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Beat me to it....Was wondering the same thing.

Really like what we have heard about the offense from Fuente and Cornelsen. We've definitely heard "tempo" stressed a lot, and I like a commitment to running the football. I also am not expecting a top 20 offense right off the bat, but it wouldn't surprise me to see us have a very good one as the season goes along. It's refreshing to hear the coaches talk about building the offense around the personnel we have and what they can perform best, rather than work all offseason on something, find out it's not working midway through the season, and have to scratch and claw to get yardage any way possible. I'm thankful for the foundation that Lefty put in place and the talent he left behind, but I think overall what he tried to implement here was a little overly ambitious given the rebuilding job and lack of depth at key spots. Looking forward to seeing how quickly the players adjust to Fuente and Cornelsen's scheme and how the execution improves.

Let's pump the brakes. Cornerback is my favorite position on the field and I do my best to evaluate corners accurately and without bias. Let me make myself clear that I do not think Kendall is without weaknesses, but there has been a history of improperly evaluating corners, particularly from Virginia Tech. I am strongly opposed to the idea that Kendall is a "tampa 2 corner" and would probably "do better at safety" these are ridiculous assertions. For example, Cyrus Jones, would probably fit the mold better as a "Tampa 2 corner". Physical corner who struggles keeping his hands off receivers after he fails to recover when a receiver crosses his face both inside or outside. This was on full display at the senior bowl when he was asked to play some man as opposed to the zone he often played at Alabama. I like Cyrus Jones, but he is obviously better fit to a zone based scheme. This "tampa 2 cover guy" title has been slapped on several VT corners in the past. Kendall Fuller, and other VT corners have a distinct advantage that they play a lot of inside leverage man coverage and trail technique. These are essential to play man on an island in the NFL. You can be a successful corner in the NFL in many different schemes and playing styles, but to be a true lockdown outside corner in a system that requires significant man coverage, a guy like Kendall has potential to do that. He does get off balance in coverage sometimes when leaning but given what was asked him play in and play out, and that he was thrown into the fray immediately as a freshman, has produced a lot of film where he has made these often minor mistakes. Now, some of the things people have used against him, like his high ypc in 2014, is also not taking into account that he was playing man on an island with no safety help far, far more often than the average corner being evaluated, and as such is going to give up some longer plays. A corner that plays in a zone system that is designed to keep everything in front of them is going to have a lower ypc average because of scheme. Also, Fuller has great hips. People absolutely have been misusing that film from the Ohio State game this year against him because from what I can tell by the way they described it, most of these guys were not informed he had a torn meniscus BEFORE the game, they all seem to think it happened later and then he was shut down. Also, Kendall has not been beaten consistently on double moves so that is just proof that some of these guys watched a smaller sample size.

Just because I disagree with a flawed evaluation doesn't mean I am looking through Orange and Maroon glasses. Also I am not demeaning all scouts by any means, but I have read a few evaluations that are just not accurate, particularly that one from NFL.com

I'm not defending the law or the charge against JM in any way (a crime needs to have a victim, in my opinion, and it's stupid to punish a man criminally for hurting himself), but cleaning a gun with a round in the chamber does sound pretty dumb, perhaps even reckless, to me. Unless the malfunction happened while trying to remove the round, I don't think that defense will fly.

Absolutely. The last thing you can do is bet the farm on one guy. It has to be a deal that works out for both sides, which allows the player to get paid, but the team to still be able to legitimately compete. That being said, if there's one guy who I absolutely trust to broker that kind of deal, its Gettleman. Because he will weigh options, and if he can't get the deal down to something that will work long term for the team, he'll cut bait. And its not like the guys he's cut bait on have really gone out and had a bunch of success elsewhere.

for example:

Ohh, The Key Players Club. I like it!

I might be wrong but I'm going to guess you're somewhere between 25 and 40?

You don't think the number of championships didn't factor into Wilt vs Russell discussions in the 60s? You think Reggie Jackson was called Mr. October in the 70s because he liked autumn weather? You think Joe Namath was put into the hall of fame because of his 50% career competition and winning percentage and not for coming up huge as a massive underdog in his lone Super Bowl win - the win that basically opened the door for the NFL-AFL merger ? Do you honestly think Michael Jordan brought the game "to a new level" or that with Bird-Magic-MJ perhaps the game simply became more big guard-small forward centric that made for fun nightly highlights on a new thing called ESPN? Do you recall that weekday NBA finals games were shown on tape delay at 11:30pm...FRIGGIN' TAPE DELAY AT 11:30PM...for a number of years until Magic & Bird - not Jordan - came along and forced the network to reconsider?

Jordan was, without a doubt, a great player. And I'll give you that he played a huge role in advancing the commercialization of the off-the-field part of sports. But with the coming changes in communications and marketing that we can't even imagine right now, Jordon's contributions in that arena are going to look quaint 20 years from now.

Which is why, worst case, they'll franchise him and work on it again next year. From what I understand, the exit interview essentially consisted of both sides showing an interest in keeping him around, and it went to 'what needs to happen to keep Josh in Charlotte'.

Agreed that locking up Star and Short are also top priorities and we're likely going to see a lot of veterans walk. It does sound like there will be plenty of cap room to get it all done, with the Panthers likely going to be around $20M under the cap after the salary cap raises, and with some guys likely being released or restructuring their deals to bring that number even better, Gettleman is going to finally have a little bit of breathing room this offseason. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on one of the better WRs looking to take a short term discount to chase a title (Alshon Jeffery, talking about you). Really hope we can see a corps of Benjamin, *insert discounted FA here*, Funchess, Ginn/Brown, and Olsen next year. That would be tough to stop.

But imma buy one anyway.

I would agree with that. Additionally, if he could have pulled off the upset in last year's finals by himself, that would have been the most impressive finals win of anyone on this list.