I think Mike Florio is right about everything he says here.

[Argus Plexus]

Nooooooooo no no no. Keep Stew, just restructure him. What is with these writers?

[h0llywood]

As mentioned above, the best way is to trade Stewart and dump Williams. Finding a David Wilson type player on the draft paired with Tolbert is not the end of the world considering how under utilized the position was used the last 2 years.

[Moose Hoover]

wait how did op start the thread?

[Ivan The Awesome]

You have Tolbert. People forget that. I'm with this movement. Dump both.

[Kevin Greene]

Florio proves once again he should do what he is extremely successful at.

That is a source for gathering and reporting breaking NFL news.

When he throws opinion in there the idiot comes out.

Of course we'd like to be rid of these two massive contracts.

But the cap hit that ripping the stewart band aid off would cause would be be catastrophic.

Marty Hurney was kept on the Panthers books 4 years too long, JR needed to pull his head out of his ass post 2008 draft.

It sucks but that's what incompetent mamagement brings.

[panthers55]

Anyone calculate how much it would cost us in dead cap space to get rid of both Williams and Stewart? Suffice it to say it would be upwards of 25 million. You would have to be an idiot to believe that would be a good idea. The reality is that we have not spent too much for the two running backs up to now. Together we have never spent more than 10 million for the 2 of them combined. The first time we will spend more than that is 2013 or this season. That is less than we spent on Kalil, Gross and Johnson. Too many people look at the total contracts and not what it costs on a yearly basis. The reality is that most folks believe that Williams would not earn all the money in his contract and that he would be cut. Problem really is that Stewart hasn't delivered so Williams is still the best of the two. That isn't what most of us expected. He hasn't dropped off and Stewart has not really blossomed.

Will we get rid of Williams? If we can't restructure, I suspect we will, but restructuring him isn't as bad as some might assume. If we give him a signing bonus and move his salary so that the majority of his cap hit won't be until 2015, and move 3 million to next year we reduce his cap this year and we are no worse off than this year because if we dump him as a June 1st cut it cost us 9.6 in dead cap over 2 years. If we reduce his cap hit to 5.4 this year by moving 3 million and then cut him next year as a June 1st cut, we still have the same 9 million in dead cap space but given the cap should be going up by 20 million in 2015 due to the television contract, we can better afford the hit then versus now. So we get him for another year at a modest 5.4 million cap hit and we aren't any worse off.

[Kevin Greene]

Anyone calculate how much it would cost us in dead cap space to get rid of both Williams and Stewart? Suffice it to say it would be upwards of 25 million. You would have to be an idiot to believe that would be a good idea.

Yep

The reality is that we have not spent too much for the two running backs up to now. Together we have never spent more than 10 million for the 2 of them combined. The first time we will spend more than that is 2013 or this season. That is less than we spent on Kalil, Gross and Johnson. TOo many people look at the total contracts and now what it cost on a yearly basis.

Times were much better when they were on rookie deals for sure, although even Stew's rookie contract was 14 million, max 20 mill with 11 mill guaranteed.

Oh how Marty loved his running backs.

[frash.exe]

so is there anybody left on here that still thinks paying both guys all this money to share one position was a good idea?

c'mon, there was like an army of people in august thinking we were going to hand it off 60 times a game to a superbowl victory

[firstdayfan]

To me the video didn't get absurd until he started talking about Cam...thats when I stopped it. He acted like Cam had a "slump" last year. I guess he only looked at the stats bc I thought Cam played extremely well in the last month or more of the season. Almost as well as any quarterback in the league. I think a lot of times we see a QB with immense talent and we forget that the mental aspect of the game has to catch up to that talent. Brees, Rodgers, Brady, even the Mannings took time to develop...it didn't happen overnight. If Cam was winning I don't even think this would be an issue. He'd be hailed as the next big thing, the national media would be slobbering over him and so forth. If there is anything the Panthers can do to help Cam's progression it would be to start winning games, and that starts with the coaches and goes all the way down to the kicker. If we keep losing its going to stunt his growth. Don't believe me? Look at Russell Wilson's progress and confidence as their season went on last year...and he didn't even have to do that much. Cam has to carry this team on his back sometimes. On the other side of the spectrum look at Matt Stafford, he has tons of talent and potential but bc of their record he's not even seen as a top 10 QB.

[CatMan72]

Like others have said, he's right in the sense that we're paying too much for the position, but dumping them both? NO.

[iampantherman]

Personally I've never understood our fixation on RBs, especially the ridiculous contracts. I've always assumed it was common knowledge that you first build a great line and then you can take an average/good back and make him look truly special. But what do we dumb fans know? I guess we should always defer to the geniuses running things(according to the way many of the huddlers talk)- they must know more than we do right?

[carolina-chuck]

Lol Florio

[Guest BlueBoy]

I think with Cam's ability to run, any RB would do a good enough job. Especially if we get a couple big time receivers in exchange together with a stout OL. Cam will give you at least 600 yards, any average RB will give you about 800. The FB will also rake in about 500. That's a good running team right there.

I think with big QBs like Kaepernick and Cam their best assets would be a WR duo like Julio Jones and Roddy White. Not two RBs. Because there isn't enough carries to go around.

So, I say get rid of both RBs(save a lot of money) and get 1 or 2 big time WRs in return. And pick up a good enough RB in the later round of the draft. And build a stout OL, now the offense can spread them out with those 2 WRs(with smith as #3, lafell #4), Cam and the cheap RB we get could gash them in the middle: SUPERBOWL.

[Guest BlueBoy]

Personally I've never understood our fixation on RBs, especially the ridiculous contracts. I've always assumed it was common knowledge that you first build a great line and then you can take an average/good back and make him look truly special. But what do we dumb fans know? I guess we should always defer to the geniuses running things(according to the way many of the huddlers talk)- they must know more than we do right?

Exactly. Why stack on RBs when you have a QB that can run. Not enough carries to go around. Plus, both RBs aren't on the field at the same time thus they're not providing double the contribution. We should start stacking on WRs on the offensive side. Because you can spread a team with 5 receiver set. An aging 5'8 guy as your #1 is not gonna cut it. I don't know how much intelligence is required for a coach to get that. I guess dumb jocks will always be dumb jocks.