March 7, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode we look forward to the 2025 off-season, by looking back at the 2024 off-season, regular season, and playoffs. What can we learn from last year to help move forward to greater success in the future? We discuss the best and the worst from the last NFL season, while we look forward to free-agency. Keep Pounding!!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Carolina Panthers football in my mind podcast.
(00:06):
I'm your host Luke Farber.
And what is in my mind today?
Well, here we go.
2025.
New Year's almost started for football and free agency is just a day away officially.
Obviously moves have already started.
Guys have been getting released, traded, signed, all that good stuff.
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So we're going to dive into the off season news and what we can look forward to from
the Panthers.
But first, before we get to there, we can't really understand where we're going as well
without understanding where we've been.
So we're going to go ahead and recap 2024.
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And I'm actually going to start off with the entire league and kind of my takeaways from
the entire season because there are always lessons to learn from what we see on the football
field and what we hear from front offices and locker rooms and all that good stuff.
And then after I summarize the league, I'm going to go ahead and dive into the Panthers
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and we can figure out how and why this last year went the way it did.
And we can look forward to what the off season has in store for us.
So let's get to it.
Obviously last year, let's go ahead and start with free agency as we're about to start 2025
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free agency.
Let's look back at 2024 and what were the big signees and obviously it starts with the
quarterbacks and the biggest signee of course was Kirk Cousins, the $100 million all guaranteed
ban to the Atlanta Falcons, which, you know, according to league pundits and all this sort
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of stuff was supposed to put them easily atop our division, you know, because Atlanta has
all these weapons on offense.
They got B. John Robinson, they got Drake London, they got Kyle Pitts.
And with a good quarterback, Kirk Cousins, as opposed to Desmond Ritter, they were supposed
to take off and hit that next level and easily win the South.
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And we all know how that turned out, especially because we took them out last week of the
season.
So you know, in my estimation, I never thought they were the front runners.
It was always Tampa Bay, Baker Mayfield's a better quarterback.
They have a better defense.
They are coached better.
There is a more sustained culture of success and winning in Tampa than there is in Atlanta.
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Tampa has actually won a Super Bowl, actually two.
And so, you know, Kirk Cousins obviously didn't even end up being the starter for the full
season.
They took Michael Penick Jr. in the top 10 of the draft and he ended up starting the
final five, four or five games of the season, which was really an odd decision, especially
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since they were atop the division when they made the switch and ended up missing out on
the playoffs and the division title because they couldn't get it done down the stretch.
So does Atlanta regret their big purchase in free agency?
Probably not, just because, you know, it sounds stupid to say, but a hundred million dollars
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to an NFL franchise probably isn't that much.
Now it will hurt them with a salary cap, which us as Panthers fans love to see.
Next, obviously, there was Russell Wilson to the Steelers.
That was an interesting one given his poor performance in Denver.
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And actually the year before, his stats were very good.
It didn't result in the win column.
And obviously him and Sean Payton did not get along.
So him going to the Steelers was interesting because I think, you know, maybe they were
picked ahead of Cleveland in that division, but everybody saw Baltimore and Cincinnati
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as the front runners.
Nobody saw Pittsburgh having as good a year as they did.
And really, you know, at this point, everyone's, oh, we need to move on from Russell Wilson.
Russell Wilson didn't get it done at the end of the season.
And you're right, he didn't.
But if you watch the Steelers closely and you don't just box, score, scout, they just
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didn't have the dudes.
They did not have the horses on offense to put up points with the likes of the Ravens
and the Bengals.
I mean, the Browns fell flat on their face in that division.
But the top of the AFC is legit with all those quarterbacks.
You're talking about Mahomes and Allen and Jackson, Burrow.
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There are more, I'm sure.
It did not work out for them in the playoffs, obviously.
They did make the playoffs.
They weren't quite able to win the division, which I did pick Baltimore to win the division.
But I always saw Pittsburgh as a dark horse just because they have done such a good job
in the last couple of years in the draft and free agency at solidifying their lines, the
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solid play on defense.
But it was very obvious coming down the stretch that they didn't have the playmakers on offense.
And sure, they got George Pickens, but he was injured a lot towards the end of the season.
And you can't really count on him as much as other qualified athletes because he seems
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to be a bit of a head case, gets all these penalties all the time, kind of gets in bickering
matches with his coaches and teammates.
And I think sometimes you see it affect his production on the field.
So anyway, in my opinion, if Pittsburgh wants to take that next step and really challenge
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Baltimore and eventually Cincinnati, if they can get their shit together, then they need
more playmakers.
They need better production at running back, tight end and receiver.
So I don't think it's Russell Wilson's fault.
Will he be back?
It doesn't seem likely, but we'll see.
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Another big free agent signing, Saquon Barkley to the Eagles.
I mean, that was a home run of home runs.
And honestly, if he didn't sit out the last week of the division or last week of the season
because they were already set in their seeding and their playoff spot and you can't risk,
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you know, you're arguably your best offensive player and arguably the NFL MVP getting hurt
in the last week of the season just because he wants to break the all time single season
rushing record.
And he would have done it.
He would have done it easily.
And I would have loved to see that.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to see it.
However, we did get to see him run ruck shot in the playoffs.
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And that was incredible.
You know, love to see Saquon with a great offensive line get out of his purgatory in
New York.
Which unfortunately is very similar to CMC getting out of purgatory in Carolina.
He went to a good team and all of a sudden was an MVP of the league type impact player.
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The unfortunate part about running great running backs on bad teams is that even though they
can be great, obviously they can't always affect winning as much if they don't have
the support around them.
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Obviously, we saw that with CMC.
I am still a bit bitter that he did not win offensive player of the year over Michael
Thomas years ago when he had his thousand thousand season.
Now let's let's be honest about this.
There have only been three players ever to do thousand thousand and that is Roger Craig,
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Marshall Falk and Christian McCaffrey.
And for him not to win offensive player of the year because Michael Thomas set a catch
record playing with Drew Brees in an offensive pass heavy league where all the rules are
set up to make the passing game great and let receivers like Michael Thomas and quarterbacks
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like Drew Brees break all these records.
CMC did his thousand thousand season without Cam Newton for 14 of the 16 games that year.
So give me a break with Michael Thomas winning that award.
It should have been CMC's all the way.
Anyway moving on, we also had another good running back in free agency go to Baltimore
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which Derek Henry, King Henry as it were, you know after being a beast and the driving
force behind Tennessee's offense for the beginning of his career went and finally played with
a great quarterback in Lamar Jackson.
Obviously a running quarterback is going to open up lanes for running back so much more
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because the defense has to account for Lamar's running ability on every play.
And if they have to do that they're dedicating one defender to Jackson and they're taking
one away from Henry.
So I mean he had an amazing year.
It led to Baltimore having an incredible run.
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Obviously they came up short to Buffalo in the playoffs and Jackson, you know, all year
I was an Allen guy for MVP.
But you know you look at the stats at the end of the year and I'm not a big stats guy
as opposed to wins guy and impact guy.
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But it's hard to argue with the stats that Jackson put up.
But of course he would have never been able to put those stats up without the threat and
the execution of a Hall of Fame running back like Derek Henry.
So there were some really, really great running back acquisitions last year.
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Those two in particular.
And also we just saw a lot of running back movement impact players in free agency where
we haven't seen that in recent years.
So moving beyond the offensive skill position players obviously what else?
What were the other big impact free agent signings around the league?
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Well I'm a little bit biased but Robert Hunt and Damian Lewis, the Carolina Panthers,
helped solidify an absolutely horrendous offensive line.
And from what we just saw in the Super Bowl where the Eagles were able to just manhandle
the Chiefs because I mean the Eagles have one of the top five if not the number one
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defensive line in the NFL right now.
However it's very obvious that the Chiefs have a lower half of the league offensive
line.
They just aren't up to snuff.
And obviously if you don't have the hogs up front on the offensive line going against
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a team like that you have no chance.
