Chris Gamble expects a defensive bounceback

[Argus Plexus]

Is that suppose to be a non straight joke?? OMG, dude are you....

[csx]

Just because you are a "realist" doesn't mean you are always right.

I've never once claimed to be. But claiming to be a top 10 defense during OTAs after being one of the very worst is a little silly don't you think?

[bleys]

If that knee stays healthy, Hogan is going to lock up #2 quickly....

[Frizzy350]

Ford also said they have good trucks, IBM thinks highly of their computers and Facebook thinks everyone will enjoy Instagram.

Take all this stuff with a grain of salt.

welll a lot of people do like instagram and considering IBM stands for International Business Machines, their actual business machines are top of line, their PCs are garbage however.

But yea your right, just because a few people in our organization say everything is going fine and dandy, we really have no idea until the games start up.

[Frizzy350]

One thing I like about Gamble is you never ever hear about him or hear him speak. Thats what great cornerbacks do, they never get their name pronounced by the commentators because they are so glued to their man nobody dares throw their way.

[pantherclaw]

I certainly hope so. I don't think that we'll get back to form this year but I do think that we can be good enough too win. In order to get back to form we Willy need a penetrating DT, another dominating CB opposite of Gamble and a ball hawking, tackling beast of a S.

name one starting defensive tackle.that Rivera had with the chargers.

Don't bother, I know ya can't.

While I know our defensive tackle situation isn't the best the.Panthers have bad, I know Rovera cam coach.

I expect a top 10 defense.

Ya dont have to.

[PantherPhann89]

name one starting defensive tackle.that Rivera had with the chargers.

Don't bother, I know ya can't.

While I know our defensive tackle situation isn't the best the.Panthers have bad, I know Rovera cam coach.

I expect a top 10 defense.

Ya dont have to.

you really need to re-read my post. Don't bother, I'll summ it for you: I think oir defense is missing a few pieces from being back to form but under Rivera, I do think that we can win.

[Keep Pounding]

[MasterAwesome]

It's not unfathomable to think that our defense could go from the bottom of the league to near the top of the league in just one season...consider what happened to our offense between the 2010 and 2011 seasons. We went from 32nd in the league to 5th in the league with the drafting of ONE player (albeit a darn good one). Think about it - we used our first round pick on the captain of our OFFENSE last year and this year we use our 1st round draft pick on someone who could end up being the captain of our DEFENSE (if something changes and Kuechly takes over the MLB position for Week 1). I'm just using the term "captain" in the sense that MLB is the most vital position on the defense and typically makes all the pre-snap adjustments...I'm not trying to say Kuechly will become the captain in a leadership capacity, that will obviously belong to Beason even if he moves to OLB. Regardless, Kuechly is still going to be playing a vital role on our defense no matter where he plays.

You can obviously argue that the success of the offense is way more dependent on Cam than the success of the defense would be dependent on Kuechly, but when you consider we drafted Alexander and Norman who can potentially contribute right away as well and the fact that our defense will be healthy this year...this defense could experience the same jump our offense did last year. Strictly from this past draft alone, we'll have gotten help on the d-line, secondary, and at linebacker...all 3 facets of the defense. Plus obviously we're a young team who relied a lot on rookies and inexperienced players last year, so we should see a lot of improvement with a year under their belts. Last year, Cam alone was our ONLY help on offense through the draft (we got a couple of o-linemen late in the draft plus Pilares, but none of them experienced any playing time on offense at least) and our offense jumped that much....why is it so hard to believe our defense could do the same this year? I admit it's unlikely...but definitely possible.

Anyways...hello friends, this is my first post on this site (if it's not obvious with the NEWB in all caps...TWICE...gee). I've been lurking for a while now and just made an account a few days ago so I could start posting. I've really been a Panthers fan only for the past few years or so but my excitement has approached borderline obsession this year. I googled "Carolina Panthers message boards" just so I could read up on other peoples' opinions about the Panthers and this site is among the first things that came up. It is now one of FOUR bookmarks on my Firefox taskbar at the top along with such necessities as Youtube, Gmail, and Facebook....

[Swaggasaurus]

It's not unfathomable to think that our defense could go from the bottom of the league to near the top of the league in just one season...consider what happened to our offense between the 2010 and 2011 seasons. We went from 32nd in the league to 5th in the league with the drafting of ONE player (albeit a darn good one). Think about it - we used our first round pick on the captain of our OFFENSE last year and this year we use our 1st round draft pick on someone who could end up being the captain of our DEFENSE (if something changes and Kuechly takes over the MLB position for Week 1). I'm just using the term "captain" in the sense that MLB is the most vital position on the defense and typically makes all the pre-snap adjustments...I'm not trying to say Kuechly will become the captain in a leadership capacity, that will obviously belong to Beason even if he moves to OLB. Regardless, Kuechly is still going to be playing a vital role on our defense no matter where he plays.

