Quote:
Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule
Wasn't there a Carolina Panthers fan posting a while back? I would love to hear his take on the whole thing.
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Greetings, my friends! Sorry I've been away for a while, but I had quite the hangover from a painful Super Bowl. I'm getting my feet back under me now and realize I am behind on talking to my friends here about your new CB.
I quickly scanned this thread. I see these are your main questions:
Why did Carolina let him go? Is he a steal? Did we overpay? and
Is that Giants fan STILL here?
From what I've seen with Norman, your answer to all these questions is somewhat in the middle. I think you will not only be happy with Josh, but I think you'll be thrilled and get a fair amount of good years out of him... as long as you don't expect him to be perfect and the best CB in the league.
First, why we let him go:
We wanted to keep him. He is a really good corner! Unfortunately, he is in the wrong position in our system for big money. We are set up in such a way that our front 7 are priority. We have spent almost nothing on secondary, yet get incredible production from guys considered "has-beens" or that appeared to be liabilities on other teams. (We do the same on offense spending almost nothing on receivers, yet we make people like Tedd Ginn almost a household name.)
Josh earned a payday! It was a luxury for us to have that quality in our backfield when our money was spent elsewhere. Although we all knew Josh deserved elite money after last year, we also knew he likely was gone because our system is working and Gettleman can't and shouldn't screw up the system to keep one star (especially one in the wrong position).
For the record, Josh is a competitor, but I don't think he's actually a diva. He's made a bunch of "Batman" comments etc. that got attention, but it was generally in good fun. He's handled himself well in the locker room and in interviews. The whole OBJ thing was just stupid. It was great competition between two great players, both pushing the limits but only one lost composure. If not for that, you'd have never heard much of anything about the matchup. Josh will be a spark and a plus for your locker room.
Next question: Is he a steal?
I'd say yes. The downside is that you have to pay his value now as opposed to us paying for a rookie that turned elite. But still a steal. Not due to the price, but due to the fact that I think an elite corner can be a major part of your defense and you weren't going to get a Josh Norman quality CB in the draft or anywhere else in free agency. It would've been bad money for us to spend on him, but a good investment in your system. (Of course, you would know better than me if that is the case with your team's system.)
Now, did you overpay?
Maybe. It's hard to tell. There's no question he is a great CB. But the balanced view is that, again, our system has made receivers and secondary look much better than they really are. We have quite a list of mediocre DBs who have looked like stars here and then gotten a payday elsewhere that they didn't live up to.
But I have reason to believe that's not the case with Josh. Here's why: With those other DBs, we could watch games and tell that it was our system making them look better than they were. You couldn't tell that with Josh. In fact, he made a ton of plays that saved our butts in several games.
In fact, our front 7 actually had a challenging year. Kuechly was out several games, as was our best DE, Charles Johnson, and Thomas Davis, and we were still working on getting Greg Hardy's replacement, etc. Josh actually helped us get through those tough spots.
Still, bear in mind that he will occasionally get beat. For example, in that Giants game, OBJ beat him bad then dropped what should've been an easy TD right at the beginning of the day. (In fact, I think that drop played a major part in OBJ's breakdown) So Josh is not going to be Deion Sanders.
So I guess the bottom line is: If you think Josh is going to single-handedly elevate you to the next level, you may be disappointed. If you realize he's a really, really good corner that will make a lot more good plays than bad, you'll be very pleased with the results. I think he's not as good as some think, (because of how our system helps DBs) but he's definitely special and amazingly, I think he's still going to be getting even better in the next few years.