Superman Returns
It was honestly heartwarming seeing Cam back in action in a Panthers uniform, trucking dudes on his way into the endzone. How could you not love that sight? Well, unless you were a Cardinals fan who figured this would be an easy win week and then had to watch in horror as one of the bad teams stomped you into oblivion. Chaos is the best thing ever.
Cam belongs in a Panthers jersey. He looked like he was cosplaying a Patriots player in a Pats uniform last year. He needs to be in that black or white with light blue stripes and silver helmets. He deserved a chance to play out his last days in Carolina instead of the messy divorce caused by Tepper wanting to stick his finger on the product and switching everything up. I’m glad he’s back. I hope he stays healthy. I have my doubts he will, but I hope he does. Cam rules.
This also highlights that the Panthers have basically no plan and no identity or idea of what they are doing. They decided to blow it up two years ago, and that wasn’t the worst idea. The team was struggling, Cam was constantly hurt and unreliable, Ron Rivera had kind of gone downhill and the team just wasn’t trending up. A change made some sense. Matt Rhule was the hottest coaching candidate at the time and Tepper threw everything at him to get him to come in. Gave him all the control in the world. Okay. It might take a little while, but it seems like there was a long-term plan. They dumped Cam (sad but in the spirit of the full rebuild at least understandable) and grabbed Teddy Bridgewater. Odd choice, but hey, no good prospect to draft, Teddy was okay for the Saints, clearly a stopgap solution…fine. A few caution flags, but fine.
Things didn’t go well but that’s the price of a rebuilding year. Then they go out before the draft and trade for…Sam Darnold? Justin Fields or Mac Jones would have been available to them, but I guess Sam was worth a try? Seems weird to spend a $63 million dollar 3-year contract on a stopgap like Teddy and then let him walk so you can trade 3 picks for…another stopgap QB who is even worse. They are paying Sam 18 million. They could have drafted Fields or Jones. Hey Darnold has a couple of decent games to start the season and everyone freaks out because our expectations are rock bottom for the guy, then reality sets in and it turns out Sam Darnold is as advertised. A pile of steaming shit. The Panthers panic and go back to the very guy who never should have left. They also give Houston Roughnecks legend PJ Walker the start and let Cam have a few plays.
So what the hell is the Panthers plan? Is it to build around CMC? That’s a stupid idea, dude can’t stay healthy and not even the Titans were stupid enough to base their entire operation on Derrick Henry, my muse and hero (<3 you Derrick). What is the Panthers long-term plan here? Matt Rhule went from genius hire to already on the hot seat and the team is walking back moves in week 10. Now they seem to be pinning their hopes on an old, possibly healthy Cam Newton.
Whatever this mess of a franchise does with the rest of the season, I hope we get lots of Cam being Cam to ease the pain.
I hope they make the superbowl, then he makes Tepper kiss the ring
The Panthers are paying the contracts for Cam Newton’s replacement, Cam Newton’s replacement’s replacement, and Cam Newton’s replacement’s replacement’s replacement (who is Cam Newton). Exceptional GM work there.
I remember how much I wanted the Giants to get Rhule. Of course I wouldn’t be surprised if Judge isn’t around after next year, and possibly even this one depending on how the rest of the season goes. But I imagine he’ll get at least 3 seasons.
In some alternate universe, Matt Rhule and/or Matt Patricia were the Giants most recent coaches, and either Sam Darnold or Dwayne Haskins ended up as our quarterbacks. Not saying Pat Shurmur was better than the Matts might have been, but Judge and Jones have at least had moments of solid, if uneven, production.
WTF, Dave! Spoiler tag for Squid Game, maybe????????????
lol Rhule isn’t on the hot seat. They just got a new GM because Tepper realized Hurney sucks at everything except drafting in the first round (dunno why it took Tepper so long to figure that out) and now they have a new GM, Scott Fitterer. New GMs like to have their own QB of choice, so they traded for Hey Darnold. I agree that it was a dumb decision but other than that, Fitterer has done a good job so far. He realized that the Panthers roster had needs all over it so he stockpiled a bunch of picks in the draft and so far it looks pretty good. Horn looked good before he got hurt, Marshall and Tremble are solid, Hubbard has been good when the Panthers actually commit to the run, and Keith Taylor has shown promise.