And that's exactly what we saw in the Super Bowl.
So solidifying an offensive line is key to short term and long term success for NFL teams.
So Robert Hunt, Damian Lewis, offensive guards coming over to Carolina, they secured the
offensive line for this team and which was able to make an impact as the team hit their
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stride in the second half of the season.
Defensive line, DeNeil Hunter to the Texans was the big one obviously coming from Minnesota
and that really solidified or stacked up the Texans defensive line.
We saw that as they got after the Chargers in the playoffs, they got after the Chiefs
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in the playoffs.
If you have a bunch of dudes up front on the defensive line that you can just roll in and
roll out, depth is so key to that position because not only are you not going to tire
out your front line guys but those back line guys that are going to get in a dozen snaps
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a game or so, if they can make impact plays on those dozen snaps and also spell the main
guys so that they can make better plays on their percentage of snaps, that's what you
want.
So obviously DeNeil Hunter coming over to the Texans was huge.
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Another interesting defensive signing, we saw off the ball linebackers go, we saw Patrick
Queen to the Steelers and coming from the Ravens which was interesting that you get
a top inside linebacker going from one division foe to another obviously helped solidify that
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Pittsburgh defense and gave them a shot at the division and eventually got them to the
playoffs.
Another one we saw make an impact during the regular season and the playoffs was Bobby
Wagner to the Commanders.
I did not see them get into the NFC Championship game.
I did not see them get into the playoffs.
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I mean I thought it was a possibility with kind of the weakness of their division and
the general kind of weakness of the NFC wild card picture but I think Jaden Daniels blew
us all away and Dan Quinn reminded us of his success that he had in Atlanta as a head coach.
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And we see already that Bobby Wagner is going to be coming back to their team for next season
so they're set up pretty well.
Eventually he's going to wear down and his age is going to get to him but it obviously
has not happened yet.
The biggest DB signing was Stephon Gilmore to the Vikings.
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Obviously we would have loved him, seen him come back home to Carolina but that was not
going to happen.
He obviously made the right choice if he was going for a winner because the Vikings ending
up the regular season 14 and 3 and having their defense be a huge part of that, that
signing was invaluable.
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Okay, what were the big trades of the offseason?
Well it's pretty obvious that the biggest trade was Brian Burns from Carolina to New
York.
Now the Panthers got a second and a fifth and another conditional fifth for Brian Burns.
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I know not a lot of us Panther fans were psyched on the compensation that we got for Burns
especially being considered one of the top of the league type pass rushers defensive
ends.
But that's the thing with NFL trades.
Unless you've really got a guy at the top, top of his game, you're not going to be able
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to get a first round pick for him.
I mean even CMC we were able to get second, third, fourth, fifth, right?
But we couldn't get that first especially because he had been hurt.
Maybe if he hadn't been hurt we could have gotten that first.
And with Brian Burns if everyone in the league didn't know that we were trying to trade him
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so that we could get more assets to put around Bryce Young and the offense, we would have
been able to get more.
But if the whole league knows that you're trying to unload a guy, you're just not going
to be able to get very much for him or at least not as much as you want or think that
you should get.
However, how did that trade really work out?
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Well the Giants went three and 14 and the Panthers went five and 12.
So neither was a good team and we always want to measure success on these trades and free
agents on winning, right?
That's because that is the ultimate goal.
Who cares what the kind of stats that the guy put up but did they win?
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And no, they didn't win.
So sorry Brian but the Giants bad offense was even worse than the Panthers bad offense.
So you just didn't have as many opportunities to get sacks, right?
It's the offense's fault, right?
Sorry, I'm ragging on you a little bit just because I didn't like that you wanted to call
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out to Panthers offense is the reason why you didn't have production.
That's just the way shit goes, man.
Other big trades, we had Keenan Allen go from the Chargers to the Bears for a fourth round
pick which a fourth round pick is getting better.
If you study the league and the draft, most of the starters in the league are made up
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from the top three rounds.
Now a fourth round is obviously getting close to a third rounder and it depends on how high
that pick is going to be.
Obviously the Chargers made the playoffs so it's not going to be super high and Keenan
Allen's impact on the Bears didn't lead to many wins.
I think what a lot of talk over the off season with the additions of Keenan Allen and DJ
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Moore the year before and Roma Dunze through the draft, I mean those are three legit, legit
wide receivers and so everybody thought that Caleb Williams was going to come in and hit
the ground running and just blow up the league from the word go.
Obviously that didn't happen.
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He had the most sacks in the league.
I think that's the thing, one of the lessons we can learn is that if you don't have an
offensive line, especially when you're starting a young or rookie quarterback, you're going
to have problems.
And especially when you got a guy like Caleb coming in the league who, you know, his improvisational
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and scrambling skills were touted.
You know, very Mahomes like if you want to use that term, at least from what a lot of
people saw and what I saw at USC.
I mean the guy was incredible.
However that improvisational skill set should always come secondary to in time, in rhythm
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passing game because once you break off, you know, you have to have enough experience with
your offensive line and your receivers protecting you when the play breaks down and knowing
how to find those openings and knowing how to find your quarterback's eyes.
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Now if a quarterback like Williams and like Bryce did his first year is kind of in general
sped up because of the poor play of his offensive line and his inexperience in the league, then
they're going to exit the pocket and they're going to break the play down themselves before
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it actually breaks down.
And that makes things that much more difficult on the offensive line and receivers and actually
eliminates time for him in a lot of circumstances.
So playing in rhythm on time and really only using those improvisational skills when it's
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necessary is really what you want.
So I know that the Bears will definitely be looking for Williams to take a step in that,
especially with the 68 sacks.
So that can help with that because sacks kill drives.
I mean like that.
So obviously Keenan Allen to the Bears was not a huge impact this past season.
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We'll see what the impact is moving forward.
Then of course there was Hassan Reddick from the Eagles to the Jets for a second or third
round conditionally.
So that's a pretty high pick for a player that they were going to have to re-sign.
And of course if you don't know the drama that happened with that trade is that they
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didn't want to extend him or they didn't want to extend him like he wanted.
So they traded for the guy and then he still held out.
In fact he held out to the point where he only played 10 games and he only had two starts
in those 10 games, one sack.
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I mean the Jets have been a dumpster fire for a long time and this last year was as
much that as humanly possible it seemed.
It's funny to me, well in my personal opinion them letting Aaron Rodgers go was the first
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part of getting clear of that dumpster fire.
But of course they're going to have to do a lot of things right for a long time to become
relevant again.
And they just haven't shown much capability of doing that.
Then we had another pass rusher Matthew Judon going from the Patriots to the Falcons for
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a third round pick.
Pretty good pick.
However in 17 games he only had five and a half sacks.
The last year when he was playing for the Patriots even though he got hurt he had four
sacks in four games.
And the two previous years before that he had 15 and a half sacks and 12 and a half
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sacks.
So why he didn't perform in Atlanta, you know I think we can look at, well you know we're
not in the building but like I've said before I think the Falcons given their signing of
Kirk Cousins and then their drafting of Michael Penick and different things that they've done
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over this last year and in years past they don't seem to be on the same page.
And as Panthers fans you can see if your team, your front office, your coaching staff, your
players are not on the same page you're not going to have a whole lot of chance to have
success.
And like we said before we're handling success as far as wins and Atlanta fell short of the
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division which is the only measure of success that they should have had this last year.
They should have been out to win the division and they failed even though they were in prime
position with a month to go.
Looking again at the Jets because of course they traded for Devonte Adams from the Raiders
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for a second or a third round pick and we know how that worked out.
Anyway let's move on from free agency and trades of 2024 and let's look at the draft.
What happened in the draft and how did it affect the season?
Well anyway there were a bunch of touted QBs taken early in this draft.
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Obviously Caleb Williams first to the Bears, Jaden Daniels second to the Commanders, Drake
May third to the Patriots.
