

I don't see it like that at all.  Rhule is an inclusive guy, and he sees everything from a team perspective, hence the "we."  I don't think it was meant to dodge anything.  And I think the point regarding prior players was just his way of saying he didn't have enough direct experience with any of them to make a well-informed decision, so relied on the input of those that did.

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.

There obviously has been intermal discussions ablout CMC's future here, and they obviously decided that he is a huge part of the team's future.  So, I think those comments were as much for CMC's benefit as ours.  Basically, he let everyone know CMC is not going anywhere.

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.

I think you are way over thinking this.  What he is talking about is NOT what Cerrato or Ryan did.  He's not talking about drafting athletes and then finding someplace to put them, he's talking about finding highly skilled and accomplished players with a defined position that have the athletic diversity to do multiple things.  They've talked about wanting to have a defense in which the offense can't predict what they are doing based on the personnel on the field.  It's why I think they have Simmons rated over Brown.  Simmons would be drafted to play LB, but can switch to safety, nickle, pass rusher, or whatever on any given play, confusing the defense and not allowing them to know how to attack it based on personnel.  So, Simmons wouldn't be drafted with the idea that he is just a good athelete, and we'll figure out what to do with him later (which is what you saw with Cerrato), he'd be drafted with a specific plan and idea about how to use him.

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.

I haven't read past here, but I wanted to respond with my thoughts before seeing others' perspective.

My responses are in bold.