Minter

It seems like Minter lost a LOT of weight in the hospital when he had the staph infection too. Perhaps he overcompensated in putting the weight back on?

Regardless, Minter hasn't looked like the same player to me since the Super Bowl.

 

I assumed last year he would have difficulty being surrounded by inexperience. If you take any unit and populate it with rooks or second teamers there will be a drain on the whole unit. It's always been that way, why would last year be any exception.

 

I am sure trying to cover for all the other guys in our secondary made Minter look like he had lost a step. He has never been great in coverage though.

 

Yeah, I don't think anyone was nominating him for the Pro Bowl, but it's saying something when teams consistently chose to attack Minter instead of Branch. We might quibble about who's biased and what their motives for liking or disliking a player might be, but opposing teams aren't going to target Minter because they want Branch to succeed. I happen to agree that Branch often looked hesitant, but it's also true that he didn't give up many big plays. As over-aggressive as he is, it might help if Minter had a little bit of hesitancy himself.

As far as run support is concerned, as I mentioned before, if you need that out of your free safety then something is badly wrong with your defense. It's not as if that was much of a complaint when Deon Grant was around either, and he was certainly as limited as Branch in that respect. Moreover, I'd like to see a little more form and wrapping up from Minter. Too often over the last couple of years we've seen him tuck those arms and go for the big hit, only to let a guy bounce off and get by him. I'm all for the big hit on a receiver, but just wrap up the running backs.

 

deon's last year here he vastly improved his tackling. he even started laying the wood on folks.

 

Grant improved but he still ducked out of some tackles and still was not very good. he did however show up whereas Branch never came into the frame early last season ('cept maybe to pat someone else on the butt). but again, i think that was coaching and Branch is taking an unfair rap for his "hesitation" due to his following orders.

 

Interesting note in Don Banks' Carolina camp report. He says:
"Eventually, though, Panthers officials believe Davis will be a full-time linebacker in the NFL."

I guess that's bad news for WW, and would explain why they seem to be hotter to extend Morgan than Spoon. On the plus side, it suggests that we don't plan to depend on Minter at FS over the length of that contract extension we gave him.

 

I believe those particular assumptions come at an assumption that they wouldn't put either Witherspoon or Davis on the strong side, and that they'd push out Witherspoon simply for that fact. You obviously realize that I don't feel that way, but I also believe the team doesn't feel that way. I believe getting something done with WW is resting upon getting something done with WW, nothing more.

 

Whats your opinion on getting something done with WW? Do you thinks it's going to happen?

 

Dude, just shut up already. You simply can't ever admit when you're wrong. If the team had ANY INTENTION WHATSOEVER of playing Thomas Davis at SLB, he'd at least be getting some reps there since it's by far the biggest hole in our defense. Instead THEY HAVEN'T LINED DAVIS UP AT SLB FOR EVEN ONE SNAP IN ANY PRACTICE. Not one. Give it a fucking rest. NO ONE CARES what you think about where Davis could play, the only thing that matters is where he will, and the team obviously isn't even considering him at SLB. It isn't going to happen, so stop pretending like it's some hypothetical and not a case of you clearly being wrong (just like you were about him playing FS).

Just shut the fuck up. :dancing_d



For everyone else who isn't desperately trying to avoid admitting that they're wrong about Davis being a possibility at SLB, if Banks actually got his info from Carolina coaches, that doesn't look good for Spoon. Quite frankly, it's exactly what I expected, and I said so right after the Minter extension, but I'm still somewhat uncomfortable with it. I do think Spoon is a better WLB than Minter is a SS, but on the other hand, playing Davis at WLB instead of SS will give him a better chance to take advantage of his greatest strength, which is knocking the crap out of people.