Halfway through the season, what were you most wrong about?

[SOJA]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I don't think anyone was concerned with the talent, I think some were just concerned with him being able to hold up in the run game and potential durability issues.

that's fair 

[JawnyBlaze]

I was most wrong about the defense. Thought they’d be way worse and take a lot longer to look decent. 
 

I was most right about Teddy and the impact of his signing on the future of the team. I was right about him being a decent QB that’ll help us win some games and prevent us from drafting a top QB, but will handicap us from properly utilizing our weapons and won’t allow us to go very far. I also knew Robby would be a great signing  

[JawnyBlaze]

56 minutes ago, theinstrumental said:

Offense: I thought DJ Moore could make some more progress in a better offense with a better QB throwing him the ball. Instead he's leveled off and is producing at almost exactly the same pace as last year, yardage-wise. 

Defense: I thought we'd straight up be the worst group in the NFL. The run defense was worst in the league last year and we lost Luke. The coverage group had maybe the least talent of any starting group. Lost a bunch of pass rushers. But here we are, somehow around the middle of the pack.

Moore would look a lot better if he actually had a better QB throwing him the ball. He’s getting open constantly and not getting looks. When he does get looks he’s regularly having to come back or veer off his route to catch it. The rarely occasion he gets a well thrown ball, he makes plays. 

[Eazy-E]

The offense in general. There have been some bright spots but not enough to out weigh the bad. I know we’ve been missing McCaffrey, but I really expected this group to be a 30ppg unit.

[Mr. Scot]

11 hours ago, Wolfcop said:

I thought we would suck a lot more than we do.

I think that boat is overcrowded.

A lot of us did.

[Mr. Scot]

3 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Apple? Yeah, just a waste of talent. Was worth a shot though.

That guy is a poster child for being your own worst enemy.

[Basbear]

So far I was most wrong about the defensive. Thought they would be struggling to hold teams below 40 each game.

 

@LinvilleGorge  bro- Herbert looks like the best player form this years draft. Burrow looks great too, but Herbert looks even better.... its not just a one/two game deal either. 

[Mr. Scot]

The "I wish we'd been in a position to draft Justin Herbert" boat is another one that's got a lot of passengers.

[LinvilleGorge]

16 minutes ago, Basbear said:

So far I was most wrong about the defensive. Thought they would be struggling to hold teams below 40 each game.

 

@LinvilleGorge  bro- Herbert looks like the best player form this years draft. Burrow looks great too, but Herbert looks even better.... its not just a one/two game deal either. 

Yep, Herbert looks damn good.

[TLGPanthersFan]

That the defense would be ranked higher that the offense. 
Right now we are ranked Offensively 25 in points and 20th in yards. 
Defensively we are 13 in points allowed and 14 in yards. 

[Basbear]

11 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Yep, Herbert looks damn good.

Ive seen about 3 games with him, hes a large QB like Cam big. A couple runs, he hurt the person tackling. His arm already looks top 5-ish too. It can all change, but right now if they had a re-draft clear #1. The other part is their OL has been panthers bad and he still making BIG plays. Tri Turner is joke, btw. Hes clear ROY right now too.

[Davidson Deac II]

The defense is slightly better than I thought it would be, although I sometimes get the feeling they are barely holding on.

 

The offense is not quite as good as I thought it would be.  The oline is a big problem, but the performance in clutch time has been very disappointing. 

[beo]

19 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

For me...

Offense: Robby Anderson. I questioned the signing. To me, he was just a one trick pony deep threat while we had a QB who wasn't well suited to capitalize on that. I was wrong. Robby Anderson is a damn good WR.

Defense: Phil Snow. I thought our D would be the worst in the league. Not one of the worst - THE WORST. I knew we primarily had a roster of unproven rookies and youngsters flanked by mostly vets off the trash heap. I thought Phil Snow was a guy who would get exposed at the NFL level and ultimately wouldn't work out. So far, I'm wrong about Phil Snow. Yeah, the D isn't great. Yeah, the D sucks on 3rd down. But all things considered, they're far outperforming what I expected. 

OFFENSE:

Robby Anderson, I thought he was going to be miscast in our offense because of Joe Brady's dink and dunk heavy system, under the assumption he was a deep threat one trick pony. I was obviously wrong.

I was also one of the people who wanted to keep Cam around for the last year of his contract, and it seems he just won't ever be the same given how he can't really throw to the right side if some of the previous pass charts and film from the last few games are to be believed.

For coaching, I was very cautious with an all-college coaching staff coming in. These kinds of experiments are usually busts, so I am pleasantly surprised by everyone except Brady who I expected to do well at the next level, I feel his offense translates well to it. Brady hasn't let me down; I think that he's part of the reason our defense is doing well. In the games we won, much of it was done by keeping the opposing offense off the field. Prior to last week, we were 8th in time of possession and in 2 out of 3 of our wins we controlled the ball for 33 minutes or more. The only one in which we didn't was the Chargers game, but given that we were playing a rookie in his first start I think Rhule and Snow were ok with keeping the Defense on the field. I am very pleased with our coaching staff, it looks to be one of the best young staffs in football and I am excited for the future. No more of that square peg into a round hole nonsense we saw with Rivera and Shula.

I did expect to see Samuel show out some this year, and he has, kind of.

DEFENSE:

As for defense, my only bad take was wanting Simmons over Brown. I'm not ready to definitively say Brown was the better pick just yet; it was known going into the process Simmons was very raw and would take some time in contrast to Brown who was NFL ready and polished coming out. I figured a rawer prospect would've been a better option, higher ceiling and since I didn't think we'd be competitive in very many games this year regardless of which one we selected.  But, taking Brown and then Chinn later on connected the dots as to why we picked Brown over Simmons for me and since we got Chinn later on I was more pleased than I would've been with our draft had we taken Simmons in hindsight. No way we take Simmons and Chinn.  Phil Snow has been a pleasant surprise, although I wouldn't say I was too down on him more "well okay, let's see how he does."

I expected Burns to have a breakout campaign this year, and he has even though the impacts aren't quite showing on the stats sheet unless you take a gander at advanced stats. 18 QB pressures in 8 games. PFR loves him, great win rates against the pass and run. Just a great player and our next defensive superstar. I also wanted Bradberry over Shaq, although I didn't particularly want to pay Bradberry as much as he was asking for, we really had nothing at CB and it is showing.

Personally, i've been pleasantly surprised overall. I thought we would go 4-12, seems we're on track to outperforming that. Never expected to have 3 wins so soon, let alone ripping them off in rapid succession like we did. I'm not ready to say we're done being a competitive team given the circumstances of last week, a young staff's first Thursday night short week game against a division rival on a sloppy, rainy field. All in all, outside of the Falcons loss, we've lost in relatively close games to much more talented teams than us, and been scrappy in all of them.

 

[Mr. Scot]

Did anybody have high hopes for Tahir Whitehead?

If you did, you're probably very disappointed right now.