If you knew then what you know now...

[pepaw]

And to answer Mr. Scot's original question, I really don't know.

[frash.exe]

Just for keeping score Mr. Scot's only mentioning this because he argued in favor of benching rookie QBs before Newton's record-breaking season and is now bringing this up because the simple fact that our team is struggling and Kaepernick had a good game regardless of the details gives him an opportunity to attack this from a new, unique, yet myopic angle.

[rayzor]

answering the OP....

NO.

1) you don't sit a QB you draft in the first or second round UNLESS there is already a QB entrenched in the job already. this is especially true with the way rookie contracts are constructed now. you have to figure out if they can handle the pressures early. if they can't, they probably won't down the road.

2) cam is one of the majority of people on the planet who learn best by experience...with practical application of things learned and live bullets being thrown at you....and no, i wouldn't have a surgeon operating on me without him going through years of study before picking up a knife, but then i'm not asking for a QB to be a surgeon. it just ain't the same thing. (and i've seen that brought up in discussions about whether to sit a rookie QB or not)

3) how would cam sitting this year made things better this year? how would starting cam this year this year instead of last year make him better? i don't think it would and mainly because cam starting or not starting is the issue or the problem. it's the coaching. it's the playcalling. would cam be better off having been insulated from this cluserf*ck of a season? wouldn't all of us? i mean every panther player and every panther fan would have been better off if this season hadn't happened the way it did...but it did happen. with every disaster in life that happens, though...those effected have one simple decision to make, are you going to let this beat you or are you going to use this as an opportunity to grow. being insulated from life's poo fests doesn't make you any better in the long run. it just makes you inexperienced and probably ill-prepared for the next time the poo hits the fan.

i just don't like this hindsight crap and i think that the next coaching staff will be better than the crap we've had this year. and i absolutely think that this will have been a good experience for cam and the team mainly because he's gotten more experience under his belt, more tape for him to watch, more knowledge of what defenses are throwing at him, and more time with his receivers. he's earning his stripes. how is that not a good thing?

sorry....he's not going to be like some david carr, and if he does turn into some sort of shell shocked fragile psyche carrbon coy or some VY headcase that runs away and makes everyone think he's suicidal, then isn't it better that we find out earlier rather than later? i don't think that's the case, tho.

oh....and would DA have done better as the starter this year or last year? nope. would chud have run things differently? probably. would he have run things better? doubt it...at least not his second year. remember what happened with his offense in cleveland. the first year it was pretty spectacular and was good enough to send a couple guys to the pro-bowl, including DA. what did he do the next year? he saw what worked and then tried doing something completely different. he out-thinks himself and the team. i don't think we knew how much of a problem it was. now we know. that's what chud does. he makes something brilliant one year and then destroys it the next. cam had nothing to do with that. he's a victim just like the rest of the team. it happened. move on.

[Mr. Scot]

answering the OP....

NO.

1) you don't sit a QB you draft in the first or second round UNLESS there is already a QB entrenched in the job already. this is especially true with the way rookie contracts are constructed now. you have to figure out if they can handle the pressures early. if they can't, they probably won't down the road.

You do if you have someone who can be a placeholder. That was Chris Chandler for McNair. Anderson could have been that for Newton too. And I disagree with the whole "if they can't start now, they never will" notion.

2) cam is one of the majority of people on the planet who learn best by experience...with practical application of things learned and live bullets being thrown at you....and no, i wouldn't have a surgeon operating on me without him going through years of study before picking up a knife, but then i'm not asking for a QB to be a surgeon. it just ain't the same thing. (and i've seen that brought up in discussions about whether to sit a rookie QB or not)

Football is one of those arenas where not all experience is good experience. This year is a prime example of that.

3) how would cam sitting this year made things better this year? how would starting cam this year this year instead of last year make him better? i don't think it would and mainly because cam starting or not starting is the issue or the problem. it's the coaching. it's the playcalling. would cam be better off having been insulated from this cluserf*ck of a season? wouldn't all of us? i mean every panther player and every panther fan would have been better off if this season hadn't happened the way it did...but it did happen. with every disaster in life that happens, though...those effected have one simple decision to make, are you going to let this beat you or are you going to use this as an opportunity to grow. being insulated from life's poo fests doesn't make you any better in the long run. it just makes you inexperienced and probably ill-prepared for the next time the poo hits the fan.

Reasons already listed prior.

i just don't like this hindsight crap and i think that the next coaching staff will be better than the crap we've had this year. and i absolutely think that this will have been a good experience for cam and the team mainly because he's gotten more experience under his belt, more tape for him to watch, more knowledge of what defenses are throwing at him, and more time with his receivers. he's earning his stripes. how is that not a good thing?

sorry....he's not going to be like some david carr, and if he does turn into some sort of shell shocked fragile psyche carrbon coy or some VY headcase that runs away and makes everyone think he's suicidal, then isn't it better that we find out earlier rather than later? i don't think that's the case, tho.

oh....and would DA have done better as the starter this year or last year? nope. would chud have run things differently? probably. would he have run things better? doubt it...at least not his second year. remember what happened with his offense in cleveland. the first year it was pretty spectacular and was good enough to send a couple guys to the pro-bowl, including DA. what did he do the next year? he saw what worked and then tried doing something completely different. he out-thinks himself and the team. i don't think we knew how much of a problem it was. now we know. that's what chud does. he makes something brilliant one year and then destroys it the next. cam had nothing to do with that. he's a victim just like the rest of the team. it happened. move on.

We don't really know that the next coaching staff's going to be better though, do we?

I don't really care whether last year would have been better or not. I sincerely doubt it. But yes, I believe that Newton would have been better off with a year of adjustment and preparation.

For the record, I went into this thread not expecting anyone to agree, but it's what I believe, and for reasons I've already explained.