The long-term plan is to build the rest of the team up and find a QB. The roster already looks so much better than it did two years ago. The defense is really good top to bottom and the offensive skill positions are set. Now the only holes are at offensive line and QB.
Gotta wait a couple years and see if Fitterer can fix those.
I legit cried when he scored and screamed “I’M BAAAACK.” Then again when I saw him and CMC cheesin on the sidelines. Then again when he celebrated on the sidelines at the end of the game. Then another time while watching the highlights.
The Braves won the WS and my team’s dad finally comes home with the milk & cigarettes – someone pinch me
ï’ṃ ḇâck
The entire reason the panthers are meandering about like this is because they foolishly think they can win now and are making panic moves. If they had kept bridgewater in the first place, well he wouldn’t be lighting the world on fire but he wouldn’t be killing us like darnold has been either.
It’s just dumb because CMC missed half the year we had bridgewater, our defense was complete butt, and yet the FO saw bridgewater as the problem. We might have actually HAD a window this year if we had kept teddy, but because the FO panicked and said NO MUST WIN NOW they played qb roulette and lost, instead of wisely recognizing that we missed important people last year and maybe give it another year.
Just dumb moves for the franchise. Maybe cam will fix it. Everyone is saying the defense is fixed and I’m not buying it. Largely a result of the schedule, we’ve given up many points against actually good offensive teams. Cowboys dropped 36 on us, vikings 34, pats 24. Giants 25? That’s inexcusable if you want to say the defense is actually good.
why does cam speak in unicode
You ever see his Instagram posts?
have you seen the dude’s tweets? he’s like whosissname-will-smiths-kids-level forcedly quirky. all galaxybrain unicode i dont want to wear out my alt key to replicate
now ill never get the 5 min i spent perusing his twitter feed back
Why the Charlie Brown Christmas tree on the trophy case?
Cam coming back and immediately getting called for taunting after his first TD run was just mmm *chef’s kiss*.
But seriously, it was great to see show some semblance of the guy he used to be. I always liked him while he was in Carolina, so when he showed up in Foxboro I was really hoping he’d kick ass and prove his doubters wrong. And he did! For 2 games before catching COVID and falling off a cliff harder than the one everyone has been praying Brady would hit.
It sucks because for as bad as that season went for him and the Patriots, it obviously wasn’t entirely his fault. At the end of the day, he inherited a situation that was so bad that it made people think Tom Brady was actually washed and did all that while trying to learn an extremely difficult offense after having only joined the team in July. Even though things didn’t pan out for him, I have nothing but respect for what he did with the Pats. He accepted the challenge with maturity and enthusiasm and it was clear that he still won over the locker room. Everyone there respected him and appreciated him, but it was just never going to work out there. Not with the expectations placed on him. I’m glad he’s gotten another opportunity somewhere.
also he got rona-ed. i think that’s a pretty important part of the story here.
I mentioned that but, to be fair, the signs of decline started show against the Raiders a week prior. He was okay but that was a very ugly game and the first sign of the Cam Newton we ended seeing throughout the rest of the year. I have no doubt that catching COVID obviously played a factor in his awful play, but it’s pretty clear that it had a lot more to do with the woeful situation he entered into than anything else.
Cam is my favorite player behind Jerry Rice. I’m so happy to see him back where he belongs in Carolina. Hoping he can be healthy and even moderately productive. And if not they can at least use him like they did against the Cardinals!
I’m very confused why Darnold’s head looks so oblong.
His defining physical feature is the fact that his head is a literal cube lol
It’s a Hey (D)Arnold! joke.
It’s a play on the cartoon “Hey Arnold”… except… Hey Darnold.
Ah thank you.
Hey Dave! Here’s your pool update post week 10.
Your 5 was good for bottom third; the best the weekly winner could do was an 8, though.
Overall you’re at 89, which puts you in a tie from 14th – 16th. The current leader, which has been 3 different people in the last 3 weeks, currently has 99.