Pete Prisco weighs in on Stews signing.

[FirstRoundPick]

Yes a better running game would help the Giants, Patriots, Packers, Lions duh! Up until the point where you have to pay for it costing other areas of your team to be weak duh!

[Frizzy350]

anyone who can't see the reasoning behind developing a strong running game doesn't know too much about football...

but beside those reasons (holding leads, controlling clock, wearing down defense, allowing own D to rest, protecting the ball, etc) people forget that rushing yards are still YARDS. we racked up 2400ish rushing yards last year and our run game was completely absent at the beginning of the season. if we consistently run the ball as effectively as we did in the second half of last year we are going to be looking at over 3k yards on the ground. if newton can then even be close to the 4k mark again we are probably the most potent offense in the NFL.

[SOJA]

pete prisco is a jackass

[Frizzy350]

Yes a better running game would help the Giants, Patriots, Packers, Lions duh! Up until the point where you have to pay for it costing other areas of your team to be weak duh!

im sorry but which mega star FAs did you want to spend that cash on in lieu of signing dlo/stu/tolbert?

no great DTs were on the market.

For corner there was brandon carr (grimes got resigned before he was on the market), but he got grossly overpaid.

Vincent Jackson? Considering chud and shula both worked with him if they thought he was that great they would have at least talked to him.

You act like the giants don't stack their dline so much that it hurts other area's of their team. News flash: the rest of their defense is god awful. They are a 1 dimensional defense thats built to devour high powered passing attacks. This is why they lose 2x to a crappy washington redskins team, this is why the niners gave them such a tough time in the playoffs, and this is why they go 9-7 in the regular season. they are literally a defense thats made to counter the most popular offense that playoff teams generally run.

and guess what, if we run into them come playoff time, they aren't going to get a free ride just because they can pull cam's arm out of the game.

[panther4life]

Yeah, they made the offense all about Newton last year....which is what I love. Which a reasonable person could assume it will be again this year. Why wouldn't the offense be built around and through the guy with a ceiling potentially higher than any QB in NFL history. I wouldn't be the knucklehead asking Chud if he was going to run the wishbone 80 times this year bc I think it would be unstoppable and that we should unlike last year focus on run, run, run the RBs.

I would assume though that Rivera/Chud dont have much to assume with the contracts. Hurney has been overpaying guys long before they arrived.

You guys are predicting things that contradict what we saw last year....not me.

I have no clue what you are rambling about...

I have never said we are going to use Cam less and rely more on Stewart/Williams....I do however understand how Hurney's philosophy of building a roster is through the draft and rewarding those with performance based contracts. The big money goes to our own homegrown talent and the other pieces are filled through free agency and he does all this based off of the head coaches preferences.

I like the fact that we have an offense can attack you via the air or the ground and dictate how defenses play us(sound familiar?)

I forgive Hurney for anything done during the Fox era and you should too. But after 1 year of being paired with Rivera they have totally revamped the offense and have not lost any weapons at all, when at 1 point it looked like we could have lost all of them. We literally only had 3 legit offensive threats the day Rivera signed on (Smith,Williams, and Stewart). We were not far from losing Williams(free agent) and Smith (highly disgruntled). Now we have one of the most stacked offenses in the league.

We really are not that far away on defense either. We have an awesome #1 corner and a damn good pass rusher in Johnson(the first 2 cornerstones in any legit D in my opinion). Our LB core is stacked.

Too early to know what we have in our young DT group(I personally like what I see out of Neblett and Fua). Edwards is just a temporary solid fill in.

I was not a big fan of Hardy last year and most of the board crucified me for it, granted I am pulling for him and think the mystery surrounding him will be solved this year for better or worse.

That leaves # 2 corner and the safety positions.I blame half part of the safeties problems on Ron Meeks and no support in front of them last year with rookie DT'S starting, Beason and Davis out. Also Captain did not do Martin any favors or vice versa for that matter.

We may have the answer to most of our defensive position shortcomings already on the roster, with the addition of Nakumara, Josh Norman and Frank Alexander or just maybe Hardy and Martin step it up.

So next year whatever defensive decencies we have left we should be able to address next offseason. Should be rather simple to do since our Core players on both sides of the ball are locked up for the 4-5 years.

[carolinarolls]

Cowherd had the same opinion on running vs. passing last week saying that the league is giving owners and GMs a "tax break" by setting up the rule book as it is and dummies like Rex Ryan just choose to ignore it. He did not mention the Panthers in the 30 seconds I managed to listen to hi without laughing my ass off at his stupidity but this line of thinking seems to be pretty standard among the parrots.

[pantherclaw]

Ask any coach.

Would ya like to be able to run the ball at will?

I bet ya can't find one who would say no.

[FirstRoundPick]

Ask any coach.

Would ya like to be able to run the ball at will?

I bet ya can't find one who would say no.

It would fit the debate better if you asked a question like this.

Would you like an elite running game for x amount of the cap or an elite passing game for 2x amount of the salary cap?

[FirstRoundPick]

Or even better would you like an elite running game or an average running but your pass defense improves by x.

[pantherclaw]

It would fit the debate better if you asked a question like this.

Would you like an elite running game for x amount of the cap or an elite passing game for 2x amount of the salary cap?

look how.much adrian peterson got. And.they hVe no viable option when he is out.

[pantherclaw]

The money that our backs are getting didn't stop the panthers from getting veteran dbs, if that is what they wanted to do.

That's what is lost on most fans.

[frash.exe]

2. The workload at running back. You can make a case that the Panthers underused running backsDeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart last season. So what did the Panthers do in the offseason? They added Mike Tolbert as a free agent from San Diego. The Panthers say Tolbert will be a fullback but also say he’ll get some time at tailback and will be asked to catch passes out of the backfield.

That sure makes it sound like the number of carries for Williams and Stewart, who each have had 1,000-yard seasons in the past, will be reduced even more. But I think people are missing the point. Offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski was riding the hot hand with Newton last season, and the Panthers frequently played from behind. When the coaching staff reflected on last season, I think it concluded that the running backs weren’t involved enough. Count on a conscious effort to get Williams and Stewart more carries.

It might look like Tolbert just complicates things. But players don’t call Chudzinski “The Mad Scientist" for no reason. They know he has big plans for this backfield. We could end up seeing all sorts of combinations of Williams, Stewart and Tolbert, and there could be all sorts of new plays. It sure beats the heck out of the old days in Carolina when variety in the backfield meant a draw play to Nick Goings.

Yea Pat, in order to have a more productive offense, the only thing that makes sense here is to take away touches from Cam Newton, who will be the most premier weapon in the league, and have him handing it off more.

[frash.exe]

And also, I notice that he didn't included the New Orleans Saints*** from 2009 because it doesn't fit his argument. They were 7th in rushing attempts the year they won the super bowl.

I don't see a problem in accumulating as many weapons as possible on offense as long as they can contribute consistently.

It didn't hurt that the Saints* ran so well that year because nobody was willing to stack the box with Drew Brees on the field.

[frash.exe]

...because its a pendulum that won't always swing that way as defenses adjust to it. In fact, this season the run may be more important than ever. No one knows.

Actually the increase in passing yards since 1987 has been going upward fairly linearly. This league isn't ever going back to the way it was.