Team is in "Win Now" mode

[Khyber53]

The thing about the Gilmore and Henderson deals is that we've gotten partial seasons and partial games for those draft picks. Both came with a certain poison pill, too -- Gilmore won't be cheap to keep next year (and he has been good enough to make an effort to do so) and with Henderson there's always a good chance he will just hang it up and move on from football (he doesn't seem to love the game).

There's hidden costs to all of these trades. Fitterer always seems to think we can cover those costs. Life doesn't always work out that way.

[Waldo]

8 minutes ago, Anybodyhome said:

The Panthers have been doing that since the 2017 season ended..... 7-9, 5-11, 5-11, 5-7...

We have had years worse than those.

If we lose out and bring Rhule & Sam back there is zero indication it couldn't get worse, especially with cap limitations combined with draft option limitations. 

[Mr. Scot]

1 hour ago, thefuzz said:

This team has historically been in "win now mode" although the rosters were rarely in "win now" shape.

That pretty much sums up the history of this team in a single sentence.

[BrianS]

17 minutes ago, Waldo said:

The draft was mostly wrong and showed they don't understand value or need.

 

See, I think this is faulty thinking.

The problem with our draft wasn't our draft, it was what followed.

We drafted Jaycee Horn.  He looked great and got hurt.  Should we have drafted Fields or Slater?  Maybe.  But I don't have a problem taking Horn.  Our secondary was awful last year.

We drafted Terrace Marshall.  This wasn't a problem at all.  The problem was we followed that up by re-signing Robby Anderson.  That's the mistake, not the pick.

We drafted Brady Christiansen.  We needed a tackle.  He was there.  On a team with a weak Oline, the problem is we aren't giving him playing time to develop.  That's not a draft problem, it's a coaching problem.

We drafted Tommy Tremble.  This was a great pick.  He's got a chance to be a long term starter for us.

Our first three rounds were fine.

Keith Taylor and Chuba Hubbard have looked ok for us given where we got them.

I don't think our draft was the problem.  It's how we followed the draft that was a problem.

[Waldo]

4 minutes ago, BrianS said:

See, I think this is faulty thinking.

The problem with our draft wasn't our draft, it was what followed.

We drafted Jaycee Horn.  He looked great and got hurt.  Should we have drafted Fields or Slater?  Maybe.  But I don't have a problem taking Horn.  Our secondary was awful last year.

We drafted Terrace Marshall.  This wasn't a problem at all.  The problem was we followed that up by re-signing Robby Anderson.  That's the mistake, not the pick.

We drafted Brady Christiansen.  We needed a tackle.  He was there.  On a team with a weak Oline, the problem is we aren't giving him playing time to develop.  That's not a draft problem, it's a coaching problem.

We drafted Tommy Tremble.  This was a great pick.  He's got a chance to be a long term starter for us.

Our first three rounds were fine.

Keith Taylor and Chuba Hubbard have looked ok for us given where we got them.

I don't think our draft was the problem.  It's how we followed the draft that was a problem.

Nope.

These dummies thought 2 injury prone and mediocre olineman fixed their line and waiting till the 25 year old not good enough to start on this line I  the 3rd.

That's awful. That unit was a bigger need than CB, even with out horn and the rest of the traded ones. We had spent on nothing but D players the years before. If we would have drafted 4 olinemen it wouldn't have been an overreaction.

The failure was in evaluation and they went after their guys leaving the team crippled by that poor evaluation.

[Proudiddy]

2 hours ago, Castavar said:

Gilmore wasn't a bad trade at all. We gave up what, a 2023 6th rounder or something like that? That's literally nothing. Now the Darnold trade was just dumb from the start when we could have just taken a chance on Minshew (who was better than Darnold on an even worse team) for 3 draft picks less and significantly less money. It was him or Mitchell Trubisky for me.

I will wait to judge that Henderson trade until next year, because that could still end up being a good trade. But that Darnold trade set us back. We now have to rebuild or rebuild.

Agreed and I will say, fwiw, Henderson finished last game amongst highest rated defenders and was graded over 90.  I also expect both he and Gilmore will be getting a lot more snaps with Donte being IR'd now.

[TLGPanthersFan]

37 minutes ago, Waldo said:

We have had years worse than those.

If we lose out and bring Rhule & Sam back there is zero indication it couldn't get worse, especially with cap limitations combined with draft option limitations. 

If Sam starts next year it will get worse. 

[Untouchable]

We sort of hedged our bets on the 3 trade moves:

Gilmore for a 6th when he will return a 5th if he walks is just good business.

The 3rd for Henderson could mostly return (most likely a 4th) a year later if DJax walks instead of Gilmore.

For Darnold, we got 6th back with Teddy, the 4th from the Texans in the last draft.  Only the 2nd is missing and they could decide to return it but sliding back in the first because of a weak draft class at the top.

The handcuff right now is mainly the picking up the 5th year option with Darnold.  That has a chance to costs draft picks too if it needs to be off the books.

 

At this point the pick has to be OL and we should probably use a day 2 pick there too.  We also need to be using these last several weeks to figure out what we have in the rookies.

[BrianS]

20 minutes ago, Untouchable said:

The handcuff right now is mainly the picking up the 5th year option with Darnold.  That has a chance to costs draft picks too if it needs to be off the books.

Sam is here next year.  It's inevitable.  It costs us more to get rid of him than simply keep him as a backup.  I cannot envision any scenario where Sam getting moved is a net positive for us.

[Waldo]

46 minutes ago, TLGPanthersFan said:

If Sam starts next year it will get worse. 

We broke him worse than NJ, it would be a complete disaster. I'm not sure how they avoid it at this point. That dead cap is a huge chunk we need elsewhere, like in any playable player or 2 lol