Removing the franchise tag from Julius Peppers is the best option.

[panthers55]

hey i hate to blow your guys' minds but there wouldn't be that huge of a drop off in terms of stat production from a full season of julius peppers to a full season of charles johnson

Did it ever occur to you that part of the reason that Johnson got his 6 sacks was that the offensive scheme was skewed to account for Peppers thus giving Johnson single blocking. Without Peppers in there the attention shifts to Johnson at which point he becomes invisible and gets nada for sacks. He wasn't great with one guy on him, if he were doubled he would only be going backwards.

[rayzor]

hey i hate to blow your guys' minds but there wouldn't be that huge of a drop off in terms of stat production from a full season of julius peppers to a full season of charles johnson

i'm actually pretty excited about the prospects of johnson/brown and think we will be good with those two under meeks. i'm just not ready to hand over the keys just yet. one year i think will be enough. pep is a borderline elite DE for another year, imo. i would rather that year be here. i'm looking for the best case scenario where he signs a one year deal and plays big and then fades away on some other team meanwhile we get brown acclimated to the pro game and then steps in being our freeney and johnson our mathis.

[Fiz]

no one is scheming against julius any more hate to shatter your world

[rayzor]

no one is scheming against julius any more hate to shatter your world

i think they were.

it was the old "stick a 2nd or 3rd stringer on him or a rookie and hold on for dear life" scheme. not much in the way of double teams or anything else.

[panthers55]

no one is scheming against julius any more hate to shatter your world

He doesn't get doubled on every play and they still run away from at times. But he will get more attention than Johnson does until Johnson breaks the double digit sack level like peppers seems to most years.

[Fiz]

johnson would have broken a double digit sack level last year if he had as many snaps as julius, not that that means much.

i'd give up half of julius' sacks if he'd play a full game

[Snake]

Nor is there anything many of us would like to do about it. You think we are resigned to it. I think that Hurney wanted him back all along and is following his plan of choice either get 2 1s or keep him. I doubt he is upset about things.

If Peppers holds out things may change. Until then we are doing what we should, working with who shows up and keeping the light on for Peppers when he gets over himself and decides to play.

Eh Im not sure what Hurney was thinking but thats a good guess. IMO I think everyone would have though he was gonna be gone by now but the market was just not hot for peppers. IDK its a weird situation cause Pep has a Green Agent and wants a complex contract. I dont think Hurney or anyone for that matter knows how this is gonna play out and that is including peppers.

[DaveThePanther2008]

One day we must learn to live without Peppers. I think the DEs we have excluding Peppers is good. Johnson, Brayton and Brown will do wonders under Meeks and make Peppers dispensible.

Hurney and Fox did what they think was best for the team. They addressed his position if he does end up with another team. They addressed DT and I think we are fine there too, we have 2 solid starting DT and a good group of competing DTs.

All this said we keep Peppers until he rots. I think he is an incredible talent. I think under Meeks he would excel. But if he doesn't want to play. Sit your ass on the bench. He thought he was going to strap the team into trading him. Knowing we would be investing 17 mil in him, he knew we would be strapped as far as Free Agency went. I think he and his agent thought "No way can they afford to keep you" But through some wiggling here and there they came up with enough to funds to get a few players and get a 1st round talent. WITHOUT TRADING PEPPERS. Pep and his agent thought they had the upper hand but, the F.O. figured out a way to get what we needed without Pep, his $$ or draft positions we would have received.

Finally, Peppers created the lack of interest because of his 4 team demand. The other 27 teams were already on notice they didn't meet Peps requirements therefore why pursue it? Two from our own division which automatically dropped it down to 2 teams. Supposely Dallas and N.E. Well Dallas doesn't really need anyone so why waste that much $$$ on a player you already have in D. Ware. That drops it to one team that MIGHT want him and that is New England.

B. Billicheat is not only a cheater but a very shrewd business man. No way would he NOT end up with the upper hand in a trade. The Panthers (unoffically of course) would not take what was being offered. BTW I am of the belief there was an offer from N.E. (though Peps Agent) that Hurney laughed at. Probably the 34th pick and nothing else.

So Pepper's created a void with no one to fill it. We are fine. Keep Peppers and make him wear the uniform. If he doesn't want to play then it is only hurting himself. The Panthers will win without him.