You can obviously argue that the success of the offense is way more dependent on Cam than the success of the defense would be dependent on Kuechly, but when you consider we drafted Alexander and Norman who can potentially contribute right away as well and the fact that our defense will be healthy this year...this defense could experience the same jump our offense did last year. Strictly from this past draft alone, we'll have gotten help on the d-line, secondary, and at linebacker...all 3 facets of the defense. Plus obviously we're a young team who relied a lot on rookies and inexperienced players last year, so we should see a lot of improvement with a year under their belts. Last year, Cam alone was our ONLY help on offense through the draft (we got a couple of o-linemen late in the draft plus Pilares, but none of them experienced any playing time on offense at least) and our offense jumped that much....why is it so hard to believe our defense could do the same this year? I admit it's unlikely...but definitely possible.

Anyways...hello friends, this is my first post on this site (if it's not obvious with the NEWB in all caps...TWICE...gee). I've been lurking for a while now and just made an account a few days ago so I could start posting. I've really been a Panthers fan only for the past few years or so but my excitement has approached borderline obsession this year. I googled "Carolina Panthers message boards" just so I could read up on other peoples' opinions about the Panthers and this site is among the first things that came up. It is now one of FOUR bookmarks on my Firefox taskbar at the top along with such necessities as Youtube, Gmail, and Facebook....

Stopped reading at unfathomable.......jk. Welcome, good post, totally agree. I feel good about the pieces that we have on D to make that kind of jump, as long as we have someone half ass playing safety.

[chef17]

It's not unfathomable to think that our defense could go from the bottom of the league to near the top of the league in just one season...consider what happened to our offense between the 2010 and 2011 seasons. We went from 32nd in the league to 5th in the league with the drafting of ONE player (albeit a darn good one). Think about it - we used our first round pick on the captain of our OFFENSE last year and this year we use our 1st round draft pick on someone who could end up being the captain of our DEFENSE (if something changes and Kuechly takes over the MLB position for Week 1). I'm just using the term "captain" in the sense that MLB is the most vital position on the defense and typically makes all the pre-snap adjustments...I'm not trying to say Kuechly will become the captain in a leadership capacity, that will obviously belong to Beason even if he moves to OLB. Regardless, Kuechly is still going to be playing a vital role on our defense no matter where he plays.

You can obviously argue that the success of the offense is way more dependent on Cam than the success of the defense would be dependent on Kuechly, but when you consider we drafted Alexander and Norman who can potentially contribute right away as well and the fact that our defense will be healthy this year...this defense could experience the same jump our offense did last year. Strictly from this past draft alone, we'll have gotten help on the d-line, secondary, and at linebacker...all 3 facets of the defense. Plus obviously we're a young team who relied a lot on rookies and inexperienced players last year, so we should see a lot of improvement with a year under their belts. Last year, Cam alone was our ONLY help on offense through the draft (we got a couple of o-linemen late in the draft plus Pilares, but none of them experienced any playing time on offense at least) and our offense jumped that much....why is it so hard to believe our defense could do the same this year? I admit it's unlikely...but definitely possible.

Anyways...hello friends, this is my first post on this site (if it's not obvious with the NEWB in all caps...TWICE...gee). I've been lurking for a while now and just made an account a few days ago so I could start posting. I've really been a Panthers fan only for the past few years or so but my excitement has approached borderline obsession this year. I googled "Carolina Panthers message boards" just so I could read up on other peoples' opinions about the Panthers and this site is among the first things that came up. It is now one of FOUR bookmarks on my Firefox taskbar at the top along with such necessities as Youtube, Gmail, and Facebook....

1. The jump in offense had as much to do with getting rid of Clausen as it did Cam being good. We could have signed some stop gap vet and our offense would have been better simply because Clausen wasn't on the field.

2. Going from a running offense to a passing offense certainly helped improve the offense ranking.

3. The 1000 yards and 9 TDs we got from Olsen and Shockey disagree with "the offense improved with the drafting of one player"

[MasterAwesome]

Lol yeah sorry I realize I crammed a bit too much there...I had a lot to get out :/ I will try to keep the rest of my posts more twitter-friendly from here on out!

I'm not too worried about our safeties though...they should benefit a lot from solid d-line, LB, and CB play. A lot of times they're kinda just there to play clean-up as the last line of defense, so if there isn't anything to clean up then we don't have to rely on them to make plays. I'm not completely ignorant though I know they have to cover 1 on 1 in certain blitzing packages and good safeties also take pressure off the rest of our D, but every defense has its weaknesses and I'd rather ours be at safety than anywhere else.