Will we ever know? No. But it's what I think.

And I believe most coaches given the choice would rather bring a guy along slowly, but the nature of the game today is that many can't afford to do that. And young guys pay the price.

[rayzor]

newton's previous coaches said that he was someone that needed to be in the game to learn the most. sitting him on the bench wouldn't have helped him grow and i fully believed that.

and no...not all experiences are good, but what matters is the same thing with anyone....it all depends on what you do with both the good and bad experiences that makes those moments worthwhile and every moment can be worthwhile or valuable in some way. it all depends on your reaction to them and what you do with them.

[bleys]

You've tapped into part of what I'm pondering here.

Suppose Newton had sat and learned all the nuances of a pro offense for the first season. Would Chudzinski still have felt the need - for whatever reason- to switch to a college style offense in year two?

I know people will go with the "he set a bunch of rookie records" argument in this. Someone will have to tell me exactly what good those records are doing us right now.

Add in that the benefit of whatever good experience he got last year is being erased by the disaster of this year.

This may have been stated, but I completely fail to see how Cam sitting his 1st year and proving to be fully capable of playing at the NFL level has any relevance to Chud being a complete jackass in regards to the offensive scheme change in year 2..

[Mr. Scot]

newton's previous coaches said that he was someone that needed to be in the game to learn the most. sitting him on the bench wouldn't have helped him grow and i fully believed that.

and no...not all experiences are good, but what matters is the same thing with anyone....it all depends on what you do with both the good and bad experiences that makes those moments worthwhile and every moment can be worthwhile or valuable in some way. it all depends on your reaction to them and what you do with them.

Look at my last answer in the QB / Coaches thread.

Maybe that'll help you understand why I see things the way I do here.

[rayzor]

i know where you're coming from in this discussion that you essentially made two threads about.

we essentially beat that horse to death when we were talking about drafting a QB or not a couple years ago.

you think that QBs are better off sitting for a year or two or more and watching.

i disagree. i think that might be the case with some, but not most.

all QBs need solid coaching. all of them need good mentors. they all need decent teams around them. but sometimes they are just bad and overrated, like leaf and russell. sometimes they just can't handle the pressure that can come with the job, like carr and VY. sometimes they just aren't all that good to begin with, like clausen, quinn, and gabbert....or at least not good enough for the full-time starting gig.

coaching can sometimes help things. sometimes at best all it can do is cover up how bad someone is at their job. coaches might improve things, but it won't turn a dumb rock into a diamond.

[Avacashay]

I still don't see how sitting Cam would have done anything but set you guys back another year.

You ask why would Chud change a system that a QB has sat to learn, probably the same reason he would change or tweak a system that a QB had learned, played, and thrived in. Seems to me seeing something actually work for a player would give you even less reason to alter it.

You say start DA, but didn't the exact same thing happen with Chud and DA in Cleveland? DA was a pro-bowler one year, then the whole thing spontaneously combusted. You've seen the light now, It doesn't make any sense to want go back into the cave.

[Mr. Scot]

i know where you're coming from in this discussion that you essentially made two threads about.

we essentially beat that horse to death when we were talking about drafting a QB or not a couple years ago.

you think that QBs are better off sitting for a year or two or more and watching.

i disagree. i think that might be the case with some, but not most.

all QBs need solid coaching. all of them need good mentors. they all need decent teams around them. but sometimes they are just bad and overrated, like leaf and russell. sometimes they just can't handle the pressure that can come with the job, like carr and VY. sometimes they just aren't all that good to begin with, like clausen, quinn, and gabbert....or at least not good enough for the full-time starting gig.

coaching can sometimes help things. sometimes at best all it can do is cover up how bad someone is at their job. coaches might improve things, but it won't turn a dumb rock into a diamond.

There are guys who can definitely start right away and succeed, though I'd put that number lower than you would.

I would say the majority are better to wait, but in the NFL these days, that rarely happens.

[rayzor]

There are guys who can definitely start right away and succeed, though I'd put that number lower than you would.

I would say the majority are better to wait, but in the NFL these days, that rarely happens.

i think you can find out what the QBs are made of and what needs to be done to help them develop by getting them in the game. you give them tape of themselves playing with live bullets and see what they could have done better. sure, they coaching would help, so would an experienced QB with them watching the tapes, but there is no substitute for experience...esp. experience aided by good coaching/mentoring/teaching.

one without the other can result in disaster. both hand in hand stands the best chance of success.

most of these young guys starting, btw, were good enough as rookies to get the job done. the best QBs in the league....when did they start? imo, it doesn't really matter. when they did get the start they did good enough to keep the job, but you will never find proof that those who didn't start later than their rookie year wouldn't have been just as successful if they had started as a rookie. you will never find anything more than inconclusive evidence that those who did start as rookies and were successful would have been more successful had they waited.

you approach each player individually and treat them as such. you have projects and you have QBs that are ready to go right out of the gate. the ones you have that are ready to go, you draft them early and you get them on the field as soon as possible. if you are a team that can afford to sit one on the bench while another starts and wins...then you do it. usually tho, those teams aren't drafting in the first round. they draft projects....guys that you have to sit and groom...and those are the guys you don't draft in the first round.

[Icege]

I would still want him out there from day 1. Being as athletic as he is, Cam will (and has) trusted his arm or legs too much and hesitated on hitting open receivers. With more experience he will become better at his situational awareness.

[doghead28]

Start him from day 1. There is not time allowed in this leaque anymore for QB's to sit and learn. I don't like the read option style of offense. I would prefer to see him under center more. Time will tell if he will work out.

[SOJA]

started from day one, Cam is far from perfect but he isn't our problem. Coaching, poor o-line play, and a sub-par secondary are our problems