Disclaimer of sorts: If you have even the remotest idea in your tiny brains that [DFO] upper management, in their infinite wisdom, has intentionally scheduled me to go last in a “save the best for last” type scenario, you will be sorely disappointed and should most certainly not continue reading.  At least not until you fully comprehend that if any hypothetical scenario were to be apropos, it would be the avoidance of the [DFO]calypse brought on by tWBS destroying the blog (again?) with suckage of such gargantuan proportions that everyone deletes their profiles.

Translation:  If anything, they have put me at the end in hopes of hiding me between all of the good previews and Thursday’s kickoff.  Them’s some smart fellers.

You’ve been warned.  Read on at your own peril.  Don’t forget to duck and cover.

And please don’t throw rotten fruit at me.  I prefer vegetables.

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The following is strictly for parody type fun and probably never happened…as far as I know.

Late February, 2016.

An athletic, good looking young man sits alone on a sofa in a finely appointed home in the Charlotte suburbs. He stares blankly at the black dead screen of the 80 inch television mounted on the wall. He no longer notices the spidering of cracks radiating from the center of the screen; they no longer mock him. He stopped noticing them at least two weeks earlier.

An official NFL football lies in front of the screen on the floor.

Because no one has yet bothered to put forth the effort to pick it up.

The phone rings and the young man stops muttering to himself unintelligibly, and picks up the receiver. In his stupor, however, he forgets to check the caller ID.

Young man: [flat monotone] Newton Residence.

Man on phone: Hey there buddy boy, how you doin’ today?

The young man groans inwardly, then sighs.

Cam: Hello again Pat. What I can I do for you toady? I mean Today?

Pat: Aw come on son, don’t be that way. We’re all worried about you up here.

Cam: I’ve already told you and everybody else over and over, I’ll be fine. But for now at least I just need to be alo..

Pat: Aw come on, son…when you gonna get up here to Raleigh for a visit? Oh wait…do you mind if I call you “son”?

Cam: Well, it IS a distinct improvement over calling me “boy”, like you have during every other call, but…

Pat: Good, good. I don’t wanna offend any of my constituents no matter what. [lowers voice but not enough]  But I never will understand why that bothers you people.

Cam: [facepalm…says nothing]

Pat: You still there son?

Cam: Yes Pat, I’m still here.

Pat: Good good. You really gotta get up here. And don’t worry about that whole ball thing. Me and my staffers drop the ball all the time and we NEVER bother to pick it up. Total waste of time if you ask me. But no matter what anyone else says, you just gotta keep getting right back up on that bucking bronco and…ooooh sorry, poor choice of words.

Cam: Look Pat I appreciate that you’re only trying to help in the only way someone like you knows how, but…

Pat:  Someone like me?  You think I can’t relate to your situation just because I’m the governor?  Aw son, that hurts.  I’m a man for the people.

Cam:  Sure Pat, let’s say it’s because you’re the governor.  But like I’ve told you already, I’m just not ready to talk to anyone.

Pat: Yeah I get it, I get it. By the way, we all loved it when you walked out on the media. We were high fiving all over the Capitol that night, lemme tell ya. I told everyone “That boy….errrr that fella has balls”.  I wish I could get away with that. But those jerks just keep on following when I try so I just…Sorry I’m rambling.

Cam: [whispers] Yeah, what else is new you feeb?

Pat: What’s that son?

Cam: [clears throat] I uh, said I need go now so I can go buy a new TV

Pat: Right, right I forgot about that.  I bet you wish Von Miller had been there THAT night, huh?

Cam: Still not funny, Pat.  Ok, so if we’re done here, then I really…

Pat: So when you gonna pick up that ball?

Cam: LOOK PAT…THAT’S NOT FUNNY!!! HOW COULD YOU THINK THAT WOULD EVEN BE REMOTELY FUNNY?????

Pat: No, no…take it easy son. I’m talking about the ball that’s still on your living room floor.

