Did Richardson set us up for success

[Zcustom]

By allowing 19 guys to become free agents which will require 80-100 million in signing bonuses alone to resign just our core group, we may have plenty of cap room but we will have no cash to really explore the free agent market this year. Our salaries for 2011 which includes all the signing bonuses when they are paid out regardless of if the cap figure allows the bonuses to be be prorated, will approach 200 million this year. It may keep us from signig Beason who if he has a great year will break the bank next year.

What do you think???

I think that this is a chicken little scenario on your part. It's been estimated by people more in the know than us (Steve Reed for example) that our "core" will cost approx 30-40 mil (against next years cap) to resign. To more than double that estimate without any justification comes off as paranoid.

We just need to wait and see what the new CBA entails, and when hard numbers come out then we can get an idea of what the "core" will cost.

With such widely varying numbers floating around waiting until we have some more concrete facts seems to be the wise approach.

[MadHatter]

There seems to be a camp of folks who think that Richardson made all the right moves last year to set us up for the lockout and what has transpired in 2011.

Here are some reasons why that might be crap:

By keeping Fox to save money, we delayed the inevitable which was a new coach and staff. If we had pulled the trigger last year we already would a system in place so the learning curve wouldn't be as steep, Clausen and Moore wouldn't have to learn a whole new system putting them in position to start, and the coaches would have had a year to work out the kinks and evaluate their players.

By failing to sign core players like Johnson and Anderson who had career years, we will pay a high premium when we could have gotten them much cheaper before their breakout years. From what I can tell even guys like Williams and Davis won't be taking big discounts because they were hurt last year. Perhaps the only guy we saved money on by not signing longeterm was Moore.

By allowing 19 guys to become free agents which will require 80-100 million in signing bonuses alone to resign just our core group, we may have plenty of cap room but we will have no cash to really explore the free agent market this year. Our salaries for 2011 which includes all the signing bonuses when they are paid out regardless of if the cap figure allows the bonuses to be be prorated, will approach 200 million this year. It may keep us from signig Beason who if he has a great year will break the bank next year.

I believe Richardson really expected no football in 2011 and acted accordingly. He is obviously getting overruled in the negotiations or has softened his stance. Either way it hurt the team in 2010 and will again this year. Instead of setting us up well, I think his strategy has bordered on a disaster.

Again the silver lining??? If we had changed coaches last year our record would have been better and perhaps we wouldn't have picked first in the draft.

What do you think???

The error that I believe he made was keeping Fox one too many years. We would be 1 year into this reworking process.

Hindsight on our FA's like Johnson, Anderson, Davis, etc is 20-20. yes, Johnson and Anderson had great years and their value increased. However, we could have just as easily signed both to a big contract last year...to which they never performed to. This is a risk that you take with every young guy on your roster.

Signing Beason, Kalil, etc. to big contracts last year would provide us zero advantage in this year's FA market.

Just a few of my opinions.

[bleys]

all of those are valid points.. however, I like our coaching staff now more than what it could have potentially been.

we would have lost 2 years of Davis' new contract by singing him before this year (his breakout year was in '09). Anderson had his breakout year this past year, until then we all know everyone would be up in arms by signing him long term.

with the uncertainty of a season coming up and the turmoil that is most obvious between players and owners, I would have bet the farm on preparing for no season as well...

like I said, you raise valid points, but I think the other side of the story is relevant as well..

[Urrymonster]

This, the only thing I really disagree with is keeping Fox around as a lame-duck coach... I don't think the Panthers realized how bad things would be in that situation.

Fox had always been a consummate pro and a stand-up guy so I think they thought he would finish out that last year just as if he had a 5 year extension and that was naive. I don't think Fox meant to mail it in... but when you know you're on your way out no matter what you do, how much energy are you going to be able to muster?

Once you've caused the HC to lose the majority of his coaching staff and you've stripped him of having any say over personnel, what's the point in keeping him around? JR said he wasn't going to pay a coaching staff 11 million dollars to go on vacation... it's easy for me to say because it's not my 11 million but in my book that's penny-wise and pound-foolish.

