Here’s a fresh weekend open thread just for you.

Feel free to use this thread to hang out over the weekend and chat about whatever you want (just make sure you follow the ToS ... the rules still apply here) with anyone who decides to stick around.

This is now an open thread!

The Panthers added former BYU wide receiver and return man Dax Milne to the practice squad for what could be a potential Hall of Fame career.

The Carolina Panthers front office is busy throughout the season with transactions, roster moves, and injury updates. Here’s what’s happening at Mint Street this week.

Injury Updates

Per the Panthers team website, the following players are on the injury report as of publication:

Transactions

Signed WR Dax Milne to the practice squad. Boom! Many of you know I’m Cat Scratch Reader’s resident BYU homer, and Dax Milne is a BYU guy. Dax...

At least we aren’t sliding backwards

The Carolina Panthers, residents of football purgatory since their failed 2015 Super Bowl run, have a lot of work to do to inspire their fans. As the likely owners of the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, they have the opportunity to erase some of their mistakes in recent seasons and address the disparity in talent between their roster and the roster of just about any other team in the league.

However, to do so, they will have to make prudent, strategic choices with their draft picks and other resources heading into...

The Saints defense isn’t what it looked like in Week 1, but why not?

Welcome to our weekly game pick series where I will attempt to guide you through picking every Carolina Panthers game of the 2024 season. At this point you know I'm not picking the Panthers and no amount of serious analysis of the team is going to change my mind or surprise any of us. They are who they are.

We had some intrigue between Weeks 3 and 6, approximately, where the team was at least fun to watch. That is gone now as the Panthers are...

We bring you part two of this week’s mailbag!

Hello CSR! Welcome to Brian Asks, part two of your weekly Panthers mailbag for everyone! This week, I posed the topic of wide receivers you might have liked that were towards the bottom of the depth chart, honoring the breakout performance by 2024 undrafted free agent rookie Jalen Coker. Unfortunately, soon after this was posted, the Panthers traded 2024 WR1 Diontae Johnson to the Ravens, for a 2025 5th round pick while the Panthers also flipped over a 2025 6th round pick. Typical internet discourse ensued, so we didn’t have as...

Bryce Young finally gets a match-up against a struggling defense. Will it matter?

The Carolina Panthers are electing to trot Bryce Young out as their starting quarterback again this weekend even though Andy Dalton is presumably healthy enough to play at this point. The former started last week against the Broncos and put on a performance that many are calling “not the worst game he’s ever had.” He threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns against one of the best defenses in the NFL, though a significant amount of garbage time helped those numbers. It was still the second most...

How this week’s injury report affects our picks

The Carolina Panthers are finally, maybe, possibly getting healthier on a week to week basis. It’s been a few weeks since anybody was put on injured reserve. We’re in the middle of the return windows for talents like Jonathon Brooks, Adam, Thielen, D.J. Wonnum, and Jordan Fuller. And what’s more, the Panthers injury list is hardly longer than the New Orleans Saints to start the week. Let’s take a look at how this week’s injuries will affect the Week 8 outlook:

Andy Dalton & Bryce Young

Dalton was[ involved in a...

How did the Panthers do in fantasy football? Will those trends continue?

The Carolina Panthers again struggled offensively against the Denver Broncos in Week 8 of the NFL season. Let’s take a look back at how individual Panthers players fared and if they are worth keeping moving forward. For these articles, I will be using fantasy totals in an ESPN Fantasy league I am part of, so your numbers might have been slightly different.

Quarterback

Bryce Young

Bryce had, by far, his best fantasy performance of the season against the Broncos, though that wasn’t a very high bar....

The Panthers defense continues to gain some support back as they face a reeling Saints offense.

The Panthers will get their rubber match against the New Orleans Saints this week, albeit the circumstances differ significantly from their week 1 tilt. The Panthers have managed one win since then, while the Saints ran over both the Panthers and Cowboys to score 44+ points in each game. Things have certainly crashed back down to Earth for the Saints, as they’ve lost every game since, and have only topped 20 points twice in that span. Let’s dive in!

Turnovers will be a...

Let’s take a closer look at one of the prospects the Panthers could select in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Since it’s never too early to look forward to the NFL Draft, this weekly series will take a closer look at some of the prospects the Carolina Panthers could select in the 2025 iteration of the Draft. In this series, we’ll only be looking at prospects the Panthers could seriously consider. This week our profile will focus on Georgia Bulldogs linebacker Jalon Walker.

With the Panthers all but guaranteed to take a quarterback in the first round at this point, let’s...

A whole lot happened in a full slate of games in Week 8.

For some reason, Week 8 featured no teams on bye, no teams playing overseas, and only one Monday Night Football game. I don’t know why the NFL randomly decided to throw that full Sunday slate in Week 8, but it made for a jam packed day of football with lots of goings ons. Let’s dive in.

NFC South

The Saints continue their freefall without Derek Carr

To be clear, the Saints started this freefall while Derek Carr was still healthy, but they’ve only spiraled further...

The plan is clear and it does not involve winning this season

The Carolina Panthers completed a long-rumored trade to send away Diontae Johnson yesterday. The compensation they received from the Baltimore Ravens was a pittance, but I take that as more of an indictment of the player than the team. Surely somebody would have parted with a whole pick to edge out the Ravens if they were willing to take on a potential number one receiver with almost zero contract if that is all that was being considered.

Regardless, he's gone and we can consider the fact that the...