Carolina Panthers
 

Have these guys been active or what?

Panthers | Proehl Agrees to 3-year Deal - posted at KFFL (http://nfl.kffl.com)
6:54 PT: Pat Yasinskas, of the Charlotte Observer, reports the Carolina Panthers have agreed to a three-year deal with free agent WR Ricky Proehl (Rams). The deal is worth $3 million and could increase to $3.4 million through incentives.

Carolina Panthers
 

Just another piece in the puzzle. I hope Pak is reading this... Still think they don\'t have a shot Yoda? 6-10 huh?

Carolina Panthers
 

I doubt they\'ll beat out the Bucs or Falcons this season, but they could definitely beat us out. Who knows, this is going to be a unbelievably competitive conference. Honestly I wouldn\'t be surprised to see all four teams with winning records. We could destroy everyone else and just beat up on ourselves.

I\'ll say this. Carolina still may not get there this year... but next year, watch out!

Carolina Panthers
 

whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone..... are u tryin to tell me that Ricky Proehl is the last peice of the puzzle for the panthers?!?! Ricky Proehl is gonna take the panthers to the top of our division?!?! please tell me u are not saying that? i sure hope not b/c he isnt really that good, he is at best a 3rd option reciever, there is no way he can be a #1 guy,

im sayin 6-10 with out seeing their schedule, i might change my stance after i see their crappy schedule they will have since they were a 4th place team but they are also in the toughest division in the NFL, taking over our division is like tryin to take steak from a lion, its gonna be hard as heII

Carolina Panthers
 

No Pak, I\'m not saying Proehl is the last piece of the puzzle that they needed to catapult themselves to the top of the division. I said they would end up third in the division, but these kind of signings make them a winning team. I\'m saying Proehl is another piece in the puzzle. He improves their team. Veteran leadership. A guy with a lot of playoff and even Super Bowl experience who came from a winning tradition. Plus, he could start on a lot of teams in the NFL. He is better than a number 3 receiver - gimme a break. He\'s best suited as the number two guy in my opinion.

Let\'s think about this. The Panthers were 7-9 last year under a new coach. They have a young, talented, hungry defense. This off-season they haven\'t lost any player of any significance to my knowledge. They have added a Pro Bowl caliber runningback, a veteran wide out with plenty of post season experience, and a young talented quarterback with something to prove. That is a recipe to get worse in your mind?!?! C\'mon Pak, that\'s ridiculous.

Another year under a new coach\'s system. Peppers should play all year, all these new FAs, plus the draft. That team will improve. I am willing to bet you on that one.

Carolina Panthers
 

yes i know it sounds crazy but i dont think they will be any better then they were last year, free agents and draft picks and all doesnt mean a team will get better ie washington redskins, there D is young and hungry but their O is old, yea they got delhomme but he is in a new system and he isnt the sure starter their either with wenkie and the old guy whatever his name is, i cant think of it off hand, their O line i know nothing about which im sure doesnt stand good for them, and davis is often injured

Carolina Panthers
 

No, I think the Panthers have \"on paper\" improved dramatically. At least the attempt to better themselves.

Carolina Panthers
 

I believe the Panthers will be better than the saints with their offseason moves so far. They have added players who play with heart and will bring up the rest of the teams play. They already have a good nucleus on offense to build around and they still have the draft ahead of them. I think they will be greatly improved.

Problem #2 for the saints. they are expected to play well - and history tells us that A Haz team does not play well under pressure. Notice the two seasons they did best was when they were not expected to do anything. Makes me wonder and scares me we will suck the big\'n this year.

Carolina Panthers
 

Good lord man...the Panthers offense sucked last year. Almost ANYTHING they do with their offense in the offseason will DRAMATICALLY improve them.

Carolina Panthers
 

oh how true that statement is billy, u couldnt be more right. even if i had said it myself it wouldnt be more right :P

Carolina Panthers
 

The same could be said about our defense. This is the point I have been trying to make about Carolina improving more than us. Our weakness is our defense; theirs is their offense.

Now, you tell me, who has improved MORE:

The Saints - added Ruff and Ambrose, but lost Knight.
The Panthers - added Stephen Davis, Jake Delhomme, Ricky Proehl - cut Lamar Smith.

If you have to think about that for more than .000000000001 seconds you don\'t know football. Sure, there is time left in free agency. When the season starts, HOPEFULLY the Saints will have made the right moves and will have improved a lot more on defense in the talent category than they have so far. But if the season started today, Carolina would have our number.

Carolina Panthers
 

I wonder about peoples credibility in evaluating other teams weaknesses or strengths. Some talk about Carolina\'s offense last year as though the saints blew them out in both games. In reality the saints were one \"no call\" away from being swept by this team that has the worse offense. It took a last minute drive for the saints to pull out a win in Carolina and that was after Brooks threw an interception that was negated by a penalty on the first play of that drive.

