Outside of a QB who do you have and why?

[Varking]

18 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

Right but your forgetting there is a trade off, its not like you build a defense in a vacuum. You have to balance building the defense with the offence and special teams. 

 

I guess I dont understand how to define 'wasting' a player that accrued all the accolades he did.  

But we didn’t build an offense or a special teams either. We just let talented players walk away to other teams while retaining Cam and Luke. Just because a player wins awards doesn’t mean the organization is doing everything in their power to maximize and protect a guy like Cam or Luke. 
 

Joe Thomas was an amazing LT but they absolutely wasted his talents in Cleveland. He won a bunch of awards so he was recognized as a great player but he was wasted protecting Manziel, Weeden, ETC. bad organization who from top to bottom couldn’t capitalize on having an elite LT which is hard to find. 

[raleigh-panther]

On 11/23/2020 at 9:09 PM, DaveThePanther2008 said:

Not arguing the Pitts pick but is he a solution in this offense?  Brady doesn't seem to utilize a TE much.  I didn't see LSU last year so someone needs to tell me he utilized the TE.  Is it because none of our TE are good enough or Brady doesn't use them or both. Pitts could be the greatest TE ever and it won't matter if we don't utilize him.

If I’m not mistaken Brady made Randy Moss’s son (Thaddeus) a star there as TE.  Didn’t translate to NFL 

[CanadianCat]

50 minutes ago, Varking said:

But we didn’t build an offense or a special teams either. We just let talented players walk away to other teams while retaining Cam and Luke. Just because a player wins awards doesn’t mean the organization is doing everything in their power to maximize and protect a guy like Cam or Luke. 
 

Joe Thomas was an amazing LT but they absolutely wasted his talents in Cleveland. He won a bunch of awards so he was recognized as a great player but he was wasted protecting Manziel, Weeden, ETC. bad organization who from top to bottom couldn’t capitalize on having an elite LT which is hard to find. 

But thats not true either. We might not have struck gold on FA or the draft but the front office continued to build the team.

Its like saying that the only way to say you didnt 'waste' a players career is by having a team full of super stars and need to win the super bowl. 

 

I get that your saying he could have been better if he had more help and better players around him but team building is a balancing act so if you add to one spot you take from another. How could Luke have had a better career?

[Varking]

59 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

But thats not true either. We might not have struck gold on FA or the draft but the front office continued to build the team.

Its like saying that the only way to say you didnt 'waste' a players career is by having a team full of super stars and need to win the super bowl. 

 

I get that your saying he could have been better if he had more help and better players around him but team building is a balancing act so if you add to one spot you take from another. How could Luke have had a better career?

You’re the only one setting bar of having stars around you or winning a super bowl. You say we built a team. Who did we build? We had a stretch of like three years or four years recently where we had decent safety play and then we would replace the guy the next year with a new safety. We let players like Josh Norman and James Bradberry go. We made the wrong call on Star vs Short. We had Addison and what at DE? After Hardy left there wasn’t much. 
 

Special teams? We had Gano, Butker and Slye as our kickers recently. The best of the three was on our practice squad for cheap and we let him get away. Our return game has been awful for years. 
 

Offense? We let Ginn go when we had a clear connection with Cam. We drafted nothing of noteworthy talent behind Greg. We drafted no talent behind Cam at RB. We chose to split carries with CMC and JStew when Stew didn’t have it. We drafted and got rid of players like Benjamin and Finch. We brought it questionable lineman with injury histories to protect our QB.

 

Maybe if Luke didn’t have to do so damn much to cover up others being out of place or making poor reads he wouldn’t have had to make so many hard tackles which lead to scary injuries that made him want to retire early. How could have Luke’s career have been better? It could have been longer if we had solid talent around him for extended periods. Instead we went with the “Luke K and bubble gum”. Kind of like Cam and the offense. We only started getting him real weapons when he was at the end of his time with us. For too long we tried to rely on Superman on offense to fix it all and Captain America on defense. It wears them down and shortens careers. 

[OldhamA]

3 hours ago, CanadianCat said:

How can you say Rivera wasted it?! I see zero logic in that. 

 

Guys just cause you dont win a super bowl doesnt mean you have wasted a player!

Three winning seasons in nine years. No back-to-back winning seasons. 

All that with potentially two generational players in Kuechly and Newton and a plethora of excellent players supporting them.

He's a poor HC and I'll never be convinced otherwise. 

[CanadianCat]

7 minutes ago, Varking said:

You’re the only one setting bar of having stars around you or winning a super bowl. You say we built a team. Who did we build? We had a stretch of like three years or four years recently where we had decent safety play and then we would replace the guy the next year with a new safety. We let players like Josh Norman and James Bradberry go. We made the wrong call on Star vs Short. We had Addison and what at DE? After Hardy left there wasn’t much. 
 

Special teams? We had Gano, Butker and Slye as our kickers recently. The best of the three was on our practice squad for cheap and we let him get away. Our return game has been awful for years. 
 

Offense? We let Ginn go when we had a clear connection with Cam. We drafted nothing of noteworthy talent behind Greg. We drafted no talent behind Cam at RB. We chose to split carries with CMC and JStew when Stew didn’t have it. We drafted and got rid of players like Benjamin and Finch. We brought it questionable lineman with injury histories to protect our QB.

