Turns out that, if you dig up a bit about Eric Eager, you find his SumerSports site (he's VP there, and I assume will be until he's official) did a post-draft Rookie Guide. Which is to say, it includes their opinions on these guys after they're drafted.   More of a "learn who your team got" than much else, but, it has value.  Threw my email into their box and got some info on their draft guide.  Since the internet doesn't have much analysis from him right now Some notes:  Xavier Legette They suggest he'll catch 35.5 balls and 2.6 TDs, with 433 receiving yards.&nb ..read more

Two weeks past the draft, some of the euphoria drops out; taking away a natural regression toward the mean (i.e., it's just hard to be a two win team or worse, two years in a row), have they done things to really change for the better?  I suppose first, you battle a lack of continuity with new opportunity. Some losses were hard - it's tough thinking of a defense that lacks Brian Burns, Frankie Luvu and the dysfunction in the building wasn't their fault - but for that type of situation, you also have the correction that includes lots of veterans who didn't significantly contribute to cult ..read more

 A fun prompt from the internet provides, if you gave the worst team in the league an extra man on defense, what would you do with it?  And how would things be impacted?  First, impact- an extra man would completely dominate, in any level of rules.  Barbershop talk constantly over-values the idea of a double-team in practice when, in execution, defenses rarely intend on just outright doubling a WR, but - there's a lot to scheme that situationally relies upon whether a defenses is 'up' or back' - teams can essentially be built on whether the SS is an overhang LB or whether t ..read more

Carolina's chipping in on analytics.  For years the ownership has longed for analytics, David Tepper coming from the money game, and they haven't really had it.   He's hired two GMs, both from scouting.  He's hired coaches that are amenable to analytics but haven't delivered.   Carolina has flirted with it, but they haven't closed it.  They dropped Samir Suleiman recently and added Brandt Tilis to be assistant GM, on the money side. They went through the offseason with nothing, after dropping Taylor Rajack in February. Rajack was an early Tepper hire, back to ..read more

 Former Seahawk, Eagle RB Rashaad Penny is signing with Carolina.  Penny - 5'11, 220 - a late 1st in 2018 by Seattle, out of San Diego State, spent five years in Seattle, concurrent with a lot of this current Panthers staff.* Penny had 44 total TD in 51 games at SDSU, ran a 4.46, and played but did not start in his first three years in SEA - he started 6 of 10 in 2021, 5 of 5 in 2022.   He had 13 rush and 1 receiving TD, all with Seattle.  He only had 37 targets, 28 catches career and appears to be less useful in the passing game.   He's played more than 22 ..read more

 Not much is more ephemeral than draft grades.  Most of them don't even define what you're after - are you graded upon filling needs, value from your picks?  If value, value based on what?  Even the analytics sites, like PFF, don't really do more than take swings at it.  PFF will give you a C, tell you no reason they got to that, and throw one-liner riffs under it.   Xavier Legette won with an FBS-leading 97.7 receiving grade on 10+ yard throws.  That's great - it has nothing to do with the grade, though.  So I don't come here to bury grades, but to ..read more

 Carolina's let go pro scouting director Rob Hanrahan and assistant Tyler Ramsey in a pro scouting shakeup.  There were inklings that some moves would happen - some more may, it's that time of year.  But they also represent a place where Carolina had some oddness, and some rough history.  Last year's FA crop was rough, and new Assistant GM Brandt Tilis may be looking to make that group in a different format.  As well, they have Adrian Wilson, a local who showed up last year, who has a VP title for Player Personnel and spent time in the Cardinals system as director of p ..read more

 It's been a week, and all of the potentialities have turned to realities.   Possibility from across hundreds of college athletes has turned into a select few players.  Carolina absolutely put the early effort into the offense, which then gave way to bodies for defense and special teams.   I personally got plenty wrong - figuring C was critical, figuring CB would be early-only.   Watching the yoyo of two costly trades-up when I didn't want them, to go with a very lucrative trade down.  Anybody could've guessed on Xavier Legette, and taking him ~10 p ..read more

Wanted to look at the draft class and what impact they could make in snaps.  Let's start quickly with last year's rookies and how much they played.  Percentages per player are of the season; cumulatively, obviously, that's per one player's snaps.   The 2023 rookie class chipped in 231% of snaps on offense, a very paltry 35% on defense, and 1.3 players' worth on special teams.  That leads us more reasonably into expectations of what will happen on this year's squad.  Everyone would love a rookie to be on the field every snap, but the Mingo situation above shows t ..read more

 I threw in the consensus ranking on UDFAs to their short bios - but again Arif Hasan's Wide Left comes in with good information, noting that Carolina finished 2nd in value added in UDFA and adds this note:  The Panthers led the league in Top 300 signings, having acquired Jalen Coker (243rd), Andrew Raym (255th), Willie Drew (266th), Demani Richardson (287th) and Jaden Shirden (300th). The listing, of course, is different than the one I've often cited in 2024, I also like Hasan's (wider ranging) consensus but I'm only a 'free subscriber'.  It also gets hard to juggle something ..read more