I don\'t think the saints or saints fans can stand too much taller than the panthers.

Carolina Panthers
 

ok whodat, ur quote \"There\'s no reason this team shouldn\'t be 12-4\"
\"Hey guys, I always think the Saints can be 12-4\"

if u think that carolina has improved more, and they will be better then us what do u say there record should be? 13-3? 14-2?

my point is, ill concede we havent improved that much on D but ill say that we have improved, and the offseason isnt over yet, and if u thought we could have been 12-4 last year, Y shouldnt we do better this year? b/c the panthers have improved more?
the bucs are the same, the falcons got better but their games are always close no matter which team is better.....

Carolina Panthers
 

Exactly Pak. THANK YOU!

The Bucs stayed the same - which last I checked was roughly three games better than we are. Atlanta got better. Carolina got better. Yes, we did get better also, but not as much as Atlanta and Carolina, in my mind.

I don\'t think Carolina has any chance of being 13-3. Just because I think the Saints SHOULD be 12-4 doesn\'t mean that they WILL be. C\'mon Pak, \"shoula, woulda, coulda\" is our slogan. No, I think the Saints are likely to have another average (or just above - 9-7) year UNLESS they make SIGNIFICANT moves on D. Maybe Ruff turns out to be a star and Ambrose goes to the Pro Bowl next year. I\'d be completely wrong, and I wouldn\'t mind at all. I just don\'t see that happening. We got moderately better at MLB. We added depth at corner. We lost a Pro Bowl caliber safety. We replaced on stud OT with another stud OT. We replaced a good punter with a good punter and a good backup with a good backup. To me it sounds like we haven\'t gotten much better at all. We\'ve maintained or slightly increased our over all talent.

Carolina can easily win 9 games next year, maybe even 10 or 11. So can we - or more. We\'ll have to see what happens. Still, I believe that the Saints MUST do MORE than what they\'ve done in the off-season to date is they want a real shot at competing for a title.

Carolina Panthers
 

You\'re very right on that Gator.

Carolina Panthers
 

I have to disagree that last year\'s team choked down the stretch. Around the midpoint of the season I had recognized that the 2002 Saints thought so highly of themselves that when they played a \"lower caliber\" team it seemed they expected to be handed a victory - a cardinal sin in this age of parity. Look at the schedule. I thought we\'d go 11-5 based on it:

My prediction was we\'d split with the Bucs and Falcons, and lose to SF, Pitt, and GB.

I\'m sure many of your predictions were similar. Of my prediction I was wrong about all of it except losing to the falcons. In other words we beat all the teams I thought we\'d lose to. Why? Your explaination is as good as mine, but one thing rings true: we were bad against the bad teams ALL SEASON - not just down the stretch.

All I\'m saying is that I think calling it a collapse is a misnomer. I don\'t know what to call it except lack of motivation and preparedness.

If there was a collapse at all, I would say it ocurred when Culppepper scored on the 2pt conversion to win the game. After that I think the team might have quit, but that loss and the other 4 before it, we just flat got out-performed by less talented teams.

Carolina Panthers
 

I\'m just trying to point out that many people are comparing the 2002 season to the obvious collapse of the 2001 season and I think they are two completely different situations.

In 2001, the team just fell apart. It obvious that lots of things were going on behind the scenes and that the team chemistry suffered. But it has also been said that conditioning was a major factor for the collapse - especially with Brooks and as the season wore on the pressure making the playoffs ultimately broke the team\'s spirit.

To me, 2002 was much different. We had a team that could be anybody, but refused to play hard against the bad teams. I see \"choke\" as meaning that a team fails to play up to expectations when there is a high amount of pressure on them - such as making or being in the playoffs. I didn\'t see the 2002 Saints like that until the last two games of the year. The rest of the time they seemed arrogant and unmotivated.

Why does this distinction matter? I think that if both seasons were actually \"chokes\" or collapses then that would indicate that there is severe problem within the Saints organization causing such. And if there were, the astute minded people in this forum ought to be able to identify it. I haven\'t seen a good explanation for that phenomenon yet.

However, I heard - and maybe you could check on this - that the Saints haven\'t won their last two games in a season in 10 years. If that is true, there must be some reason for it, but I can\'t fathom what it could be. Any ideas?

Carolina Panthers
 

Bourbon Street?

