Bye Week Priorities....

[SOJA]

1. Have a good fuging third quarter for once

[Sword]

whatever they did for the bye they already did Tuesday and Wednesday. everyone including the coaching staff, is required to take 4 days off. I know they are coming back on monday for a full padded practice so that could be an early day they use to prepare.

[Herbert The Love Bug]

1. partying

2. definitely not practicing

3. getting arrested

[raleigh-panther]

Actually I think that there is quite a bit we can do with the defense over the bye. I think we could go with more of a 4-6 formation. It is really not 4 linemen and 6 linebackers but more of a 4-4 look using 4-3 personnel where you bring the strong safety in the box. My variation would be to bring in two strong safeties instead of an OLB and strong safety, use the unbalanced line and be aggressive with misdirection. The advantage of the 4-6 is that is stops the run while the advantage of the strong safety instead of OLB would be to help in zone or man coverage where we are getting killed in the short zones or in man over the middle. Here is what it looks like in general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46_defense

Vary that with shifts to a more tradition 4-3, safeties in coverage on some passing downs, corner or safety blitzes. etc. If we ran it we would need to pick up another strong safety or use Senn who was a SS in college in coverage. He ran a 4.5 forty in 2008 coming out of the draft.

You might have noticed we have run this a few times in the last several games.

I also think we give Hogan reps if he is healthy and see what he can do. I would like us to use more four corner, 1 free safety looks in our passing nickel on third and long where we know they are going to pass.

I honestly don't understand we are not doing this.

I saw just a little bit of it at the Redskins game where clearly on running downs, Godfrey's sole job, sadly standing 15 yds back from the line of scrimmage was to get the running back that broke around the edge or up the middle.

The 4-6, staple of Ryan and the Bears....don't get why we don't try it as clearly what is being done is not working.

[Doc Holiday]

to be honest, and I hate to say it but I have been very disappointed with Rivera, and I have been starting to wonder if he's the man for the Job here in Carolina.

Now with that said we are exactly where I thought we would be at this point in the season, but our team is the exact opposite of what I expected, which was ok offense and a solid but not great defense, and here we sit with a top 5 offense and a bottom 5 defense.

[jarhead]

1. Run blocking. We are no where near as productive as we should be, especially given teams are no longer loading up the box against Cam.

2. Punt returns. Would be nice to see AE get just a little bit of space to run every now and then.

3. Coaching. Growing tired of the mental breakdowns and penalties. Falls in the discipline category, which falls on Rivera.

Penalties and special teams have cost us at least 3 wins.On the running game I think it is a combination of Otah being injured and once again a new guard RG.We must get the right OL personal that can stay healthy.I do not think our current DTs are the answer on defense as well

[raleigh-panther]

to be honest, and I hate to say it but I have been very disappointed with Rivera, and I have been starting to wonder if he's the man for the Job here in Carolina..

I can understand why you feel that way; but, I think it's just too early.

I think Fox and what went on prior to the lockout left this team in a shambles talent wise, and let's face it, the past 3 years, the Panthers weren't exactly tearing it up on either side of the ball. Their defense, statistically good at times, were never exactly tearing it up out there. Special teams have sucks since the O'brien days.

I think the Panthers shored up certain positions on the offense first to keep Newton upright (TEs) and signing their own players, now not sure how smart it was to sign players from a 2-14 team, but, who is to say.

Year 3, I believe is the year to judge Rivera. By then he will have 3 drafts under him and the defense should be rebuilt, and depth rebuilt, of course we have some Offense that will be very long in tooth by then.

Net, talent level isn't there yet compared to elite teams in the league...as my great grandmother used to say 'a mule in a horse's harness is still a mule'.

We have a lot of mules.

[SevenSixes]

You only have 2-3 additional practices since the new CBA demands 4 days off including a weekend. There's not enough time to fix the big things, thank goodness it's the little things we need work in.

1) Tackling. - we should be in pads for all of these bye week workouts and practicing the fundamentals like tackling will pay more concrete benefits faster than any focus work on a single player.

2) Blocking - The front D Line have been killing us based on their inability to get off their blocks and fill the run gaps. Give these guys more reps and use the film from the past games to show them what techniques are being used against them, then take to the field and show them how to counter those moves.

3) Discipline - Put our lines in game time situations and let Derrick Anderson try to get McClain an the crew to jump offside. Run situations where you are subbing packages as quickly as they can line up. Run red zone hurry up offense and work on making your subs

in real time. Keep the pressure on and raise the confusion level so they know how to handle the critical game time situations that they are failing to handle now.

Then start putting in your Titans game plan on Wednesday..

[Mother Grabber]

My #1 priority for the bye week is surfing porn.