The State of the Panthers

[Evil Hurney]

26 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Great idea...but how?

"Well, let's start with getting a deep throat receiver."

 What kind of offense are you proposing here?

J/K

Edited October 9, 2023 by Evil Hurney

[Hoenheim]

I laughed at the "deep throat " WR part lol

[Newtcase]

19 minutes ago, Swirly said:

To be honest, I'm not worried about Bryce yet. He's a rookie and there are going to be growing pains. I just keep reminding myself that Peyton Manning had a pretty bad rookie year as well.

This is so tiring.

Jimmy Clausen was terrible his rookie year and stayed terrible.  Does that have anything to do with Bryce?  NO and neither does Peyton Manning or anyone else.

Also, for the record (or records) Peyton Manning set rookie records for completions, yards, touchdowns and yes interceptions.  I don't think anyone with the full picture would say setting every significant rookie record ever was a pretty bad year.  

Edited October 9, 2023 by Newtcase

[Cat Fanboy]

Great write up - I appreciate the time you took.

 

For myself - I don't understand why everyone seems to have zero patience....or maybe they just have really illogical expectations.  We should have gotten stomped Sunday and we did...and Miami should stomp us well.

So the run game sucks because defense loads the box. They blow up the expected screen pass we use to block that so all we have left is to fire downfield and Chark isn't getting it done.

MAKE the screen passes work.....my only issue with Reich is he doesn't seem to be coaching the players on not moving until ball is snapped and not giving Bryce enough time to look at the defense...friggin every play that counter is in red.

Best thing that seemed to happen was Sanders fumble.....Shenault is a playmaker.

[Swirly]

2 minutes ago, Castavar said:

I am so fuggin tired of everybody saying this. Peyton did not have a bad rookie year. Yes, he threw a lot of ints, but he also set the NFL rookie records for completions (326), attempts (575), passing yards (3,739) and touchdown passes (26). Stop with this narrative.

Man it sounds like you are having a rough day. It kind of reminds me of the rough year Peyton Manning had in his first season of the NFL.

[Evil Hurney]

33 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

So here's my take on what to do...

First off, ride out this season without any changes, not even to lower level assistants. 

Heck, who knows what the season will look like in December? If you assume it'll still look the same as right now, may very well be wrong. The full story isn't told yet, and making decisions before it is would be premature.

Nice writeup.

And I agree 100%. Patience is important here.

[Jay Roosevelt]

I agree with some of this, but at the same time it does come off as a little out of touch.

The only thing that makes me have ANY doubt that Fitterer should be gone is the fact that I'm not sure how many of his mistakes were truly his. How many were forced - or "suggested" - to him by Rhule and/or Tepper?

One thing I will put on him, however, is his complete failure to address our lack of ANY OL DEPTH during the offseason. We knew from the start that Corbett would be out for an extended period to start the year and already had little to no depth and the best he can do is draft one guard in the 4th round?

I can live with a GM who makes mistakes here and there; that's going to happen. What I cannot STAND is a GM that allows gaping holes to exist on the roster when we have the means to at least attempt to fill them.

Having said that, I do agree that Kevin Colbert in a team President role would be a great hire.

[Ornias]

If you are setup as a road grading run attack why change that to force your own playstyle? If you want to run a WCO, which would be Bryce's best shot of being good, then you have to draft those sort of players. Forcing Bryce to run your offense when no other pieces are in place is beyond stupid. 

[Panthercougar68]

Thanks Scot!

It’s gonna be rough but again, come back in December and see where we are at, that will be the telling part of this teams trajectory.

I think it was Boomer today that said on the radio that you can’t assume anything in the NFL. 

[SazmoRanger]

There’s no logical reasoning on keeping Fitterer past this season. The only thing positive I can say about him is he’s extremely professional in the way he acts and talks. 
 

This team has a problem with a lack of talent and the best way to remedy that is building through the draft. Fitterer hasn’t drafted one single difference maker in the draft his entire time here. Not a single one. This is why we lack star talent and have NO depth. 
 

On top of that he’s made all the wrong decisions with player personnel and trades. ALL of hid trades have been horrible. 
 

You have to stop the bleeding and if Fitterer isn’t the knife, he’s the hand holding it. He’s got to go. 

[Jon Snow]

Tepper needs to kiss Kevin Colberts ass and do whatever he wants to get him in here asap. He should have done that as soon as Kevin was available. 

[LinvilleGorge]

4 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

Tepper needs to kiss Kevin Colberts ass and do whatever he wants to get him in here asap. He should have done that as soon as Kevin was available. 

Seriously. I've been saying it for awhile. If I was Tepper, the phone call would go something along the lines of...

"Listen, I admit it. I thought this was going to be easy. I thought I was going to come into the NFL with a new way of thinking and analysis and just dominate the league. But it hasn't been easy and I have fuged everything up and the harder I try the worse I fug things up. I know you're retired and I'm not asking you to be the GM or really any long-term role. What I'm asking of you and is to come in on a consultant basis and build me a football organization that will consistently field a team that I can be proud of. I swear to god I'll butt out and leave them alone. So here it is, blank check (within reason) to build the football organization of your dreams and then ride away into the sunset or hang around in a consultant role if you choose. I just desperately need help cleaning up the mess I've made."

[beo]

Oh, ew. Are we actually predominantly running a zone blocking scheme now? I only saw this pop up recently and I've only really paid attention to the first 2 games of the year, and in doing so I was not really looking at the OL. But if we are it'd explain a lot of our struggles up front and also the lack of pulls, traps and other blocks of that nature. We definitely don't have ideal personnel for it IMO, as you said most of our linemen are mauler types who aren't exactly known for their ability to get out in space and up to the second level. It could work pretty well for Brady maybe but even guys like Ickey I don't think it's a good fit honestly as he's not particularly agile. Comes off as a desperate attempt at chasing trends when we had a really good thing going last year.

Sanders also has atrocious vision which further clashes with this, when you're running zone you need to be able to find cutback lanes and he simply just isn't very good at that to put it nicely. We really need to just start Chubba if this is the case; we're looking for a back that can find and hit holes, that's his forte. But they definitely need to reconsider really the entire approach to the run game over the bye if they want to find any real success on the ground, because the playcalls are also extremely predictable (take a shot every time you see inside zone out of the shotgun) and when you mix that with playing the line outside of their strengths you are usually met with really lackluster results. This team is just so strangely constructed. 

[chknwing]

its the coaches responsibility to put players in a position to make a play.  they are not even remotely being used properly.  Sanders is not a north south power runner. stop running him up the middle.  There is no full back to block for sanders.  Chubba and Sanders should be split backs.  Make the defense think about more than one rb.  Shenault needs the bal more.  Alot more.  The TE's need to run deeper routes to pull coverage away from the line of scrimmage.  It just stays so congested there which makes it easier for the defense to make plays.  I think the wr's are quick enough, they are just trying to do to much to shake defenders early on in the route instead of just running the route.  And for the love of God you have to take deep shots to keep the defense from crowding the line of scrimmage.