They paid Peppers almost 17 million to play for one season knowing full well that they were going to let him walk, so why not let the whole lame-duck coaching staff walk with 11 million and turn the page?

Anyhow, that's all water under the bridge at this point... I couldn't be any happier with the coaching staff we have now and we have plenty of cap room for them to shape the roster to their vision.

There is a pretty obvious answer here.

Richardson clearly was worried about there being no football this coming year and thus was not comfortable offering any HC a 3 year deal when the one in the middle might not even be used.

No HC would sign on a one year deal.

To have gotten rid of Fox and found adequate replacements would have needed to have been done after the 2008 season when we went 12-4.

[Urrymonster]

I my honest opinion, Richardson wasn't doing the best for the 'team', he was safeguarding the future of the franchise. He was ensuring that if the worst case scenario happened, we wouldn't be screwed financially. In his mind, gambling on youth for 1-2 years will be much more beneficial than risking the financial stability of the team.

[CatMan72]

There is a pretty obvious answer here.

Richardson clearly was worried about there being no football this coming year and thus was not comfortable offering any HC a 3 year deal when the one in the middle might not even be used.

No HC would sign on a one year deal.

To have gotten rid of Fox and found adequate replacements would have needed to have been done after the 2008 season when we went 12-4.

JR may have not wanted to pay one staff to go on vacation while paying another staff to sit at home during the lockout, but he knew there was eventually going to be football and he would need a coaching staff... right?

It's not like the new coaching staff would have been sitting around doing nothing during the lockout, we're paying a whole staff during the lockout right now and they are using the time to get all their ducks in a row for when the lockout is lifted.

If it was me, I would have fired Fox and his whole staff after the '09 season and brought in a new staff. It would have been the perfect segway to rebuilding and it would have given the new staff a season to work with our core players so in the event of a lockout they would at least have some familiarity with our personnel and our personnel would have some familiarity with the new coaching staff's playbook, etc.

As it stands, we're at a disadvantage because we're barreling towards the season with a coaching staff who does not know our personnel beyond what they have seen on tape and a team that has not been coached by our new staff. IMO it would have been better to give our new staff a one-year head start on the job before we headed into a lockout (which everyone knew was coming).

[rayzor]

i still don't know how it makes sense to pay for 2 coaching staffs instead of one.

people making too big of a deal about it and are paying too much attention to the 2011 season than the long term.

[davos]

One of the central parts of our offensive downward spiral can be traced directly back to one man: Dan Henning (I'm not necessarily blaming him though)...

He was great for us until we had an offense in tact long enough that teams figured us out. His elder self stuck to his system and didn't really adapt with the changing NFL. Henning of course became the one everyone hated and was sent packing. Then, this new guy comes in to an already established offense that makes him look decent.

Truth is Jeff Davidson is probably one of the worst OC's in NFL history. Honestly, that was a worse coach-signing than George Seifert. As Jake aged, Hurney didn't look for a replacement who could eventually take over in Flacco, or hell even Henne.

Jake imploded, we stuck with him then Moore played well enough to give us a lot of faith. We got healthy, but cut a lot of meat because we thought we had a more solid core than we actually did. Richardson didn't set us up for failure, he set us up to develop the strongest & youngest core unit in the NFL which is now even more possible.

If we would have played an NFC West team to start off the season last year, we could have gotten 5-6 wins. The NFC East slaughtered our confidence and we weren't built for depth but for potential. Its a risk that a lot of teams take. It didn't work out last year, but could really benefit us in 2012 or hell even this coming season.

In conclusion, its a classic domino effect with many at fault. Richardson trusted them and it didn't work. Now, tabula rasa with a core in tact and a brand new franchise QB. I say we're in good shape.

So maybe its good we waited to get a QB because if we did the transition thing we'd probably still be stuck with Fox, Davidson, and Chad Henne....good god that would suck

[Peppers90 NC]

setting something up is only half the job, gotta follow thru and finish to make it worthwhile. i will gladly trade last season which is already in the past for years of future success.

