Good insight into the Panthers trade for Corral

[Jaxel]

https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/05/02/nfl-draft-howie-roseman-eagles-daily-cover

 

Breer touches on our draft plan. Very interesting, and shocking to everyone, shows that Rhule played a big part in the patience game as well.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Jaxel

[Luciu5]

Great read. Would really like to know who they would have picked in the late 2nd. I'm glad we got Corral. I think Willis is overhyped and has too many question marks on film. I don't know enough about Ridder other than his accuracy stinks. I would have been happy with Howell, but seeing how much further he fell makes me glad we didn't take him in the 3rd.

[poundaway]

Quote

And, stunned again by how guys at a certain position fell, the Panthers got aggressive and started making calls—very comfortable with the idea of taking either Ole Miss’s Matt Corral or North Carolina’s Sam Howell.

So Howell was a possibility.

[poundaway]

Quote

“We had one of the most honest, deep conversations; he opened up to us,” said Fitterer. “And he was very truthful, and you could feel the change in him and the realization of what he wants to accomplish in life and in football. And when he got up and walked out, Mr. Tepper and I looked at each other and we’re like, ‘This guy’s been through things, and he’s better off for what he’s gone through. He’s learned from it. He’s grown.’

 

[Tbe]

5 minutes ago, poundaway said:

So Howell was a possibility.

Sounds like they just liked Coral as a person a bit better. 

[Tbe]

Interesting how he met with Rhule 1-on-1, and THEN had his key meeting with Fits and Tepper.

 

[Mr. Scot]

Breer probably writes more about the Panthers than a lot of other national reporters do.

[trueblade]

Quote

And really, it’s an acknowledgment, too, that figuring out how to build in the NFL doesn’t have an endpoint, where you gradually come upon answers, and eventually get to the point where you have all of them. It’s a moving target that every GM and coach is shooting at.

 

[KatsAzz]

Hmmm!!! Seems Tepper had a big say in what the Panthers would do when it came time for the # 6 NFL Draft Pick.

( “It really came down to, What’s the right football decision? Let’s not push need. Let’s not be desperate. Let’s make the right football decision for our team,” Fitterer said Sunday morning. “And that was a conversation that was really guided by Mr. Tepper at the time, and Matt and I worked through it with him, and we had all these scenarios mapped out that said, Hey, let’s take the tackle. If the quarterbacks fall, we can always trade up.”)

[cookinbrak]

That was a great read. The polar opposite of trading picks to move up for Greg Little and Will Grier.

[AU-panther]

So Tepper is the one looking making sure that the team doesn't do anything desperate, which is so much different than the narrative that a lot of people around here want to create.

Also, he seems to be part of the decision process, but at the same time he lets his people do their jobs.  He seems to be more concerned in making sure the process is well thought out.

 

[WOW!!]

11 minutes ago, AU-panther said:

So Tepper is the one looking making sure that the team doesn't do anything desperate, which is so much different than the narrative that a lot of people around here want to create.

Also, he seems to be part of the decision process, but at the same time he lets his people do their jobs.  He seems to be more concerned in making sure the process is well thought out.

 

Or the narratives was correct and he got humbled and learned and changed for the better..

He did say he was impatient and idiot..

[CRA]

14 minutes ago, AU-panther said:

So Tepper is the one looking making sure that the team doesn't do anything desperate, which is so much different than the narrative that a lot of people around here want to create.

Also, he seems to be part of the decision process, but at the same time he lets his people do their jobs.  He seems to be more concerned in making sure the process is well thought out.

 

I think the Mayfield thing was probably Tepper just learning that his impatience has caused him to make a several bad deals.  Getting a rep for it.  So he actually didn't get ripped off for once.  But it still IMO is a sign of desperation that they were going for Baker.  Never sounded like either sided really wanted to be together to begin with but Carolina was still largely trying to make it happen because we keep doing the same thing on repeat. 

Browns probably were trying to rip off a desperate team. Why wouldn't you based on what you have seen from this front office.   Tepper finally didn't take the horrible deal. 

if the new narrative is that Tepper makes sure all things are well thought out....that's a tough sell based on Teppers actions as owner.  From Sam to RH and everything inbetween IMO. 

[Mr. Scot]

Here's the full text of Breer's Panthers analysis:

PATIENT PANTHERS EVENTUALLY GET THEIR QB

It was two days before the draft, and after a couple of weeks of meetings where Panthers coach Matt Rhule, GM Scott Fitterer, owner David Tepper, assistant GM Dan Morgan, VP of player personnel Pat Stewart and college scouting director Cole Spencer had agonized not over which player to home in on with the sixth pick—but which position to focus on.

For most of that time, Tepper had been in on these meetings over the phone. And with decision time coming, he’d come to Charlotte, huddled in a film room with the group to make final what they’d discussed. The owner peppered his football people with probing questions, challenging them to make the smart, most-well-thought-out decision possible, and, in the end, it kept coming back to who the best players were.

