Carolina Panthers Risers and Fallers - Ravens Edition

[Chaos]

Lafell, smdh - I was ready to annoint Gettis as a serious competitor for #2, then he got a drop too.

 

Garry Williams straight turrible

 

Star, Short, Frank the Tank, Keek all have the rising stock.  Our secondary still looks lost if we don't get the push up front though.

[Pejorative Miscreant]

My (less than expert and moderately... ok  extremely inebriated ) take on the game and the state of our Panthers. 

• I am overall much more optimistic about this team now.  If Ray Lewis had not retired and was still playing he would have been the 2nd best (speaking of current ability not total body of work so dont blast me) LB on the field.  If the Panthers show up this year in some big games I think that at the end of the year Luke will be regarded as the best MLB in the league and has the potential to carry that torch for a long time.  The defense as a whole seems ready to play and we have some ballers.  Mitchell needs to stop making douche bag plays but if they can somehow harness that the unit will be formidable each and every week.

 

• The offense is a question mark.  After seeing the first offensive series (most notable Bell being pushed back into Cam resulting in an errant pass) my opinion was reinforced that the OL is by far the weakest link on the team and should be addressed prior to the game with the Seagulls.

 

• After the Defense took over and the OL being so sucky, I concluded that we would see few if any "non vanilla" offensive plays.  Shula would keep everything conservative and keep the Gulls guessing.

 

• Overall we appear to have an elite defense and an offense with some potentially elite players that are being hamstrung by a sub-par OL.

I think the there are 3 things we need to do between now and opening day

 

1. Get Mitchell under control
2. Get a couple (or three) Offensive Linemen
3. Scrimmage our subpar OL against our extremely formidable front 7 in hopes of helping them have a crash course so they are not totally overwhelmed in September.

[Guest]

Riser: my dick when I saw what Keek did last night. I love that man. I'd have his babies. No homo of course.

[TheRumGone]

what was most impressive about star to me is how easy he made it look. He just tossed people aside, if you specifically watch him off the snap. he explodes off the line and surprises the poo out of the o-line. KK was all over the place hustling, slithering by the o-line and making plays as well. This DT tandem is so much fun to watch.

[Bronn]

I think folks are overreacting a bit about Armond Smith's ejection.

It was quite a little bit overblown of an incident in the first place, and Smith is a versatile player for us.

[Fox007]

Fua - fell

 

No seriously...he got knocked down on every play

 

 

[pantherj]

Riser - Sean McDermott. Never again will he be called McDerp. He just unleashed a style of defense that relies on tricking the QB, showing him a formation, and then shifting late to take away what he wanted to do only seconds before. It worked. And we had the pressure up front to force Flacco to make quick decisions. If we continue to execute this style of defense to perfection and generate pressure, then we might break the record for most interceptions by a Panthers defense.  

 

Fallers - O-line, Cam Newton.

[thefuzz]

Keek, Star, KK, Alexander, Davis.

 

 

O-Line, RB's, Cam (not just him on this one). every WR not named SS.

 

 

This O Line will only allow us to win 7-8 games even with that defensive front.  You still need to be able to put up 24 per game on O to win week in and week out.  This D will tire out quickly with rookie DT's and everyone flying around like crazy if the O can't stay on the field.

[French Navy]

K.K. has now looked good in all the preseason games, right? Great DT picks this year!

[Zaximus]

It's a good thing Gano has looked solid, because with this crappy offense we'll be kicking a lot of FGs.

 

Oline was terrible, and Cam was overthrowing, I'd probably put blame 66% oline and 33% on Cam for our troubles.  I can't blame Cam for not finding people open since we had ZERO run game but when someone WAS open and it overthrows, come on.  LaFell and Gettis with clear drops too.

 

Defense was awesome and fun to watch.  One thing I noticed is now that we have some DL depth we're able to have some better rotations in there.

[Mr. Scot]

Rising: Richard Rogers. As special teams coordinator he has put together what looks like could be the best special teams unit in many seasons.

I'd include Bruce DeHaven in that.

[TheRumGone]

he missed TWO fuging throws. 3 people dropped passes.

[rayzor]

Rising: Richard Rogers. As special teams coordinator he has put together what looks like could be the best special teams unit in many seasons.

 

i would say that rogers benefitted from bruce dehaven being his asst. coach/mentor. dehaven is pretty much a legend in the special teams world.

 

dehaven is far more qualified to be the STs coach. i'm not sure if dehaven was brought in to mentor  rogers or to be the back up plan in case rogers didn't work out. maybe both.

 

that said, when i found out that dehaven was coming here i knew we were in for a boon to our special teams. he is by far the best coach we've had on special teams that i can remember us ever having.

 

bills team site has a good bio on him and his accomplishments: http://www.buffalobills.com/team/coaches/bruce-dehaven/099219ff-7a96-49ce-af56-eb043b5d78dd

 

ginn was another great addition as well, but i think that dehaven is the guy that will help us more than anything on STs this year. i don't think that rogers is a scrub, btw. i think we were better when he took over last year, but there's no doubt in my mind that dehaven will make rogers better.

[jayflip]

Gano has won us all over somehow. Not one poster was content with him at the start of the offseason, but the man has some serious leg.