[Carolina Husker]

He deliberately fielded an inexpensive, inexperienced team that was uncompetitive at best with the intention of saving enough money so he could lead the charge to lockout the players because they wouldn't play more games for less money.

I personally think Richardson is a sad old coot well beyond his years as an effective leader and figurehead of this team. At this point he's just throwing his weight around more than being a savvy businessman, and if there's no season, he'll hold the lion's share of the blame.

[davos]

He deliberately fielded an inexpensive, inexperienced team that was uncompetitive at best with the intention of saving enough money so he could lead the charge to lockout the players because they wouldn't play more games for less money.

I personally think Richardson is a sad old coot well beyond his years as an effective leader and figurehead of this team. At this point he's just throwing his weight around more than being a savvy businessman, and if there's no season, he'll hold the lion's share of the blame.

All blame should no doubt fall to the owner so I agree on that end, but Hurney & Fox had a job to do and simply did not execute. Talent is talent and these players are in the NFL for a reason small salaries or not. Going into last season before any games were played, who was honestly worried about inexperience after how 2009 ended?

We had Moore, Double Trouble, Smitty, Kalil, Wharton, Gross, Beason, TD, Connor, Chuck Johnson, Gamble and a majority of fans did seem to feel comfortable from my perspective. We were weak at depth and the D-line, I'll give you that, but I think its a reach to say Richardson was solely doing all of this from a financial standpoint. Keeping Fox and the Peppers situation however did not help Richardson by any means. So, yeah, money played a major factor in the situation but not all of it.

[Lumps]

JR is full of some BS, like making the reporter look stupi by asking why he wouldn't fire fox saying would you pay someone for nothing or that effect, then he lets delhomme walk for 3x more.

but not all owners are perfect. The only issue comes in when people blindly support the owner regardless of what they do. They feel as if it is a responsibility as a fan. I do not share this feeling.

As far as JR and what he has done, we yet to know the effect. He will look bad when there is no lockout but he will look the worst if he doesn't get this core resigned for whatever reason. To me that is what I expect of JR as a fan at this point. JR hasn't set us up for failure, not just yet...he has set us up with a nice budget cap but it's what he does with it that will determine failure which is yet to see.

as a fan its sad to see your team hurt as a result of the owner, no matter how noble the caus emight be to a buisnessman.

[I am Hubby]

There are a lot of valid points being thrown around. So I may as well toss my 2 cents in the pot.

First, IMO JR could not have played the coaching carousel any differently than he did. I am of the belief JR did the right thing by waiting until this year to grab his coach. A young coach for a young team. A match that can grow and mature together. You have a clear starting point for future reference. And you have a coaching staff in place that has proven teaching skills, which is precisely what a young team needs. As a businessman JR did not want to pay Foxy to not coach, so he pretty much had to wait until this year anyway.

We may have 19 UFAs, but we really only need to resign 6-7 of those guys. We should have no problem finding replacements with all the FAs that are going to be floating around. So I do not believe we will have much trouble upgrading. It is not a worse case thing to be in our position. There are a ton of teams that have plenty of FAs they need to resign, so there will be talent out there. All we can hope is that with a new staff and Cam, players will be interested in coming here.

Lastly, I really have a hard time believing JR thought we would be this bad, so getting Cam was icing on the cake. You absolutely need a quality QB to be competitive, and in my opinion we got extremely lucky when Cam fell into our lap. I have the utmost faith that we are now a team that has potential to be competitive for years. We are young and talented at some very key positions. All we need is to keep upgrading and we will be fine, maybe even better than that.

Nothing could be finer... and GOOOO PANTHERS!!!!!!!!!!!

[DevilCat]

He deliberately fielded an inexpensive, inexperienced team that was uncompetitive at best with the intention of saving enough money so he could lead the charge to lockout the players because they wouldn't play more games for less money.

I personally think Richardson is a sad old coot well beyond his years as an effective leader and figurehead of this team. At this point he's just throwing his weight around more than being a savvy businessman, and if there's no season, he'll hold the lion's share of the blame.

If the Rams can win it all with this chick, then we can win with JR.