Other first rounders we had Michael Pennex Jr. to the Falcons, Bo Nix to the Broncos and
J.J. McCarthy to the Vikings.
Now McCarthy had a season-ending injury in the preseason never got close to the field
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plus Sam Darnold the starter there played out of his mind as a Pro Bowler so we can
just put that aside.
Caleb Williams we already kind of discussed his struggles.
Jaden Daniels man I don't think anybody saw the Commanders coming the way they did and
for Daniels everyone's at composure, composure, composure.
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Nothing rattles this guy.
He's always ready to make the next big play and he almost seemingly always does and that
is very rare for a young player especially a rookie.
And we'll go back to certain things that we've talked about about these young quarterbacks
coming into the league is that a lot of times the more experience they have the better.
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So you know you're looking at Caleb Williams who was a two three-year starter I believe
and then you look at Daniels Daniels started for six years from Arizona State to LSU and
won a Heisman Trophy so that experience was invaluable and same sort of thing going back
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to Brock Purdy his experience as a six-year starter in college football is invaluable
and you look at somebody like Bryce Young he came in and obviously had the odds stacked
against him from certain ways the franchise he went to was set up as but he had that you
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know two-year starter experience instead of you know these guys that are having four,
five, six as they're kind of less touted in the beginning of their career and become big
time players as they transfer around and able to gather experience.
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So that is definitely something to look at I mean Bo Nix is the same thing he started
Auburn and Oregon and was big time at at Oregon especially Auburn was a bit of a struggle
at times but he was always a big time prospect and had good immediate success in the NFL
and once again it also matters where you go the coaching staff the players you have around
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you the offensive line obviously and the skill position players so oh excuse me so it was
pretty remarkable what some of these guys did in their rookie year now let's look at
Jaden Daniel or let's let's look at the Pro Bowlers were there any rookie Pro Bowlers
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and yes Jaden Daniel was a rookie Pro Bowler first of all his record was 12 and 5 as a
starter and obviously went 2 and 1 in the playoffs as well which included a victory
on the road in Detroit over the number one seed in the NFC so he had 31 touchdowns to
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12 turnovers with 69% completion percentage which is pretty damn good you know as far
as completion percentage touchdown to turnover ratio and obviously the biggest stat in there
is the 12 and 5 record and the playoff berth and the 2 and 1 in the playoffs they almost
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had a chance at the division but hey the Eagles who won their division won the Super Bowl
so we're not going to hold that against him.
Another rookie Pro Bowler we had Jared Virst pass rusher from the Rams they went 10 and
7 and they were a division winner now his stats don't blow your mind at 36 tackles
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and four and a half sacks but I was able to watch the Rams play a few different games
last year and the physicality that he played with and how many times I saw him just bowl
over an offensive line and just knock him off his feet that impact was felt through
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the screen I mean and obviously it was felt on the field the Rams draft so well I mean
if less need is the GM there and Sean McVeigh obviously knows what he's looking for and
knows how to coach but those two Florida State defensive linemen they took in the draft this
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past year that's going to set them up for the future yeah sure they don't have Aaron
Donald anymore but man they are good at draft and develop.
The other rookie Pro Bowler Brock Bowers man he was my guy in the draft last year I mean
he's been my guy since I saw him dominate as a true freshman at Georgia you know when
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I saw that I thought he was the best tight end in the country as a true freshman at the
best school in the country and what does he do in his rookie year in the NFL he's the
best tight end in the NFL he was the one guy one guy with the Panthers two high second
round picks last year that I was you know it's like I didn't want him to trade up but
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if they were going to trade up for one guy Brock Bowers was that guy just because I think
he is potential best tight end ever like the his skill set the way he runs routes the way
he catches the ball his competitiveness and we saw it obviously now you know just kind
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of like the running back a great tight end isn't always going to result in a whole lot
of wins especially if you don't have much around them and the Raiders roster is really
challenged right now I think it was a smart idea to bring Pete Carroll in I've had an
up close view of him in Seattle over the years and just like the Rams and Sean McVeigh if
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there's anybody who's great at draft and develop it's Pete Carroll so the Raiders are going
to need a ton of that if they're going to become relevant again it's also another reason
why I love the hire of Canalys last year is if we can bring some of that draft and develop
to the Panthers which has always kind of been a challenge for us in the history of our franchise
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you know even John Fox those Ron Rivera years they always wanted to start veterans and play
veterans and there were just so many guys that were young and talented and in my opinion
you know in flashes so ready to be on the field especially when you look back at big
money Charles Johnson Super Mario Addison those guys were ready to get on the field
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as starters a couple years before they did in you know and so I love the draft and develop
model is to really really invest in the growth of your young players.
Okay moving on from the draft we'll head to the regular season and what do we see let's
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see let's go with our biggest surprise team in a good way and it's got to be the Vikings
and I you know that you could say the commanders you could say the Steelers you could say a
few others but the biggest surprise at least in my mind you know I kind of expected something
out of the different teams that kind of jumped up but the biggest surprise for me was definitely
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the Vikings I mean they went 14 and 3 and Sam Darnold was a huge surprise I mean I like
the guy I always thought he had more in his bag than that we got out of him in Carolina
our coaching our front office was suspect at the time we didn't have a whole lot around
the guy I always was a believer that he was better than what he showed however did I expect
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him to come out and set the league on fire and be a pro bowler and go 14 and 3 no no
I did not in fact his best season as a starter before this was 2019 for the Jets and he only
went 7 and 6 that's his only winning season and the rest of his seasons were far below
500 anyway he had six 36 touchdowns and 16 turnovers and that is the knock on Darnold
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is that he turns the ball over too much and 16 is a lot of turnovers but so is 36 touchdowns
so if Sam can continue to develop and continue to get better and there's no reason why he
can't I mean we've seen a lot of older quarterbacks in recent years get much better with experience
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and there's no reason why he can't especially with good coaching it'll be interesting to
see where he ends up I figured he would be back with the Vikings but we don't know how
that's going to turn out and then of course there was Brian Flores in his blitzing defense
who was fifth in points allowed for the league which for me you know I don't know why anybody
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looks at any other defensive stats besides points allowed to determine the best defenses
it makes no sense to oh well they gave up the least amount of yards well it's like how
many points did they gave up did they win any games because there was a couple years
ago where the Panthers were a top five top ten defense and we only won five games you
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know because of course they measure top defenses in yards allowed not points allowed so give
me a break with that anyway biggest surprise team in a bad way for me was the Niners you
know I think looking back on it now you can look back at the Super Bowl hangover which
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seems to be very real for most teams and the offseason turmoil as far as you know everybody
wanting new contracts people getting injured Shanahan you know he didn't quite seem to
have you know I don't want to say control of the locker room because you don't want
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control but but you want cohesion right you want to have everybody on the same page and
it did not seem excuse me like the Niners were on the same page and obviously then the
injuries us as Panthers fans this last season we know about injuries but they had a huge
slew of injuries obviously they lost Brandon Iuke for the season they Christian McCaffrey
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didn't play at all they lost their other backup running backs Trent Williams spent most of
the year out their defensive players obviously Dre Greenlaw had you know torn his Achilles
in the Super Bowl the last year and just nagging injuries for almost everybody Fred Warner
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their all-world linebacker play played the whole season with a broken ankle so they definitely
were bit by the injury bug the Super Bowl hangover possibly the locker room culture
who knows and they couldn't hold a late lead especially against their division they had
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poor special teams and looking at another set that we just went over they were 29th
in the NFL and points allowed and you're just not going to be a very good team if you give
up that many points now the 6-11 record was definitely a surprise them not making the