[MasterAwesome]

1. The jump in offense had as much to do with getting rid of Clausen as it did Cam being good. We could have signed some stop gap vet and our offense would have been better simply because Clausen wasn't on the field.

2. Going from a running offense to a passing offense certainly helped improve the offense ranking.

3. The 1000 yards and 9 TDs we got from Olsen and Shockey disagree with "the offense improved with the drafting of one player"

1. I'm not sure I agree with that....Matt Moore started 5 games for us that year and was fairly comparable to Clausen in his performance (completed 55% of his passes for 5 TDs and 10 INTs). All I'm saying is that we changed at one position on offense and improved drastically as a result.

2. Again that has to do with Newton being our QB. I wouldn't say we transitioned from a running offense to a passing offense either...we ranked 3rd in the NFL in rushing last season (13th in passing). It sure FEELS like we transitioned into a passing offense last season simply cause of how big of an upgrade Newton was for our passing game, but we still rely a lot on the run. Obviously a big chunk of those rushing yards came from Newton himself, but that doesn't change my argument that our offense jumped that much because of one player. And you make it sound so easy....any ole offense can't just transition from a running offense to a passing offense...it needs to have the right pieces in place. If the Jaguars last season stopped running as much and transitioned into a passing offense, do you think their offense would have improved? I'm sure it would have failed even more miserably. So again, we could only utilize the passing game more because of NEWTON.

3. You're right, my mindset was all about the draft that I completely forgot about Olsen/Shockey. And may I also add our entirely new coaching staff last season.......whoops, forgot about that one too. Without the OTAs and much of a training camp though, I think our offense proved (in the beginning of the season at least) that they could take a LOT of the credit for their own success. I like Olsen a lot, and Shockey to a lesser extent (I think he's replaceable)...but I wouldn't attribute a whole lot of our success on offense to those acquisitions. Our TE situation before they came along was cringe-worthy...with Olsen/Shockey, we finally got competent pass-catching TEs who could play their role. Cam is a game-changer...Olsen/Shockey, while solid, are not (in my opinion). So sure, Cam had some help in improving our offense by that much...but Kuechly has a lot of help as well so all I'm saying is that it's definitely within the realm of possibility.

Well I guess my promise of shorter posts was rather short-lived lol, yeesh

[chef17]

1. I'm not sure I agree with that....Matt Moore started 5 games for us that year and was fairly comparable to Clausen in his performance (completed 55% of his passes for 5 TDs and 10 INTs). All I'm saying is that we changed at one position on offense and improved drastically as a result.

2. Again that has to do with Newton being our QB. I wouldn't say we transitioned from a running offense to a passing offense either...we ranked 3rd in the NFL in rushing last season (13th in passing). It sure FEELS like we transitioned into a passing offense last season simply cause of how big of an upgrade Newton was for our passing game, but we still rely a lot on the run. Obviously a big chunk of those rushing yards came from Newton himself, but that doesn't change my argument that our offense jumped that much because of one player. And you make it sound so easy....any ole offense can't just transition from a running offense to a passing offense...it needs to have the right pieces in place. If the Jaguars last season stopped running as much and transitioned into a passing offense, do you think their offense would have improved? I'm sure it would have failed even more miserably. So again, we could only utilize the passing game more because of NEWTON.

3. You're right, my mindset was all about the draft that I completely forgot about Olsen/Shockey. And may I also add our entirely new coaching staff last season.......whoops, forgot about that one too. Without the OTAs and much of a training camp though, I think our offense proved (in the beginning of the season at least) that they could take a LOT of the credit for their own success. I like Olsen a lot, and Shockey to a lesser extent (I think he's replaceable)...but I wouldn't attribute a whole lot of our success on offense to those acquisitions. Our TE situation before they came along was cringe-worthy...with Olsen/Shockey, we finally got competent pass-catching TEs who could play their role. Cam is a game-changer...Olsen/Shockey, while solid, are not (in my opinion). So sure, Cam had some help in improving our offense by that much...but Kuechly has a lot of help as well so all I'm saying is that it's definitely within the realm of possibility.

Well I guess my promise of shorter posts was rather short-lived lol, yeesh

1. Moore averaged a TD a game, Clausen averaged one every 3.Cam certainly helped much such a big step but like I said, simply replacing Clausen with almost any other QB would have improved the offense.

2. If Fox was still the coach would we have passed as much? No, the change in offense had to do with a lot more than just Cam as I said.

3.

So sure, Cam had some help in improving our offense

My point