Wardrobe Malfunction: A B&B Game Review

So, this will be somewhat of an overall summary of the preseason/training camp, since next week's game is a de facto team tryout. I hope you enjoy reading it!









- Cam needs to start being more realistic about his scrambling abilities. You're past 30, dude. For an athlete, you're an old man. It's a hard motherfucking fact of life, but it's a fact you're going to have to get used to. The days of your spectacular, Fran Tarkenton-esque escapes from 30 yards deep in the backfield are over. It looks like you dodged a bullet this time, but you're older, slower, and more brittle than you used to be. Throw the fucking ball away.



- Our inability to generate explosive plays is discouraging. We only have four in the preseason. Our hyped starting WRs have done very little with their opportunities. Samuel, who was the Shorts And Helmets MVP of the offseason, caught 3 passes for 29 yards on six targets. Moore caught 2 passes for 11 yards on five targets. I sure hope Norv Turner is hiding something for the real games, because that sort of "production" isn't going to cut it. The RAC Dependency of this offense is concerning. It makes us very predictable. Case in point, our opening drive, Quarter 1, 13.25 - DJ Moore runs a shallow cross on 3rd down and seven. New England's safety immediately drives on the route, and gives DJ no opportunity for additional yardage. The Patriots cheat by filming opponent's practices, but I also knew this play was coming out of our bunch set. It's a staple of Norv's offense. At some point, we have to get back to a downfield attack. If we can't, it's going to be hard to win more than 7 or 8 games. Dink and dunk teams are capped in the modern era of deep ball pyrotechnics.


This is the explosive play tally from all three games, and it doesn't look good:







Not good, folks. That, and the 3rd down futility doesn't generally translate to success.




- I'm not at all opposed to playing our starting offensive line next week. We look out of sorts there. It's understandable with a brand new center who's played in a completely different system, but what I've seen so far does not look NFL game ready.


- Holy fuck, we're bad on 3rd down, especially the first halves of the last two games. Look at this fucking shit:


3rd down offense, 1st half vs Buf and NE: 1/12
3rd down defense, 1st half vs Buf and NE: 11/17


I mean, you don't win games with that. You just don't. Forget the 4-12 talk, you don't win any games if you're that outmatched on 3rd down. This is from the four quarters of the preseason where most of the starters are playing, so it's bad, and it's even worse than you think, because our only conversion is from a penalty. Which means we're really 0/12.




- Luke Kuechly played 19 snaps last night. On 6 of those 19 snaps, he was tasked with slamming into an offensive guard or a fullback. That means we're wasting Luke Kuechly on roughly 30 percent of our defensive snaps. This 3-4 thing is a lark, it's dumb, and we need to stop doing it as soon as possible. The good news is that I saw some true 4-3 sets, with Shaq, Kuechly, and Carter at LBs, and I think we'll see more of this as the regular season progresses. The 3-4 thing is a shitty idea. I said it on my first training camp review, and and it's played out on the field during the preseason. It's taking our best players and relegating them to space eating roles.



- Eric Reid can bitch and moan on Twitter all he wants. He can kneel like a little girl during the anthem all he wants. However, when you start taking that bullshit onto the field, and targeting players who you have a personal agenda with at the expense of our on field performance, I have a big fucking problem with you. You know why? You know why I have a problem with it, mother fucker? Because I want to win a fucking Super Bowl. That's why. That's all I fucking care about. THAT IS ALL I CARE ABOUT. And I apply this standard equally to everyone. I don't like it when Cam is being a clown on the sidelines while we're getting our ass kicked by Buffalo. I don't the player interviews during the games. I don't like the corny ass, Lee Greenwood Military tributes during the games. I don't like virtue signaling PERIOD. You know what I like? I like WINNING, and anything that distracts us from that goal is fucking bullshit. You think Brady and Belichick would put up with this nonsense? No, they wouldn't, because they're winners. Last night, you saw one team that's ALL ABOUT WINNING, and you saw one team that would like to win, but also cares deeply about making people HAPPY!!! YAY!!! IT'S LIKE DISNEY LAND!!!!


God, I'm fucking tired of this shit. Get your fucking priorities straight. Is that really asking too much? Really? Is that too offensive? Fuck your Salute To Service, Fuck Your Crucial Catch, Fuck Your Social Justice, Fuck Your MAGA Hat. FUCK ALL OF IT. If a player is lucky, they get about 200 games in their career, including preseason and postseason. How about we take them all seriously? This opportunity doesn't last forever, so put on your fucking hard hat and go to work.




- Palardy is awesome.


- Brutal muff by Godwin. He's been my guy all month, but ball security is the most important aspect of a punt returner. We learned this the hard way with Philly Brown. One muff is too many muffs, unless you're Antwoine Williams. He can have all the muffs he wants. In fact, he's my player of the game last night. 8 total tackles, a sack, and a TFL. I'm sad that he won't make the team. He deserves a fair shot, but because we like to waste roster space on crappy special teamers, he's destined the join the fraternity of B&B Camp Favorites Who Never Got A Shot (Lou Young, TJ Graham, That Guy Named Carter From '08, etc.)








To sum things up, it feels like we're flying blind into the regular season. The offensive line looks unprepared, the quarterback is hobbled, and the new defense marginalizes our best defenders 30% of the time. I'm not optimistic about September. It's shaping up to be a hot, miserable month with a shitty Thursday Night game thrown in for good measure. But, you don't win any trophies in September. Hopefully things gel in time for Cucktoberfest.

 

If people keep having to say that Eric Reid isn't a distraction, that means he's a distraction.

 

Don't bring it to the office. That's not asking for anything other than the bare minimum of professionalism. I think you should go above and beyond the bare minimum, if you're god damn serious about winning. While you're wasting your life on Twitter, the winners are gaining an edge. We can't even clear the bare minimum, though.



No god damn discipline. It's no wonder we've never had back to back winning seasons. There's always some silly fucking bullshit hovering around this team.

 

I’m assuming some version of this will be up on one panther place later correct?

 

Yes...this shit, and more, will be available at one Panther place shortly

 

Hard to get an explosive play off when you can’t block the edge for more than 3 seconds. The tackles have been victimized by the likes of Jerry Hughes and Kyle Van Noy.

 

Kids don't have that any more, they're not taught it and not taught general respect for other people. I work for a software company that has, as a client, US Customs and Border Protection. That client is my client, actually, and they're one of our larger ones. Yet, internally there are people who feel that we should not do business with them for political reasons. These people didn't feel that way four years ago.

Politics should stay at home, but some people want to inject them in every aspect of life. I just want to do my damn job.