playoffs is definitely a surprise to me anyway it's just when I looked at that division before
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the season started and you look at the best rosters in the NFL as far as talent level
and they obviously had an upper echelon roster but when you get hit with injuries and different
outside factors and you just don't play as well things happen and there are teams that
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go from worst to first every year in the NFL and there are teams that go from first to
worst and that was definitely the Niners now moving on to the biggest surprise player in
a good way and I am definitely a homer on this one but it's got to be Bryce Young I'm
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sorry but with how bad he was as a rookie and with how bad the Panthers franchise was
last year his second half of the season gives this franchise hope that we have a guy that
knows how to play quarterback at the NFL level well let's kind of break it down obviously
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he went four and eight as a starter which is not good you know I'm not going to sugar
coat the not good parts here four and eight not a good enough record obviously if he repeats
that this next year that's going to be difficult right but the nice thing that you want to
see is growth out of a young player especially at quarterback and that was the difficult
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part about last year is we basically didn't see any growth and when he started the season
oh and two this year with one touchdown and three turnovers and got benched he wasn't
showing any improvement there either I mean I remember his first pass of the year it was
a slant to Deontay Johnson who is wide open over the middle against New Orleans and he
(39:28):
threw the ball three yards over his head and it was intercepted and wow that was a kick
in the pants to start the year especially because I expected to see some growth especially
with you know coach like Canales coming from Pete Carroll working with quarterbacks and
kind of being that whisperer that everybody talks about so I expected a bit more but that's
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that's the whole thing about new regime regimes new coaching staffs new front offices half
the roster is new that it just takes time to gel to get continuity to have everything
work I've been experiencing this so much in my own life recently is just because you put
in work every day that doesn't mean you're going to get results every day but if you
(40:20):
continue to put in that constant work at some point the results are going to happen so Bryce's
reinstated midseason and from midseason on he obviously goes four and six since he started
oh and two so that's a little bit better but you know obviously not a winning record in
(40:41):
that four and six stretch he had 20 touchdowns to eight turnovers so the 20 touchdowns in
10 games obviously that's to a game so that's pretty solid we'd love to see that uptick
eight turnovers in 10 games love to see that go down to however if you look at what was
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around him and the growth that he progressed through that 10 game stretch there's a lot
more to be optimistic about I mean first off his starting two wide receivers were two rookies
he had a first round rookie number 32 overall Xavier Ligette who had a really up and down
(41:24):
rookie season but that's to be expected a lot of rookies have up and down seasons doesn't
matter how high they're picked and then we have Jalen Coker who was an undrafted rookie
free agent and he was our number two for most of the season that middle stretch Adam Thielam
was hurt so we didn't have old reliable luckily when he came back he got that old reliable
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to add to our two rookie wide receivers and a rookie tight end so we got a second year
quarterback throwing to three rookies and a veteran and the best quarterbacks in the
NFL can do more with less I mean that's when cam really took that next step and became
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that MVP type player is when Kelvin Benjamin went down in that preseason before 2015 and
we're thinking who's he gonna throw the ball to we got Ted Ginn Philly Brown Jericho Cotry
you know it was a hodgepodge of what a lot of the league would consider less than wide
(42:32):
receivers maybe not even number twos well it didn't stop cam from having an MVP type
season because the best players especially quarterback can do more with less and to see
Bryce as a second year player without having any success in his first year and the beginning
(42:54):
of his second year for him to end the season with that type of skill group and to be winning
games and to be putting up 30 40 point games and to be pushing playoff teams and Super
Bowl teams to the brink to overtime to last second victories that's that's exactly what
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we want to see as growth out of it so moving on he took 62 sacks as a rookie and I chronicled
our offensive lineman free agent signings that were able to get to solidify that offensive
line for him he only took 29 sacks this year and one thing I'll hold on that a Hall of
(43:45):
Famer quarterback Troy Aikman has said is that sacks are a quarterback stat much more
so than they are an offensive line stat and that was one of the best things to see out
of Bryce and his second half growth was his decisiveness and his ability to get rid of
the ball on time and so that was fantastic to see now one of the things that we have
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to be cautious about obviously with that 4-8 record and with our 5-12 record for the season
we're a long way from where we want to be obviously we want to be in the playoffs we
want to win the division and we want to win the Super Bowl and we're still a long ways
from that so as we saw this last year CJ Stroud had what some would consider to be the greatest
(44:36):
rookie season of a quarterback ever well he came back and struggled a bit his sophomore
year there was a sophomore slump compared to some of the things he was able to do well
as a rookie so with Bryce having that success finally or limited success in this season
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will the league catch up will the league study him a little bit harder will they start to
take away things and will he struggle because of it that's another question to Jayden Daniels
and Bo Nicks and the little bit of Michael Pennex that we saw is will these guys be able
to succeed at a similar level in their sophomore year because a lot of guys struggle with certain
(45:26):
things in their second season that they didn't in their first so that is a very big thing
and we'll see how it goes next biggest surprise player in a bad way I don't know I couldn't
really decide much on this one but if there was one thing that stood out in my mind that
(45:47):
I've just never seen before it was Anthony Richardson quarterback for the Colts who took
himself out of the game after a play where he scrambled because he was tired I just I've
never seen that from a quarterback especially an NFL quarterback take themselves out of
(46:13):
a game for a play because they were tired and especially when they're you know a running
quarterback to begin with that was just really odd and you know I think his teammates and
his coaching staff thought so as well and you know they obviously talked to him and
whatnot and he he had his time on the bench just like Bryce did this last year and he
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also seems to be very injury prone which as a running quarterback it's it's very possible
I mean unfortunately that's what ended cam's career too early was all the hits and all
the injuries so we wish him health and just I think probably want to stay in the game
(46:59):
even if you're a little winded who knows moving on to the playoffs well the biggest surprise
in a good way well the commanders run to the championship game obviously they were one
of the surprise teams of the regular season them getting to the NFC championship game
especially with a rookie quarterback the way they did was shocking in a way I you know
(47:23):
I I didn't think they had any chance to beat Detroit in Detroit but of course with near
the Lions and you turn the ball over five times even though you have over 500 yards
of offense they were obviously able to do whatever they wanted except for not turn the
(47:44):
ball over and it's incredible to me that one of their turnovers was a trick play a pass
by a wide receiver now why would you do that in a playoff game that you've already turned
the ball over a bunch of times you know I don't get it but anyway the biggest surprise
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in a bad way I thought was kind of a twofer and it was two teams they got out physical
that I didn't think they were going to get out physical I mean if you're looking at the
Chargers and Jim Harbaugh that's been his staple no matter where he's been at Stanford
for the 49ers at Michigan he wants the more physical team especially on the offensive
(48:34):
line he wants to beat you up with the running game and they just couldn't they got beat
up by the Texans and I think we well I know I underestimated that part of the Texans game
and I think looking at their coach D'Amico Ryan's it totally makes sense also I thought
(48:56):
the Bills getting out physical by the Chiefs was a bit surprising now I know the Chiefs
are a very physical team especially on the defensive line but for Josh Allen to get stopped
on quarterback sneaks multiple times for less than a yard sometimes less than a foot that
(49:17):
was shocking to me and unfortunately I just think the Bills didn't quite have their a
game because if they did have their a game they would have won that game you know I was
on the Bills bandwagon all year though so I guess that's my bad anyway we all saw the
(49:39):
Super Bowl we all saw what happened to Philly over Casey I had that by the way but we'll
see what happens this next year you know I'm really excited for free agency to start and
this episode went a bit longer than I anticipated so I'm gonna go ahead and recap the Panthers
(49:59):
season on the next one and we'll get that out to you soon and we'll see what the outlook
of 2025 is until then keep pounding.
Hello and welcome to the Carolina Panthers football in my mind podcast.
(00:06):
I'm your host Luke Farber.
And what is in my mind today?
Well, here we go.
2025.
New Year's almost started for football and free agency is just a day away officially.
Obviously moves have already started.
Guys have been getting released, traded, signed, all that good stuff.
(00:28):
So we're going to dive into the off season news and what we can look forward to from
the Panthers.
But first, before we get to there, we can't really understand where we're going as well
without understanding where we've been.
So we're going to go ahead and recap 2024.
