Blueprint - Vol 2; and PFF Doesn't Like Things

[Fletch59]

Quiet season, and I'm not trying to force out too much myself either. But figured I'd address a couple things, including the Panthers Blueprint bit (which came with scant info, and an edit out of any real names that they considered; mostly they seemed to have targeted who they got and weren't going to talk about much else.   So the closest you get after that is, that they apparently chose Chau Smith-Wade over Jaden Crumedy and then went back for Crumedy later, somewhat patiently.  There's not a lot about other positions that wasn't discussed in the open in pressers (like moving on from CB early).  Straight up, they had targets and they went after them.   They knew they'd have to trade back up in 2 to do what they wanted (whether they were willing to be patient, no they likely were not). The trade from 39 from their side is interesting, but possibly more interesting from the Rams' side.  They were desperate.  I don't think Carolina did anything wrong, but like with the Brian Burns trade you have to wonder if they could've squeezed it just a hair more (they got great value from the Rams, though; the problem was the trade back up was also costly). 
 PFF ranks Carolina 29th in WR, DL and 27th at RB.  They're slow-playing the rollout and generally either rank them low and note a few reasons they could be better, or a few that they shouldn't. They note Bryce Young as 25th at QB, which is better than expected I suppose.  Chuba Hubbard, 28th, which fair enough.  They don't list any WR or TE top 30; they have Taylor Moton 13th at OT, Austin Corbett 20th at C, and Robert Hunt at 10th despite a great 2023; Damien Lewis, 29th. Jadeveon Clowney, 27th. Derrick Brown they have 4th, the highest rated player per position. Snubbed at LB; Jaycee Horn is at 30 at CB, with would-be Panther Stephon Gilmore at 23 (I won't note the other former Panthers because I'm trying to keep sanity), and Xavier Woods clocks in at 27 at S.
Suppose I could complain about no Shaq Thompson there, but the injury doesn't help his case. I don't anticipate many revelations out of them discussing OL (likely to be middling) or secondary, for instance.  Individual position stars, I think it's safe to say that Carolina intended on not providing a few stars and instead trying to build a team - at least, in the case of Brian Burns; they still seemed more than happy to throw money at Frankie Luvu, right or wrong.  But generally, while they had to spend on some things, it wasn't on an island so to speak - they did attempt to create strengths.  You'd have to flood OL and WR, but there were some strategic choices made (going a little lighter on DB but, possibly still fitting very well what they want to do; being better against the run and deeper in exchange for Burns). 

Source: http://absolutepanthers.blogspot.com/fe ... ts/default