“It really came down to, What’s the right football decision? Let’s not push need. Let’s not be desperate. Let’s make the right football decision for our team,” Fitterer said Sunday morning. “And that was a conversation that was really guided by Mr. Tepper at the time, and Matt and I worked through it with him, and we had all these scenarios mapped out that said, Hey, let’s take the tackle. If the quarterbacks fall, we can always trade up.”

At the time, they didn’t know that four of the presumed top five quarterbacks would tumble all the way through the first and second rounds and the top of the third round.

But it sure helped that they did. And it put the Panthers in position to address both needs.

As that meeting wrapped Tuesday, three scenarios were set for the sixth pick.

1) Like many teams, the Panthers had Mississippi State’s Charles Cross, NC State’s Ekwonu and Alabama’s Neal as the draft’s top three tackles, with two sitting a notch above the other one. And the plan was that if one of those two fell to Carolina at No. 6, there’d be no messing around. They’d sit there and take him.

2) If the third tackle was there and the other two were gone, the Panthers were comfortable taking him. But in that scenario, they’d also have considered trading down.

3) If all three tackles were gone, they’d have weighed taking a quarterback or trading the pick. And if they didn’t take a quarterback there, they’d have looked to deal up for one Friday.

From there came the surprise—shock even—that all three tackles would be available for Carolina at six, and the Panthers would have their pick of them, choosing to keep the Charlotte area native Ekwonu home. That stroke of luck wound up making Step 1 of the plan the easiest part, with Ekwonu checking every box imaginable, with unimpeachable character, toughness and versatility to go with a rare athletic skill set for a lineman.

Then, it was time to get the quarterback, and, had the financial part of the equation set up a little differently, maybe the Panthers would’ve wound up with a veteran instead of a rookie.

But as it was, the Panthers were going to try to get back into Day 2, after trading their second- and third-round picks in deals for Sam Darnold and C.J. Henderson, and they were going to do so within some guardrails they’d set up for themselves. The big one was this: They were not going to part with a future first-rounder and really didn’t want to deal off a future second-rounder either.

“You can’t keep borrowing from the future,” Fitterer said. “It was like, we need to be smart about this and be disciplined about it.”

Which was what guided them midway through the night, when they had a deal worked out to acquire a late-second-round pick, with every quarterback but Kenny Pickett still on the board. Inside the war room, Fitterer leaned over to Rhule, sitting to the GM’s left.

“I had the card in my hand, and he looks at me and says, What do you want to do?” Fitterer said. “And we both just kind of took a moment, and we looked at the board, and we decided the right thing to do was to be patient. Let’s not overpay. Let’s be smart about this. Let’s not dig ourselves in a hole for next year. Let’s inch back on trading with these quarterbacks.”

At that point, he, Rhule and the group resolved to wait a little longer and, since they had enough conviction on a couple of the guys left, take another look when another quarterback came off the board.

It didn’t happen for a while. But eventually, 10 picks into the third round, the Falcons pulled Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder off the board. Twelve picks after that, the Titans drafted Liberty’s Malik Willis. And, stunned again by how guys at a certain position fell, the Panthers got aggressive and started making calls—very comfortable with the idea of taking either Ole Miss’s Matt Corral or North Carolina’s Sam Howell.

In New England they found a willing partner who’d work within the parameters Carolina set for itself. Which meant the Panthers had to give a little, too, sending the Patriots their 2023 third-round pick to essentially move their fourth-round pick into the third round (from 137 to 94). From there, Fitterer sent in the card, choosing Corral over Howell, with Corral’s physical ability, plus a meeting he had in that same film room to address a host of off-field questions, giving him the slight edge over another local product.

The meeting, for what it’s worth, came after the team had already met with Corral at his pro day and the combine, and followed a group meeting with offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo and QB coach Sean Ryan, and a one-on-one with Rhule.

“We had one of the most honest, deep conversations; he opened up to us,” said Fitterer. “And he was very truthful, and you could feel the change in him and the realization of what he wants to accomplish in life and in football. And when he got up and walked out, Mr. Tepper and I looked at each other and we’re like, ‘This guy’s been through things, and he’s better off for what he’s gone through. He’s learned from it. He’s grown.’

“And at that point, I think that’s the moment we felt comfortable.”

So now Ekwonu’s a Panther, and Corral is, too, and the team’s first- and second-round picks for next year are intact. Carolina’s first pick will likely start at left tackle, and its second pick will compete with Darnold to be the team’s starting quarterback. The Panthers will still kick around the idea of adding a vet like Jimmy Garoppolo, Baker Mayfield or Nick Foles to the mix. But they’re no longer in a desperate spot to do something.

Which is really the key to all of this. They made a sound football call at No. 6. They have flexibility at quarterback. And that leaves them better positioned than they were Thursday morning.