(00:49):
And I'm actually going to start off with the entire league and kind of my takeaways from
the entire season because there are always lessons to learn from what we see on the football
field and what we hear from front offices and locker rooms and all that good stuff.
And then after I summarize the league, I'm going to go ahead and dive into the Panthers
(01:11):
and we can figure out how and why this last year went the way it did.
And we can look forward to what the off season has in store for us.
So let's get to it.
Obviously last year, let's go ahead and start with free agency as we're about to start 2025
(01:32):
free agency.
Let's look back at 2024 and what were the big signees and obviously it starts with the
quarterbacks and the biggest signee of course was Kirk Cousins, the $100 million all guaranteed
ban to the Atlanta Falcons, which, you know, according to league pundits and all this sort
(01:54):
of stuff was supposed to put them easily atop our division, you know, because Atlanta has
all these weapons on offense.
They got B. John Robinson, they got Drake London, they got Kyle Pitts.
And with a good quarterback, Kirk Cousins, as opposed to Desmond Ritter, they were supposed
to take off and hit that next level and easily win the South.
(02:20):
And we all know how that turned out, especially because we took them out last week of the
season.
So you know, in my estimation, I never thought they were the front runners.
It was always Tampa Bay, Baker Mayfield's a better quarterback.
They have a better defense.
They are coached better.
There is a more sustained culture of success and winning in Tampa than there is in Atlanta.
(02:47):
Tampa has actually won a Super Bowl, actually two.
And so, you know, Kirk Cousins obviously didn't even end up being the starter for the full
season.
They took Michael Penick Jr. in the top 10 of the draft and he ended up starting the
final five, four or five games of the season, which was really an odd decision, especially
(03:14):
since they were atop the division when they made the switch and ended up missing out on
the playoffs and the division title because they couldn't get it done down the stretch.
So does Atlanta regret their big purchase in free agency?
Probably not, just because, you know, it sounds stupid to say, but a hundred million dollars
(03:41):
to an NFL franchise probably isn't that much.
Now it will hurt them with a salary cap, which us as Panthers fans love to see.
Next, obviously, there was Russell Wilson to the Steelers.
That was an interesting one given his poor performance in Denver.
(04:03):
And actually the year before, his stats were very good.
It didn't result in the win column.
And obviously him and Sean Payton did not get along.
So him going to the Steelers was interesting because I think, you know, maybe they were
picked ahead of Cleveland in that division, but everybody saw Baltimore and Cincinnati
(04:26):
as the front runners.
Nobody saw Pittsburgh having as good a year as they did.
And really, you know, at this point, everyone's, oh, we need to move on from Russell Wilson.
Russell Wilson didn't get it done at the end of the season.
And you're right, he didn't.
But if you watch the Steelers closely and you don't just box, score, scout, they just
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didn't have the dudes.
They did not have the horses on offense to put up points with the likes of the Ravens
and the Bengals.
I mean, the Browns fell flat on their face in that division.
But the top of the AFC is legit with all those quarterbacks.
You're talking about Mahomes and Allen and Jackson, Burrow.
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There are more, I'm sure.
It did not work out for them in the playoffs, obviously.
They did make the playoffs.
They weren't quite able to win the division, which I did pick Baltimore to win the division.
But I always saw Pittsburgh as a dark horse just because they have done such a good job
in the last couple of years in the draft and free agency at solidifying their lines, the
(05:39):
solid play on defense.
But it was very obvious coming down the stretch that they didn't have the playmakers on offense.
And sure, they got George Pickens, but he was injured a lot towards the end of the season.
And you can't really count on him as much as other qualified athletes because he seems
(06:01):
to be a bit of a head case, gets all these penalties all the time, kind of gets in bickering
matches with his coaches and teammates.
And I think sometimes you see it affect his production on the field.
So anyway, in my opinion, if Pittsburgh wants to take that next step and really challenge
(06:24):
Baltimore and eventually Cincinnati, if they can get their shit together, then they need
more playmakers.
They need better production at running back, tight end and receiver.
So I don't think it's Russell Wilson's fault.
Will he be back?
It doesn't seem likely, but we'll see.
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Another big free agent signing, Saquon Barkley to the Eagles.
I mean, that was a home run of home runs.
And honestly, if he didn't sit out the last week of the division or last week of the season
because they were already set in their seeding and their playoff spot and you can't risk,
(07:09):
you know, you're arguably your best offensive player and arguably the NFL MVP getting hurt
in the last week of the season just because he wants to break the all time single season
rushing record.
And he would have done it.
He would have done it easily.
And I would have loved to see that.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to see it.
However, we did get to see him run ruck shot in the playoffs.
(07:33):
And that was incredible.
You know, love to see Saquon with a great offensive line get out of his purgatory in
New York.
Which unfortunately is very similar to CMC getting out of purgatory in Carolina.
He went to a good team and all of a sudden was an MVP of the league type impact player.
(07:56):
The unfortunate part about running great running backs on bad teams is that even though they
can be great, obviously they can't always affect winning as much if they don't have
the support around them.
(08:16):
Obviously, we saw that with CMC.
I am still a bit bitter that he did not win offensive player of the year over Michael
Thomas years ago when he had his thousand thousand season.
Now let's let's be honest about this.
There have only been three players ever to do thousand thousand and that is Roger Craig,
(08:38):
Marshall Falk and Christian McCaffrey.
And for him not to win offensive player of the year because Michael Thomas set a catch
record playing with Drew Brees in an offensive pass heavy league where all the rules are
set up to make the passing game great and let receivers like Michael Thomas and quarterbacks
(09:02):
like Drew Brees break all these records.
CMC did his thousand thousand season without Cam Newton for 14 of the 16 games that year.
So give me a break with Michael Thomas winning that award.
It should have been CMC's all the way.
Anyway moving on, we also had another good running back in free agency go to Baltimore
(09:31):
which Derek Henry, King Henry as it were, you know after being a beast and the driving
force behind Tennessee's offense for the beginning of his career went and finally played with
a great quarterback in Lamar Jackson.
Obviously a running quarterback is going to open up lanes for running back so much more
(09:54):
because the defense has to account for Lamar's running ability on every play.
And if they have to do that they're dedicating one defender to Jackson and they're taking
one away from Henry.
So I mean he had an amazing year.
It led to Baltimore having an incredible run.
(10:17):
Obviously they came up short to Buffalo in the playoffs and Jackson, you know, all year
I was an Allen guy for MVP.
But you know you look at the stats at the end of the year and I'm not a big stats guy
as opposed to wins guy and impact guy.
(10:38):
But it's hard to argue with the stats that Jackson put up.
But of course he would have never been able to put those stats up without the threat and
the execution of a Hall of Fame running back like Derek Henry.
So there were some really, really great running back acquisitions last year.
(11:00):
Those two in particular.
And also we just saw a lot of running back movement impact players in free agency where
we haven't seen that in recent years.
So moving beyond the offensive skill position players obviously what else?
What were the other big impact free agent signings around the league?
(11:24):
Well I'm a little bit biased but Robert Hunt and Damian Lewis, the Carolina Panthers,
helped solidify an absolutely horrendous offensive line.
And from what we just saw in the Super Bowl where the Eagles were able to just manhandle
the Chiefs because I mean the Eagles have one of the top five if not the number one
(11:49):
defensive line in the NFL right now.
However it's very obvious that the Chiefs have a lower half of the league offensive
line.
They just aren't up to snuff.
And obviously if you don't have the hogs up front on the offensive line going against
(12:11):
a team like that you have no chance.
And that's exactly what we saw in the Super Bowl.
So solidifying an offensive line is key to short term and long term success for NFL teams.
So Robert Hunt, Damian Lewis, offensive guards coming over to Carolina, they secured the
offensive line for this team and which was able to make an impact as the team hit their
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stride in the second half of the season.
Defensive line, DeNeil Hunter to the Texans was the big one obviously coming from Minnesota
and that really solidified or stacked up the Texans defensive line.