Cam: Oh, sorry. Yeah, I’ll get to it eventu…Wait…how do you know there’s a ball on my floor?

CLICK

The young man hears footsteps on the back deck, fading into the distance. He moves to the door and parts the curtains, the first daylight he’s seen in nearly a month. As he peers out, he sees a suited man slip on the ice of the deck stairs. The loudness of the thud, coupled with the cries of agony, causes the young man to smile, also for the first time in nearly a month.

Instead of calling 911, he walks over and picks up the ball and leaves thru the front door to go to Best Buy, whistling as he closes the door behind himself.

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Because of a lingering issue with my left hand, I pretty much have to be done with the typing now guys and gals. Below are some links to some pretty comprehensive previews done by smarter folks than I anyway. I had planned to steal their work and call it my own…errrr use it for research more or less. But my left typer is misbehaving and more painful than normal the past few days I’m afraid.

And I frankly don’t care enough about the Panthers to put myself thru that for much longer. My apologies to you fine folks for that, however. You’ve all done amazing jobs with your previews and you deserve a better closer than I’m able to be currently.

Paenitet Me. (no that’s not autocorrect gibberish you heathens…look it up…I’m trynna be all cultured and junk)

But before I go, I’ll give you a couple of things in spite of myself.

Defensively speaking, my friends who are Panthers fans are all still pretty upset that Josh Norman is gone (their loss will truly be the Redacted’s gain). They’re even more upset that his likely replacement will be a rookie learning on the job, James Bradberry and/or Daryl Worley. Expect them to pretty much split time evenly until/unless one emerges as the obvious #1 on the chart.

The defensive line and LB core are solid still, and will give opposing offenses fits…unless neither Bradberry nor Worley figures things out quickly enough.  Then teams will quickly figure out how to exploit the patchwork schemes the Cats try to throw out there, of course.

Offensively speaking, my Panther fan friends are equally happy that Kelvin Benjamin returns, hopefully healthy. If his knee holds up it could go a long way towards a return to playing in February for the Cats. Ted Ginn, Jr is still a thing of course, and I think we’re all happy about that; as are Funchess and Brown. But Ginn had better start listening to the footsteps behind him figuratively, and forget about the literal ones (ie…catch the ball).

Stephen Hill, if he can stay healthy, could create a glut on the chart and Ginn, or even possibly Brown, might find their playing time go down faster than a drunk prom queen. Cam will have no shortage of targets to throw to, that much is for certain. Some will probably even figure out how to catch the ball eventually.

If the O-line holds up, the running game should be decent enough. But if Cam has to start calling his own number too often, that’s a bad sign, both in the short term and the long as far his longevity in the league.

Plenty of question marks both for health and inexperience on this team. But none are bigger than the D backfield. That could spell big problems.  But then again there are a bevy of things which will have to fall correctly for the Cats if they are to have any hope of repeating their 15-1 mark and Suberb Owl appearance from a year ago.  It’s unlikely for all of these things to fall correctly.  And even if they do, the keyword still will be “hope”.  Just saying.

I don’t care about the Panthers enough to research their scheduled home/away opponents in order to make a competent prediction per se, but my gut tells me they fall off some for at least this year.

Let’s call it 11-5, and they don’t even reach NFC Champs game.  Will Cam repeat as MVP?  The magic 8 ball says…it is doubtful.  But then again that damned thing told me it was a good idea to invest in Enron soooooo…you get what you pay for.

Training camp preview: Can Panthers stay atop NFC? (NFL.com)

2016 season preview: Carolina Panthers (ProFootballFocus.com)

NFC South preview: Panthers aim for Super Bowl return (NFL.com)

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Now, on to the important stuff:

(AKA…distracting you with honeys to win favor in the end…giggity)

((incidentally, these are all clickable for full size versions….you’re welcome))

So now….without further ado…

LET THE (REAL) GAMES BEGIN!!!!!!!

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