[Vagrant]

Why would we release him now when:

1. That means that he and his bonehead of an agent set a precedent of how to handle negotiations with Carolina. Just sit there until you don't get your way and they'll eventually give you what you want. Trust, there would be no shortage of teams willing to give Julius in the area of what we're paying him. Despite your claims, he is still an all-pro defensive end when he gives it 100% like he did last year for us.

2. We would lose him a year later than the compensation picks would be handed out. If we wanted to get a compensation pick for him, then we should have done it this year and gotten an actual player to train under the system for a year instead of a player a year from now.

3. When it looks like his only two options are to either play for us at a high level, or thus lose considerable value on the market, or sit out games and thus lose considerable value on the market. When it comes down to the nuts and bolts, he either plays for us and plays well or he takes about half of what he wants after this season for mailing it in or not even showing up. He's not getting any younger. If he wanted to sit out a year he should have picked a better time than what could be his last few years of dominant football.

4. When we have a team in place that SHOULD be able to compete for the playoffs with Peppers in the fold.

All in all, if we were going to cut and run on Peppers we would have done it as soon as he wanted to be traded and used the franchise on Gross instead of having negotiations go down until the 11th hour and being scared to death we were going to lose him. You don't reward crybabies by giving them exactly what they want or the next crybaby you deal with will use the last one as an example. Sorry, you're here to stay Peppers.

[Speed]

Peppers has shown he has lost a step. He will only lose more with a piss poor attitude. Also keep in mind, a piss poor attitude is a contagious fatal disease.

[MadHatter]

Letting Peppers go for no compensation is just a boneheaded move at any level. If we were gung ho to sign Robertson we could free the cap space to do so. We have other guys we can approach who would restructure to clear some cap space. I am thinking Smith off the top of my head. Giving Smith some signing bonus by converting some of his salary and maybe even extending him a year or two would be easy to do and give us the cash to sign Robertson.

Other than Pobertson who is out there we really want? Anf why would we think Brown is even ready to go right now. Other than Peppers in 2002, which DE has come in right away and torn the league up? Chris Long was the big answer last year. He got 40 tackles and 4 sacks. About the same as Brayton did for us.

Truth is we don't have a guy with the talent of Peppers on this line and we won't this year. Bottom line is that the cap money is spent and getting it back now does no good. If Peppers doesn't sign he gets no money. Anyone think that he doesn't play at 1 million a game. If he is that stupid then we save 1 million a game, he sits and at some point we get the cap space back. If he doesn't play at all he is the biggest loser.

Anyone who says abandon the game now is obviously a poor poker player and would throw in his hand when he holds all the worthwhile cards. Sure Peppers can hold out but he is 17 million poorer and frankly what team is going to pay him even half of that next year. Hurney has played this very well all along and it is time to stand pat and let the pieces fall will they will. Peppers will play for the Panthers this year and will have a good season. Brown will sit along with Taylor and learn the game while Johnson and Brayton will do even better given Meek's scheme.

Sometime you have to know when you have the winning hand and be willing to play your cards. This is one of those times.

Weak kneed amateurs need to sit on the sidelines and watch Hurney at work.

There aren't any good reasons to bail now and Robertson is certainly not the answer at all.

Thank you for adding some intelligent thought to this otherwise ridiculous thread.

If the idea of letting Peppers walk now for no compensation enters anyone's head under the guise of a rational thought, please seek professional help.

[posthumecaver]

All of the 5 DEs you are mentioning, are pass rusher, JP make much better job against the run and it is there where his value lies....

That he is a good option against the run and pass...

You also have to keep in your mind that stats of JP would never blow your head off because team interestingly running play away from JP in the direction of Taylor Brayton and Charles Johnson and JP is getting the most of double teams from LT, TE, FB combination...

Ok, he doesn't worth 16 mil$ but he has some value for our scheme

[CatMan72]

Peppers had the 5th most sacks this year, more than Tuck or Kampman...

I don't think we can stand to lose him right now - Brayton is just OK and Johnson/Brown are unknowns. Our defensive scheme relies on the DL getting pressure on the passer and right now Peppers is the only DL we have on the roster that has proven he can do that on a consistent basis.

It would seem to me that removing the tag and letting him walk is the short-sited approach... We should release him so we can bring in a couple of FA's that may or may not produce, or hope that Peppers will come crawling back to us??? To my way of thinking, that is unrealistic.

[Speed]

$11 million is pretty good compinsation + $14 million in cap space.