We saw that as they got after the Chargers in the playoffs, they got after the Chiefs
(12:59):
in the playoffs.
If you have a bunch of dudes up front on the defensive line that you can just roll in and
roll out, depth is so key to that position because not only are you not going to tire
out your front line guys but those back line guys that are going to get in a dozen snaps
(13:21):
a game or so, if they can make impact plays on those dozen snaps and also spell the main
guys so that they can make better plays on their percentage of snaps, that's what you
want.
So obviously DeNeil Hunter coming over to the Texans was huge.
(13:42):
Another interesting defensive signing, we saw off the ball linebackers go, we saw Patrick
Queen to the Steelers and coming from the Ravens which was interesting that you get
a top inside linebacker going from one division foe to another obviously helped solidify that
(14:05):
Pittsburgh defense and gave them a shot at the division and eventually got them to the
playoffs.
Another one we saw make an impact during the regular season and the playoffs was Bobby
Wagner to the Commanders.
I did not see them get into the NFC Championship game.
I did not see them get into the playoffs.
(14:26):
I mean I thought it was a possibility with kind of the weakness of their division and
the general kind of weakness of the NFC wild card picture but I think Jaden Daniels blew
us all away and Dan Quinn reminded us of his success that he had in Atlanta as a head coach.
(14:50):
And we see already that Bobby Wagner is going to be coming back to their team for next season
so they're set up pretty well.
Eventually he's going to wear down and his age is going to get to him but it obviously
has not happened yet.
The biggest DB signing was Stephon Gilmore to the Vikings.
(15:12):
Obviously we would have loved him, seen him come back home to Carolina but that was not
going to happen.
He obviously made the right choice if he was going for a winner because the Vikings ending
up the regular season 14 and 3 and having their defense be a huge part of that, that
signing was invaluable.
(15:33):
Okay, what were the big trades of the offseason?
Well it's pretty obvious that the biggest trade was Brian Burns from Carolina to New
York.
Now the Panthers got a second and a fifth and another conditional fifth for Brian Burns.
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I know not a lot of us Panther fans were psyched on the compensation that we got for Burns
especially being considered one of the top of the league type pass rushers defensive
ends.
But that's the thing with NFL trades.
Unless you've really got a guy at the top, top of his game, you're not going to be able
(16:21):
to get a first round pick for him.
I mean even CMC we were able to get second, third, fourth, fifth, right?
But we couldn't get that first especially because he had been hurt.
Maybe if he hadn't been hurt we could have gotten that first.
And with Brian Burns if everyone in the league didn't know that we were trying to trade him
(16:43):
so that we could get more assets to put around Bryce Young and the offense, we would have
been able to get more.
But if the whole league knows that you're trying to unload a guy, you're just not going
to be able to get very much for him or at least not as much as you want or think that
you should get.
However, how did that trade really work out?
(17:05):
Well the Giants went three and 14 and the Panthers went five and 12.
So neither was a good team and we always want to measure success on these trades and free
agents on winning, right?
That's because that is the ultimate goal.
Who cares what the kind of stats that the guy put up but did they win?
(17:25):
And no, they didn't win.
So sorry Brian but the Giants bad offense was even worse than the Panthers bad offense.
So you just didn't have as many opportunities to get sacks, right?
It's the offense's fault, right?
Sorry, I'm ragging on you a little bit just because I didn't like that you wanted to call
(17:47):
out to Panthers offense is the reason why you didn't have production.
That's just the way shit goes, man.
Other big trades, we had Keenan Allen go from the Chargers to the Bears for a fourth round
pick which a fourth round pick is getting better.
If you study the league and the draft, most of the starters in the league are made up
(18:11):
from the top three rounds.
Now a fourth round is obviously getting close to a third rounder and it depends on how high
that pick is going to be.
Obviously the Chargers made the playoffs so it's not going to be super high and Keenan
Allen's impact on the Bears didn't lead to many wins.
I think what a lot of talk over the off season with the additions of Keenan Allen and DJ
(18:39):
Moore the year before and Roma Dunze through the draft, I mean those are three legit, legit
wide receivers and so everybody thought that Caleb Williams was going to come in and hit
the ground running and just blow up the league from the word go.
Obviously that didn't happen.
(19:00):
He had the most sacks in the league.
I think that's the thing, one of the lessons we can learn is that if you don't have an
offensive line, especially when you're starting a young or rookie quarterback, you're going
to have problems.
And especially when you got a guy like Caleb coming in the league who, you know, his improvisational
(19:22):
and scrambling skills were touted.
You know, very Mahomes like if you want to use that term, at least from what a lot of
people saw and what I saw at USC.
I mean the guy was incredible.
However that improvisational skill set should always come secondary to in time, in rhythm
(19:51):
passing game because once you break off, you know, you have to have enough experience with
your offensive line and your receivers protecting you when the play breaks down and knowing
how to find those openings and knowing how to find your quarterback's eyes.
(20:12):
Now if a quarterback like Williams and like Bryce did his first year is kind of in general
sped up because of the poor play of his offensive line and his inexperience in the league, then
they're going to exit the pocket and they're going to break the play down themselves before
(20:33):
it actually breaks down.
And that makes things that much more difficult on the offensive line and receivers and actually
eliminates time for him in a lot of circumstances.
So playing in rhythm on time and really only using those improvisational skills when it's
(20:56):
necessary is really what you want.
So I know that the Bears will definitely be looking for Williams to take a step in that,
especially with the 68 sacks.
So that can help with that because sacks kill drives.
I mean like that.
So obviously Keenan Allen to the Bears was not a huge impact this past season.
(21:22):
We'll see what the impact is moving forward.
Then of course there was Hassan Reddick from the Eagles to the Jets for a second or third
round conditionally.
So that's a pretty high pick for a player that they were going to have to re-sign.
And of course if you don't know the drama that happened with that trade is that they
(21:49):
didn't want to extend him or they didn't want to extend him like he wanted.
So they traded for the guy and then he still held out.
In fact he held out to the point where he only played 10 games and he only had two starts
in those 10 games, one sack.
(22:13):
I mean the Jets have been a dumpster fire for a long time and this last year was as
much that as humanly possible it seemed.
It's funny to me, well in my personal opinion them letting Aaron Rodgers go was the first
(22:33):
part of getting clear of that dumpster fire.
But of course they're going to have to do a lot of things right for a long time to become
relevant again.
And they just haven't shown much capability of doing that.
Then we had another pass rusher Matthew Judon going from the Patriots to the Falcons for
(22:54):
a third round pick.
Pretty good pick.
However in 17 games he only had five and a half sacks.
The last year when he was playing for the Patriots even though he got hurt he had four
sacks in four games.
And the two previous years before that he had 15 and a half sacks and 12 and a half
(23:15):
sacks.
So why he didn't perform in Atlanta, you know I think we can look at, well you know we're
not in the building but like I've said before I think the Falcons given their signing of
Kirk Cousins and then their drafting of Michael Penick and different things that they've done
(23:40):
over this last year and in years past they don't seem to be on the same page.
And as Panthers fans you can see if your team, your front office, your coaching staff, your
players are not on the same page you're not going to have a whole lot of chance to have
success.
And like we said before we're handling success as far as wins and Atlanta fell short of the
(24:05):
division which is the only measure of success that they should have had this last year.
They should have been out to win the division and they failed even though they were in prime
position with a month to go.
Looking again at the Jets because of course they traded for Devonte Adams from the Raiders
(24:30):
for a second or a third round pick and we know how that worked out.
Anyway let's move on from free agency and trades of 2024 and let's look at the draft.
What happened in the draft and how did it affect the season?
Well anyway there were a bunch of touted QBs taken early in this draft.
(24:56):
Obviously Caleb Williams first to the Bears, Jaden Daniels second to the Commanders, Drake
May third to the Patriots.