Carolina Panthers
 

Panthers | Sehorn Talks Slow - posted at KFFL (http://nfl.kffl.com)
13:00 PT: Steve Reed of the Gaston Gazette reports the Carolina Panthers still hope to sign free agent CB Jason Sehorn (Giants), although talks at this point are progressing slower than expected. The Panthers did talk with Sehorn\'s agent, Kyle Rote, on Wednesday

Carolina Panthers
 

Scotty - I agree with some of the things you\'re saying. I will say this though. In 2001 the Saints were talked about being a legitimate Super Bowl Contender up until the Tampa game when they lost big and fell to 7-6. That year was undoubtedly a choke. Likewise, last year, at 6-1, they were arguably the best team in the NFC. In the history of the NFL on 5 teams EVER have been 6-1 and not made the playoffs. They were 7-2 at the break and had one of the weaker second halves of the season of any team in the league. Again, if not making the playoffs isn\'t choking, I don\'t know what is.

On the other hand, you;re right about there being something wrong in the organization. However, every time I\'ve tried to talk about it I got shot down. Most recently, I tried to use Kyle Turley\'s grumbling as proof. However, everyone in the world believes that because Turley is unhappy here that he will say absolutely anything to get out. I don\'t think the fact that he\'s unhappy makes him a liar. I think he is identifying some of the major problems with this organization, but nobody wants to hear it.

As for the losing the last two games of the year for the last ten years - I\'m almost positive that is incorrect. However, the Saints have traditionally been fast out of the blocks and then faded down the stretch. There can be any number of reasons for this. My opinion is that the Saints have never had great ASSISTANT coaches. Contrary to popular belief, assistant coaches are often more important than the head coach. The make the game plans and call the plays. Our coordinators have never been very innovative or flexible.

In the NFL what works in week 1 rarely works very well in week 14. However, our coordinators seem to be unable to adapt and opposing teams tend to be able to read us like a book by year end. That\'s just my opinion, but it\'s better than \"Bourbon street.\"

Carolina Panthers
 

Excuse me WhoDat,don\'t give me the whoa is me attitude,I have agreed 100%. We have actually said some of the same things

Carolina Panthers
 

One of the problems with the Saints and many saints fans is they allow excuses for their problems. I don\'t see any way some can come out and call the collapse the saints had last year \"bad luck\" or \"choking\". Bad luck is when you lose one game due to a ref\'s bad call. Choke is when you lose a big game because one player could not handle the pressure.

Losing 6 of 8 including the last 4 games of a season is nothing less than a poor team. Be it the players, the coaches, or whatever ... it is the result of a bad team.

I now think Carolina has improved even more than the saints since the Dyson signing. The Saints may still be able to come back with a great draft day and some FA pickups between now and opening day, BUT if you had to put the teams on the field TODAY the saints would be last in the division in my estimations.

The saints still do not have a better pash rush, run stoppers or line backers. After the poor offensive showing the last half of the season I am no longer on board with the \"outscore your opponent\" philosophy. Don\'t use the excuse Brooks was hurt because that is part of football and a good team will be prepared for setbacks.

Carolina Panthers
 

I agree completely FW. If you put the teams on the field today, we end up last. I\'ve been screaming that the Saints have done basically nothing to improve their defense as of yet, but people in here either want to have blind faith, talk about who we haven\'t lost (instead of who we picked up), and talk about the draft.

The Saints need to get off their asses and make some deals. Get rid of Turley so you can make moves with another number 2 pick. Sign Jones, and for God sakes man, go after Woodson. They squandered their chances (with the exception of Claiborne) to get a good Linebacker. Improve the secondary with Jones and Woodson, or some other shut down type corner (are there any left) and use the draft to pick up a DT and Linebacker... then use what you\'ve got left to find a TE and backup for Deuce, then I would keep picking up defensive talent the rest of the draft.

Carolina Panthers
 

PS - at the end of the season last year and early in free agency this year, I heard a lot of analysts, writers, and even people on this board talking about how we would see as many as five or even SEVEN new faces on defense. Hell, I may have even said that. Who didn\'t expect the Saints to reload on D. So far, we\'ve gone out and signed ONE new starter on defense, Ruff, and he\'s only a started b/c A) Clemons sucks and B) he\'s leaving. Mitchell will start also, but again, ONLY b/c Knight left. That means we\'re looking at TWO new starters. I expect at very least four or five new starters next year. Unless we can find THREE starters in the draft, it doesn\'t look like that will happen. That\'s crap - and it shows me that the Saints are not truly dedicated to WINNING.

Carolina Panthers
 

We needed some of that Panther and Redskin aggression in free agency. We didn\'t have it. So many improvements have passed. These teams have the win now attitude. That is what it takes in the NFL. Because of the revolving door of players(free agency), and the fact that if you do want to achieve anything from your youth you need some veteran leadership. We have alienated every player who has spent any time with us. Remember Roaf\'s frustration 2 seasons ago? What did we get for a perennial Pro Bowler?
Rickey Williams wasn\'t happy. Turley wasn\'t happy. I am just scratching the surface.

