Post Mortem: Christian McCaffrey

[LinvilleGorge]

10 minutes ago, Tomcatn said:

If Rhule would have been canned at the end of last season CMC might be still with the team.

This is very true.

[thefuzz]

Nothing but the best for him.  Glad we drafted him, loved watching him play when a lot of Panthers football was just so damn bad.

Special player.

[stratocatter]

I just wish I didn’t have to look at him in an action ad on this site all season after he was gone. Like pictures of your hot ex gf cattin it up after your breakup.  Sort of. 

[kungfoodude]

7 hours ago, WUnderhill said:

I know the greats carry chips on their shoulders…but come on. He can’t possibly think anybody thought we were better off without him. One of the main reasons I wanted to trade him was because I knew we would be WORSE without him and hopefully get better draft position to build for the future. Turns out we kind of did get better without him because the whole offense couldn’t lean on him anymore, but that’s far from his fault.

It's not really our place to say what he chooses to feel or think. At the end of the day, he couldn't help us win and was the most expensive RB in the NFL. That's the business side of it. 

If he wants to use it as motivation, then good for him. He can take that perceived slight and use it to stoke the fire to build success.

[Move the Panthers to Raleigh]

9 hours ago, Tomcatn said:

If Rhule would have been canned at the end of last season CMC might be still with the team.

Yep, and we would be drafting top 2. But nooo, we had to have those victories in an obvious down year. Reich could have been set up even more if Rhule had finished 2022

[CamWhoaaCam]

9 minutes ago, Move the Panthers to Raleigh said:

Yep, and we would be drafting top 2. But nooo, we had to have those victories in an obvious down year. Reich could have been set up even more if Rhule had finished 2022

We were a Bucs win away from making the playoffs.

Lets not act like we weren't playing for the playoffs.

[toldozer]

6 minutes ago, CamWhoaaCam said:

We were a Bucs win away from making the playoffs.

Lets not act like we weren't playing for the playoffs.

You think we're a bucs win away from the playoffs if Fhule coached the whole season

[pantherj]

It's all about timing. CMC is a win now player due to his contract. You don't want to be paying CMC that kind of money when we're several seasons away from being a playoff team. Makes no sense. Just like it made no sense to extend CMC, but now we owe him over 18 million in 2023. We just have a mismanaged team. Why didn't we trade Burns 2 first round picks and a second? Mismanagement. We're a mess, but at least we're not on the hook longer term with CMC.

We're a mismanaged team that lost a 2nd and 4th round pick for Sam, AND picked up his 5th year option. CMC should be angry that we brought in Sam and our team isn't managed properly. If we had the basic bases covered we would have made the playoffs last season (we only needed 1 more win) and CMC would still be here.

Moving forward we have to hope there is some kind of plan in place to land a QB. We failed to land Watson, we passed on Fields (not saying that was a bad idea), and poop Darnold is still hanging around with hopeless Corral waiting for axe to drop. What a mess.

Edited March 2, 2023 by pantherj

[csx]

Nothing against him. He is a special talent. But I don't really miss him either.

I also doubt the top tier coaches wouldn't have been too game to come here if the franchise tanked.  That's not reality

[Day1PanthersFan]

I wanted him to get traded to a contending team , instead of spending most of his young life carrying a clueless franchise on his back and get burnt out like Barry Sanders did with the lions

I hope his rewards will match his talent one day, and if he runs for 300 yards on us in the revenge game , I won't be mad

 

[L-TownCat]

23 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Probably a good watch if you can find it.

There's likely a link to this full podcast out there but I didn't see it either of the tweets quoted.

I saw the clip where he said it, but the end of the statement was, “you know, I don’t think I’ve decompressed it all yet”

[L-TownCat]

10 hours ago, csx said:

Nothing against him. He is a special talent. But I don't really miss him either.

I also doubt the top tier coaches wouldn't have been too game to come here if the franchise tanked.  That's not reality

Same, he’s great, but no emotional attachment.  His injuries and salary tainted the connection.  (IMO)

I was more upset when Moose left as a FA.

[MickMixon'sMetaphors]

I just stumbled on this video on YouTube and was about to post it, but did a search first.  I'm a good "noob". 

Glad it was posted and it's worth the watch.  He's an impressive young man all around.

[PanthersATL]

CMC wanted to stay in Carolina forever, if i recall his words from a different interview correctly.

Fans wanted him to stay.  The NFL had him in their promo package (and how often do we see Carolina in NFL promo pieces?).

But from our play calling (at the time), he was a liability. Pretty much every play we did was "give CMC the ball, because he's our best player".  

Trading him to SF was a good move for him, season-wise. He was put into a better team, better situation.   As for us, taking CMC off the roster allowed other players to step up and add a bunch of different options to our playbook.  If we had traded CMC one or two weeks earlier (and gotten rid of Rhule earlier as well) -- our season likely would have ended with a better record overall.    

I don't think we would have done as well as we did end up this season if we had kept CMC the entire time.

Totally no hard feelings about the trade -- there really only was upside for CMC in the end.

Luke's retirement hit harder for everybody, I think, in terms of "which player leaving was a gut punch" answer.