Other first rounders we had Michael Pennex Jr. to the Falcons, Bo Nix to the Broncos and
J.J. McCarthy to the Vikings.
Now McCarthy had a season-ending injury in the preseason never got close to the field
(25:18):
plus Sam Darnold the starter there played out of his mind as a Pro Bowler so we can
just put that aside.
Caleb Williams we already kind of discussed his struggles.
Jaden Daniels man I don't think anybody saw the Commanders coming the way they did and
for Daniels everyone's at composure, composure, composure.
(25:43):
Nothing rattles this guy.
He's always ready to make the next big play and he almost seemingly always does and that
is very rare for a young player especially a rookie.
And we'll go back to certain things that we've talked about about these young quarterbacks
coming into the league is that a lot of times the more experience they have the better.
(26:06):
So you know you're looking at Caleb Williams who was a two three-year starter I believe
and then you look at Daniels Daniels started for six years from Arizona State to LSU and
won a Heisman Trophy so that experience was invaluable and same sort of thing going back
(26:28):
to Brock Purdy his experience as a six-year starter in college football is invaluable
and you look at somebody like Bryce Young he came in and obviously had the odds stacked
against him from certain ways the franchise he went to was set up as but he had that you
(26:51):
know two-year starter experience instead of you know these guys that are having four,
five, six as they're kind of less touted in the beginning of their career and become big
time players as they transfer around and able to gather experience.
(27:11):
So that is definitely something to look at I mean Bo Nix is the same thing he started
Auburn and Oregon and was big time at at Oregon especially Auburn was a bit of a struggle
at times but he was always a big time prospect and had good immediate success in the NFL
and once again it also matters where you go the coaching staff the players you have around
(27:39):
you the offensive line obviously and the skill position players so oh excuse me so it was
pretty remarkable what some of these guys did in their rookie year now let's look at
Jaden Daniel or let's let's look at the Pro Bowlers were there any rookie Pro Bowlers
(28:03):
and yes Jaden Daniel was a rookie Pro Bowler first of all his record was 12 and 5 as a
starter and obviously went 2 and 1 in the playoffs as well which included a victory
on the road in Detroit over the number one seed in the NFC so he had 31 touchdowns to
(28:26):
12 turnovers with 69% completion percentage which is pretty damn good you know as far
as completion percentage touchdown to turnover ratio and obviously the biggest stat in there
is the 12 and 5 record and the playoff berth and the 2 and 1 in the playoffs they almost
(28:49):
had a chance at the division but hey the Eagles who won their division won the Super Bowl
so we're not going to hold that against him.
Another rookie Pro Bowler we had Jared Virst pass rusher from the Rams they went 10 and
7 and they were a division winner now his stats don't blow your mind at 36 tackles
(29:12):
and four and a half sacks but I was able to watch the Rams play a few different games
last year and the physicality that he played with and how many times I saw him just bowl
over an offensive line and just knock him off his feet that impact was felt through
(29:35):
the screen I mean and obviously it was felt on the field the Rams draft so well I mean
if less need is the GM there and Sean McVeigh obviously knows what he's looking for and
knows how to coach but those two Florida State defensive linemen they took in the draft this
(29:56):
past year that's going to set them up for the future yeah sure they don't have Aaron
Donald anymore but man they are good at draft and develop.
The other rookie Pro Bowler Brock Bowers man he was my guy in the draft last year I mean
he's been my guy since I saw him dominate as a true freshman at Georgia you know when
(30:18):
I saw that I thought he was the best tight end in the country as a true freshman at the
best school in the country and what does he do in his rookie year in the NFL he's the
best tight end in the NFL he was the one guy one guy with the Panthers two high second
round picks last year that I was you know it's like I didn't want him to trade up but
(30:42):
if they were going to trade up for one guy Brock Bowers was that guy just because I think
he is potential best tight end ever like the his skill set the way he runs routes the way
he catches the ball his competitiveness and we saw it obviously now you know just kind
(31:05):
of like the running back a great tight end isn't always going to result in a whole lot
of wins especially if you don't have much around them and the Raiders roster is really
challenged right now I think it was a smart idea to bring Pete Carroll in I've had an
up close view of him in Seattle over the years and just like the Rams and Sean McVeigh if
(31:31):
there's anybody who's great at draft and develop it's Pete Carroll so the Raiders are going
to need a ton of that if they're going to become relevant again it's also another reason
why I love the hire of Canalys last year is if we can bring some of that draft and develop
to the Panthers which has always kind of been a challenge for us in the history of our franchise
(31:55):
you know even John Fox those Ron Rivera years they always wanted to start veterans and play
veterans and there were just so many guys that were young and talented and in my opinion
you know in flashes so ready to be on the field especially when you look back at big
money Charles Johnson Super Mario Addison those guys were ready to get on the field
(32:20):
as starters a couple years before they did in you know and so I love the draft and develop
model is to really really invest in the growth of your young players.
Okay moving on from the draft we'll head to the regular season and what do we see let's
(32:40):
see let's go with our biggest surprise team in a good way and it's got to be the Vikings
and I you know that you could say the commanders you could say the Steelers you could say a
few others but the biggest surprise at least in my mind you know I kind of expected something
out of the different teams that kind of jumped up but the biggest surprise for me was definitely
(33:04):
the Vikings I mean they went 14 and 3 and Sam Darnold was a huge surprise I mean I like
the guy I always thought he had more in his bag than that we got out of him in Carolina
our coaching our front office was suspect at the time we didn't have a whole lot around
the guy I always was a believer that he was better than what he showed however did I expect
(33:31):
him to come out and set the league on fire and be a pro bowler and go 14 and 3 no no
I did not in fact his best season as a starter before this was 2019 for the Jets and he only
went 7 and 6 that's his only winning season and the rest of his seasons were far below
500 anyway he had six 36 touchdowns and 16 turnovers and that is the knock on Darnold
(34:00):
is that he turns the ball over too much and 16 is a lot of turnovers but so is 36 touchdowns
so if Sam can continue to develop and continue to get better and there's no reason why he
can't I mean we've seen a lot of older quarterbacks in recent years get much better with experience
(34:20):
and there's no reason why he can't especially with good coaching it'll be interesting to
see where he ends up I figured he would be back with the Vikings but we don't know how
that's going to turn out and then of course there was Brian Flores in his blitzing defense
who was fifth in points allowed for the league which for me you know I don't know why anybody
(34:45):
looks at any other defensive stats besides points allowed to determine the best defenses
it makes no sense to oh well they gave up the least amount of yards well it's like how
many points did they gave up did they win any games because there was a couple years
ago where the Panthers were a top five top ten defense and we only won five games you
(35:10):
know because of course they measure top defenses in yards allowed not points allowed so give
me a break with that anyway biggest surprise team in a bad way for me was the Niners you
know I think looking back on it now you can look back at the Super Bowl hangover which
(35:32):
seems to be very real for most teams and the offseason turmoil as far as you know everybody
wanting new contracts people getting injured Shanahan you know he didn't quite seem to
have you know I don't want to say control of the locker room because you don't want
(35:56):
control but but you want cohesion right you want to have everybody on the same page and
it did not seem excuse me like the Niners were on the same page and obviously then the
injuries us as Panthers fans this last season we know about injuries but they had a huge
slew of injuries obviously they lost Brandon Iuke for the season they Christian McCaffrey
(36:21):
didn't play at all they lost their other backup running backs Trent Williams spent most of
the year out their defensive players obviously Dre Greenlaw had you know torn his Achilles
in the Super Bowl the last year and just nagging injuries for almost everybody Fred Warner
(36:41):
their all-world linebacker play played the whole season with a broken ankle so they definitely
were bit by the injury bug the Super Bowl hangover possibly the locker room culture
who knows and they couldn't hold a late lead especially against their division they had
(37:02):
poor special teams and looking at another set that we just went over they were 29th
in the NFL and points allowed and you're just not going to be a very good team if you give
up that many points now the 6-11 record was definitely a surprise them not making the
playoffs is definitely a surprise to me anyway it's just when I looked at that division before