I would love to wish us into a 12-4 season........................I love Haslett, yet two season\'s in a row we have choked down the stretch. The coach deserves some fault, for allowing the letdown and not motivating. Last year we only needed one win out of four to be playoff bound,couldn\'t do it.

Carolina Panthers
 

Calm down guys..the offseason is still the offseason. We\'ll do just fine. Build thru the draft. Shore up thru free agency. Add an occasional great player thru free agency or other type of aquisition. Or, we can spend thru the wazzo the the Redskins and get nothing.

Carolina Panthers
 

You know, I\'m tired of people bringing the Redskins in as THE example of what happens when you are active in the free agent market. That\'s like saying... or we could build through the draft like Cincinnati.

Super Bowl contenders usually build up part of their team through the draft and then they go out and get the free agents to fill in missing pieces. Tampa had a great defense and they were active in free agency bringing in OLDER veteran players on offense (Brad Johnson, Keenan McCardell, Michael Pittman, Joe Jurevicius...). Oakland is stocked full of OLDER free agent veterans. Two years ago the Rams were in the same position we are now. Great offense, terrible defense. They brought in a new D-coordinator and had something like seven new starters on defense almost all of whom they brought in through free agency. They went to the Super Bowl.

No one here is suggesting that the Saints should put themselves in cap trouble and mortgage their future for free agents. HOWEVER, the Saints started free agency with $16 million in cap room. If you add room from trading Turley, and dumping or restructuring Hand and Williams that\'s another$13 million dollars! THAT\'S $29 MILLION IN CAP ROOM, plus 5 draft picks in the first three round in case they need to wheel and deal. So far they\'ve signed a starting left tackle, a mediocre (could-be) middle linebacker, a punter, a backup QB, and a corner who will probably play in the nickel spot. How can you think that those players are ENOUGH free agent acquisitions with (potentially) $29 MILLION in cap room and five draft picks?

We came into free agency three impact players away from being a Super Bowl contender, in my opinion. We needed top ten talent at MLB, CB, and S. We could find a DT through the draft. We could add depth (see Ambrose) through the draft. We have signed exactly ZERO of the type of players we need to be good on defense. I shouldn\'t limit that to players though - we dropped the ball with Venturi also.

Bottom line - if they don\'t add some talent to this defense (the kind of talent that actually impacts the game), don\'t expect this team to get much better. The REALLY sad thing, is that there are still good players available at the positions we need to fill. Maybe not the top talent - we let that slip away at almost every position - but we could still get better. They\'re doing nothing. Look at these playes we could sign or deal for:

MLB - Chris Claiborne, Earl Holmes, Levon Kirkland, Hardy Nickerson, Nate Wayne

CB - Charles Woodson, Darrien Gordon, Chris McAlister

S - Tebucky Jones, Darius Donovin, Lethon Flowers, Kwamie Lassiter, Chad Cota, Corey Ivy

DT - Chester McGlockton, Gilbert Brown

Carolina Panthers
 

There is nothing wrong with what the Redskins have done this year in Free Agency. I think they have addressed some needs quite well, as has Carolina. Obviously, the outcome is to be seen. I am not sure where the off the wall reference to Cincy came from,but o.k.
Everytime I mention the fact that we have not addressed our needs with Free Agency,I am told to relax. We only needed a few pieces of the puzzle, and I don\'t feel we addressed that. We purchased mediocrity. I know it isn\'t over yet and would like to see us secure a bit of quality before draft time. I have a feeling there will be quite a bit of jockeying at the draft.

Carolina Panthers
 

Subguy - I wasn\'t disagreeing with you. Reread my post. Lots of people use washington as what not to do in free agency - I think that\'s like using cincinnati as what not to do in the draft. In any case, the Saints haven\'t done near enough in free agency.

Carolina Panthers
 

Hey Gator - now they\'re short changing Fontenot and he\'s saying that the organization isn\'t reciprocating his loyalty or offering him what he\'s worth. This is FONTENOT - not Turley. Still think the front office is peachy?

Carolina Panthers
 

Sorry WhoDat...........misread. We have been way outruled by everyone on how to build a winner. Oakland has always historically played older free agents, with relative success. And the two teams(Skins&Panther), have been very aggressive. In my opinion, you must build around a few key veteran free agents. Then you fill with draft picks and hope they stay long enough to become a value,other than a trade piece for more draft picks,to start the cycle again. Horn better be signed and it appears as if we want to screw Fontenot. Once again, blame who you will. We have the money, they are the only ones who can make these moves. Honestly,wishful thinking that we have improved ourselves thus far is just not realistic.