Stroud defends Young

[MHS831]

9 hours ago, csx said:

Stroud made lesser known FAs, young  and rookie.players look great. None were high draft picks.

Initially, I wanted Stroud, but my point is the challenge of taking a small, cognitive QB like Young requires a dedication to building a stellar OL and the right weaponry.  We tried, I suppose, with Chark, Hurst, and Sanders--but they did not work out, and now everyone is blaming Young, who does deserve some of the credit.  Young has always been the golden boy and does not seem to have faced any challenges he could not overcome.  They way I understand it, even his high school was dominant, as was Alabama.  Maybe he is nothing more than a manager on a front runner, but he proved to me that he needs weapons.  I watch his college tape and then his Panthers tape and then I say, OK, what are the biggest differences between his task at QB?  At Bama, he was in the lead, he had a stud OL, and his WRs were awesome.  The running backs were stallions three deep.   And if you go back and examine every QB who busted in the NFL who was a high draft pick, they share some common obstacles.  If we want Young to succeed, this is what we have to do, and it makes no difference at this point what Stroud had.  I mean, before Stroud,  Davis Mills completed 65.5% of his passes for 3,468 yards with 18 TDs and 8 Ints in 14 games.  Watson before him was effective.  At Carolina, our QBs have struggled miserably and that was before Young arrived.  Davis Mills had better numbers that Darnold, Mayfield, and Bridgewater.  So it is only a theory because neither of us know if Young can play or not, but Stroud had a better rookie season, without a doubt.

[MHS831]

10 hours ago, Davidson Deac II said:

I am a Wake fan, so I have no problem saying bad things about about players from NCSU/UNC/Duke. 

Personally, I don't care where he was drafted.  Draft position ceases to matter once the draft is over.  He is ours and we need to make the best use we can out of him.  Ickey is a great power running game run blocker.  In a smash mouth situation, there are few that can handle him.  As a pass blocker, he leaves a lot to be desired.  He either improves this year or we do something else with him (move him to guard, trade him or whatever is best for the team.  

Ickey has bad mechanics but tremendous upside.  Campen was a joke while here, and he did nothing to develop our OL (I focus on OL because I coached it in High School in a very successful program) He, Mays, and BC have tons of potential.  If we get the right coach, the OL will be fine with Ickey at LT, in my view.

[MechaZain]

17 hours ago, BrisbanePanther said:

I wish Ickey wasn't from NC. Then we'd get people being more honest about how he's been very not good. Who cares about situation. He was picked high enough to be the unstoppable anchor for a decade. Too many excuses for him.

You act like his rookie season never happened. Every group on offense got worse under Reich, so it stands to reason that maybe it's a bigger problem than Ickey. Got nothing to do with him being a local.  

[JawnyBlaze]

He’s just sticking up for his boy, and that’s fine. But there’s no way he watched enough Panthers games to make an informed opinion. Of the three entities mentioned: Bryce, the OL and the WRs, Bryce was the worst. 

[BrisbanePanther]

17 hours ago, MechaZain said:

You act like his rookie season never happened. Every group on offense got worse under Reich, so it stands to reason that maybe it's a bigger problem than Ickey. Got nothing to do with him being a local.  

I know all about his rookie season. Doesn't change my opinion nor does it change human nature. The local fanbase wants the high-pick local kid on the local team to be part of the answer and will give him more opportunities than normal to succeed. That's to be expected. You can't say that across this entire board some of the hesitation to be hard on him has nothing to do with him being local. Maybe for you it doesn't, but it absolutely does for some.

[GhostOfDocAnderson]

That's right. Rub our noses in it. We deserve it.