(37:27):
the season started and you look at the best rosters in the NFL as far as talent level
and they obviously had an upper echelon roster but when you get hit with injuries and different
outside factors and you just don't play as well things happen and there are teams that
(37:50):
go from worst to first every year in the NFL and there are teams that go from first to
worst and that was definitely the Niners now moving on to the biggest surprise player in
a good way and I am definitely a homer on this one but it's got to be Bryce Young I'm
(38:11):
sorry but with how bad he was as a rookie and with how bad the Panthers franchise was
last year his second half of the season gives this franchise hope that we have a guy that
knows how to play quarterback at the NFL level well let's kind of break it down obviously
(38:36):
he went four and eight as a starter which is not good you know I'm not going to sugar
coat the not good parts here four and eight not a good enough record obviously if he repeats
that this next year that's going to be difficult right but the nice thing that you want to
see is growth out of a young player especially at quarterback and that was the difficult
(39:02):
part about last year is we basically didn't see any growth and when he started the season
oh and two this year with one touchdown and three turnovers and got benched he wasn't
showing any improvement there either I mean I remember his first pass of the year it was
a slant to Deontay Johnson who is wide open over the middle against New Orleans and he
(39:28):
threw the ball three yards over his head and it was intercepted and wow that was a kick
in the pants to start the year especially because I expected to see some growth especially
with you know coach like Canales coming from Pete Carroll working with quarterbacks and
kind of being that whisperer that everybody talks about so I expected a bit more but that's
(39:56):
that's the whole thing about new regime regimes new coaching staffs new front offices half
the roster is new that it just takes time to gel to get continuity to have everything
work I've been experiencing this so much in my own life recently is just because you put
in work every day that doesn't mean you're going to get results every day but if you
(40:20):
continue to put in that constant work at some point the results are going to happen so Bryce's
reinstated midseason and from midseason on he obviously goes four and six since he started
oh and two so that's a little bit better but you know obviously not a winning record in
(40:41):
that four and six stretch he had 20 touchdowns to eight turnovers so the 20 touchdowns in
10 games obviously that's to a game so that's pretty solid we'd love to see that uptick
eight turnovers in 10 games love to see that go down to however if you look at what was
(41:03):
around him and the growth that he progressed through that 10 game stretch there's a lot
more to be optimistic about I mean first off his starting two wide receivers were two rookies
he had a first round rookie number 32 overall Xavier Ligette who had a really up and down
(41:24):
rookie season but that's to be expected a lot of rookies have up and down seasons doesn't
matter how high they're picked and then we have Jalen Coker who was an undrafted rookie
free agent and he was our number two for most of the season that middle stretch Adam Thielam
was hurt so we didn't have old reliable luckily when he came back he got that old reliable
(41:50):
to add to our two rookie wide receivers and a rookie tight end so we got a second year
quarterback throwing to three rookies and a veteran and the best quarterbacks in the
NFL can do more with less I mean that's when cam really took that next step and became
(42:10):
that MVP type player is when Kelvin Benjamin went down in that preseason before 2015 and
we're thinking who's he gonna throw the ball to we got Ted Ginn Philly Brown Jericho Cotry
you know it was a hodgepodge of what a lot of the league would consider less than wide
(42:32):
receivers maybe not even number twos well it didn't stop cam from having an MVP type
season because the best players especially quarterback can do more with less and to see
Bryce as a second year player without having any success in his first year and the beginning
(42:54):
of his second year for him to end the season with that type of skill group and to be winning
games and to be putting up 30 40 point games and to be pushing playoff teams and Super
Bowl teams to the brink to overtime to last second victories that's that's exactly what
(43:20):
we want to see as growth out of it so moving on he took 62 sacks as a rookie and I chronicled
our offensive lineman free agent signings that were able to get to solidify that offensive
line for him he only took 29 sacks this year and one thing I'll hold on that a Hall of
(43:45):
Famer quarterback Troy Aikman has said is that sacks are a quarterback stat much more
so than they are an offensive line stat and that was one of the best things to see out
of Bryce and his second half growth was his decisiveness and his ability to get rid of
the ball on time and so that was fantastic to see now one of the things that we have
(44:10):
to be cautious about obviously with that 4-8 record and with our 5-12 record for the season
we're a long way from where we want to be obviously we want to be in the playoffs we
want to win the division and we want to win the Super Bowl and we're still a long ways
from that so as we saw this last year CJ Stroud had what some would consider to be the greatest
(44:36):
rookie season of a quarterback ever well he came back and struggled a bit his sophomore
year there was a sophomore slump compared to some of the things he was able to do well
as a rookie so with Bryce having that success finally or limited success in this season
(44:59):
will the league catch up will the league study him a little bit harder will they start to
take away things and will he struggle because of it that's another question to Jayden Daniels
and Bo Nicks and the little bit of Michael Pennex that we saw is will these guys be able
to succeed at a similar level in their sophomore year because a lot of guys struggle with certain
(45:26):
things in their second season that they didn't in their first so that is a very big thing
and we'll see how it goes next biggest surprise player in a bad way I don't know I couldn't
really decide much on this one but if there was one thing that stood out in my mind that
(45:47):
I've just never seen before it was Anthony Richardson quarterback for the Colts who took
himself out of the game after a play where he scrambled because he was tired I just I've
never seen that from a quarterback especially an NFL quarterback take themselves out of
(46:13):
a game for a play because they were tired and especially when they're you know a running
quarterback to begin with that was just really odd and you know I think his teammates and
his coaching staff thought so as well and you know they obviously talked to him and
whatnot and he he had his time on the bench just like Bryce did this last year and he
(46:38):
also seems to be very injury prone which as a running quarterback it's it's very possible
I mean unfortunately that's what ended cam's career too early was all the hits and all
the injuries so we wish him health and just I think probably want to stay in the game
(46:59):
even if you're a little winded who knows moving on to the playoffs well the biggest surprise
in a good way well the commanders run to the championship game obviously they were one
of the surprise teams of the regular season them getting to the NFC championship game
especially with a rookie quarterback the way they did was shocking in a way I you know
(47:23):
I I didn't think they had any chance to beat Detroit in Detroit but of course with near
the Lions and you turn the ball over five times even though you have over 500 yards
of offense they were obviously able to do whatever they wanted except for not turn the
(47:44):
ball over and it's incredible to me that one of their turnovers was a trick play a pass
by a wide receiver now why would you do that in a playoff game that you've already turned
the ball over a bunch of times you know I don't get it but anyway the biggest surprise
(48:08):
in a bad way I thought was kind of a twofer and it was two teams they got out physical
that I didn't think they were going to get out physical I mean if you're looking at the
Chargers and Jim Harbaugh that's been his staple no matter where he's been at Stanford
for the 49ers at Michigan he wants the more physical team especially on the offensive
(48:34):
line he wants to beat you up with the running game and they just couldn't they got beat
up by the Texans and I think we well I know I underestimated that part of the Texans game
and I think looking at their coach D'Amico Ryan's it totally makes sense also I thought
(48:56):
the Bills getting out physical by the Chiefs was a bit surprising now I know the Chiefs
are a very physical team especially on the defensive line but for Josh Allen to get stopped
on quarterback sneaks multiple times for less than a yard sometimes less than a foot that
(49:17):
was shocking to me and unfortunately I just think the Bills didn't quite have their a
game because if they did have their a game they would have won that game you know I was
on the Bills bandwagon all year though so I guess that's my bad anyway we all saw the
(49:39):
Super Bowl we all saw what happened to Philly over Casey I had that by the way but we'll
see what happens this next year you know I'm really excited for free agency to start and
this episode went a bit longer than I anticipated so I'm gonna go ahead and recap the Panthers
(49:59):
season on the next one and we'll get that out to you soon and we'll see what the outlook
of 2025 is until then keep pounding.
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