 

Maybe if Luke didn’t have to do so damn much to cover up others being out of place or making poor reads he wouldn’t have had to make so many hard tackles which lead to scary injuries that made him want to retire early. How could have Luke’s career have been better? It could have been longer if we had solid talent around him for extended periods. Instead we went with the “Luke K and bubble gum”. Kind of like Cam and the offense. We only started getting him real weapons when he was at the end of his time with us. For too long we tried to rely on Superman on offense to fix it all and Captain America on defense. It wears them down and shortens careers. 

I dont get your reasoning. The point you were making was that the Panthers wasted Lukes career. Yet this team with RR as the coach was a defense focused team, and usually to the detriment of the offence. 

Your point your making above is that the players we drafted and brought in either didnt become superstars or became so good we couldn't afford them. 

Outside of KB the following 2 drafts were 1st round defensive players. So what your saying about Luke doesn't make any sense. 

[CanadianCat]

10 minutes ago, OldhamA said:

Three winning seasons in nine years. No back-to-back winning seasons. 

All that with potentially two generational players in Kuechly and Newton and a plethora of excellent players supporting them.

He's a poor HC and I'll never be convinced otherwise. 

Dude.. the guy was the best coach in the NFL 2 times with his stint with us. Does that mean he is the best coach ever? No but in those 2 years he was THE BEST COACH in the NFL. 

His time ran out in Carolina and it was time to move on but you cannot say he was a bad coach. If you do you are being far to bias. 

[Varking]

6 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

I dont get your reasoning. The point you were making was that the Panthers wasted Lukes career. Yet this team with RR as the coach was a defense focused team, and usually to the detriment of the offence. 

Your point your making above is that the players we drafted and brought in either didnt become superstars or became so good we couldn't afford them. 

Outside of KB the following 2 drafts were 1st round defensive players. So what your saying about Luke doesn't make any sense. 

Yeah that’s not what I wrote. As you wrote, I think, three times now, there seems to be a lot you aren’t getting. And at this point it’s becoming difficult to show you how somebody can waste a generational talent. 

[Varking]

2 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

Dude.. the guy was the best coach in the NFL 2 times with his stint with us. Does that mean he is the best coach ever? No but in those 2 years he was THE BEST COACH in the NFL. 

His time ran out in Carolina and it was time to move on but you cannot say he was a bad coach. If you do you are being far to bias. 

You are putting far too much stock into awards that don’t really many anything. Ron River was a poor developer of talent and a below average coach. That’s why we never had back to back winning seasons. That’s why we were wildly inconsistent. We had one magical run with him and it lead us to the Super Bowl. He was a great guy but he was not a good or great coach. 

[CanadianCat]

24 minutes ago, Varking said:

Yeah that’s not what I wrote. As you wrote, I think, three times now, there seems to be a lot you aren’t getting. And at this point it’s becoming difficult to show you how somebody can waste a generational talent. 

You're right, I still dont get it. I dont understand how you think Luke's career was wasted. You keep complaining about not giving him enough support yet we constantly drafted defensive players.

I think your comparing the team success to Luke's personal career. You can have good players on bad teams and I would not consider that wasting their career. 

[CanadianCat]

25 minutes ago, Varking said:

You are putting far too much stock into awards that don’t really many anything. Ron River was a poor developer of talent and a below average coach. That’s why we never had back to back winning seasons. That’s why we were wildly inconsistent. We had one magical run with him and it lead us to the Super Bowl. He was a great guy but he was not a good or great coach. 

I was using those awards mostly as an example to show that he had some excellent years and in those years he was 'among' the best coaches in the league. 

Everyone seems to be all or nothing on EVERYHTING... you're either a great coach forever and always or you never were. But the real answer is a mix of both. 

[Varking]

4 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

You're right, I still dont get it. I dont understand how you think Luke's career was wasted. You keep complaining about not giving him enough support yet we constantly drafted defensive players.

I think your comparing the team success to Luke's personal career. You can have good players on bad teams and I would not consider that wasting their career. 

I know. You keep repeating you don’t understand. Just because you draft a defensive player doesn’t mean it was a good pick. Quality over quantity. And when we found quality players we let them walk away. We had choices to make on players and we made the wrong calls on them. We should have won more with Luke. This isn’t just an above average player, or a good player, he was elite. And when you don’t win with elite players you are wasting them. Part of playing football, and it seems like this is hard for you to grasp, but part of playing football is playing as a team. And your numbers mean more when they contribute to winning. It’s like thinking Blake Bortles was great for a two year stretch because he put up a lot of garbage time stats. Because you seem to only care about numbers. No football player likes to lose. And when you have Cam and Luke both in their primes we should have at least been able to have a few winning seasons in a row. Luke deserves better. He was wasted by this coaching staff. 

[Varking]

9 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

I was using those awards mostly as an example to show that he had some excellent years and in those years he was 'among' the best coaches in the league. 

Everyone seems to be all or nothing on EVERYHTING... you're either a great coach forever and always or you never were. But the real answer is a mix of both. 

The real answer is he had more losing seasons than winning. He only produced a top defense three times in his nine years here despite being a defensive minded coach and having one of the best to ever play MLB in Luke. He had one excellent year.