On Wednesday night, Cardinals WR Robbie Anderson thanked the Panthers in an Instagram post . . . aaand it’s gone.
It’s been a little over a week since the Carolina Panthers parted ways with Robbie Anderson. And now that things have cooled down a tad, the new Arizona Cardinals wide receiver took to Instagram on Wednesday night to thank the supporters from his time in the black and blue.
Arizona Cardinals WR Robbie Anderson thanks the Carolina Panthers via Instagram pic.twitter.com/EpbMGbVrNa
Hey, better late than never, right? Well, uh . . .
Luckily, Ellis L. Williams of The Charlotte Observer was wise enough to screenshot Anderson’s post. Because if you head over to @chosen1ra on Instagram right now, it’s no longer up there.
Nonetheless, the 29-year-old has begun a new chapter of his football career out in Arizona—following three interesting years in Carolina. From Robby to Robbie, Anderson recorded 161 receptions, 1,821 yards, nine touchdowns and one sideline blowup too many with the Panthers.
That blowup came during the team’s Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, when he got into the face of wide receivers coach Joe Dailey. Anderson would later be sent to the locker room by interim head coach Steve Wilks and traded to the Cardinals less than 24 hours later . . . a longer duration of time than the lifespan of that appreciation post.
Congratulations, bettors! The real winners of the Christian McCaffrey trade.
When the Carolina Panthers handed their star running back to one of the best team’s in the NFC, bettors officially gained a sure winner to throw into their parlays each week for the remainder of the 2022 season.
No, the lock I speak of isn’t the San Francisco 49ers, who got a B- trade grade for gaining one of the best and most versatile running backs in the league. Though McCaffrey makes the Niners better, I wouldn’t just write them in to win every week.
The lock is the Carolina Panthers, who are apparently tanking as they look to rebuild and may not win another game this season. More accurately, bettors should be playing the moneyline of whoever the Panthers are playing each week.
At 1-5, I wasn’t sure how much winning the Panthers would do even before trading their best player. But, now, I’m certain it won’t be a lot, if any. That’s not simply because McCaffrey is gone, but also because his trade likely means more players will follow — we even have a few suggestions on who those players should be.
Panthers GM Scott Fitterer said Friday the team isn’t tanking and expects to win, but their actions say otherwise.
You don’t trade McCaffrey and starting receiver Robbie Anderson if the intention is to win. Those players gave you a better shot at doing so.
Despite trading two starters in the last 5 days, #Panthers GM Scott Fitterer says the team is not tanking.
In the meantime, this team will do a lot of losing, starting with Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-13). Even with the NFL’s fourth-easiest remaining strength of schedule, according to Tankathon, bettors are going to be confident wagering against Carolina’s moneyline.
If only we could nail the other legs in our parlays, we might actually make some money.
Heading into Week 7 and we finally saw a Thursday night game with plenty of points. Granted, most fantasy owners didn’t start Kevin White, Rashid Shaheed, or Juwan Johnson, but it’s been an odd season. The Panthers wasted no time destroying their team trading away Christian McCaffrey and there are a lot of ripples from the transaction. I discussed that briefly in this article.
By Week 7, we’re seeing a separation of the good and bad teams though 22 teams do not have a winning record currently and ten of those are 3-3. At least the top players in each fantasy position are starting to become more stable and reliable, but there are more injuries and roster moves coming that will shake teams up.
Here are six items worth thinking about heading into Week 7 of the NFL season.
1.) What’s up with the old guys? – I’m apparently not the only one that watched quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady and thought that they suddenly just look old. Like really old. Like too old. So I whipped a quick comparison of the first 12 quarterbacks drafted (ADP) this summer, their respective ages and where they are ranked after six weeks. Interesting.
It would be wrong to assume that age alone is why those 30+ year old quarterbacks all fell short of expectations. But it is odd, and an interesting look at how the average drafter considered older quarterbacks versus younger ones. Consider where they ranked at the end of 2022 for Tom Brady (2), Matt Stafford (5), and Aaron Rodgers (8). There is something going on with the NFL in terms of low points and sluggish fantasy games.
I’m not alone in believing the decreased preseason work and how preseason games evolved into nothing more than a consideration for who makes the final 53-man roster have caused teams to not play to the level of past seasons. It’s likely more than just that, but perhaps for a later article. But the older the veteran, the less they do in training camp and preseason games where most never made a showing.
The other interesting, and maybe more important aspect of the above table is how those earliest quarterbacks have been money. Not a dud in the batch. While zero-QB drafters sort through their two or three average quarterbacks, the teams with the earliest drafted quarterbacks all own difference-makers.
2.) RB Kyren Williams (LAR) – The Notre Dame star fell to the 5.21 pick of the Rams because he measured just 5-9, 194 pounds while running a 4.64 40-time. By the tape, he doesn’t offer the measurables that teams like to see in their running backs but all he did in Notre Dame was produce. In 12 games as a sophomore and senior, he ran for over 1,000 yards and totaled around 1,400 yards each year with 14 and 17 touchdowns respectively.
The Rams traded up to get Williams. He broke his foot in OTA’s and missed much of the summer. In the season opener, he injured his ankle and has been on injured reserve. There has been a lot of buzz about Williams and he was expected to mix in with Cam Akers and Darrell Henderson but we haven’t seen him. Now Akers wants to be traded and the Rams backfield has been one of the worst. That’s partially on the offensive line, but Williams has upside when he does play. They reached to get him and were disappointed to see him injured. If you have an empty spot on the roster to see what may happen in future weeks, Williams is worth a stash.
3.) Panthers offense – The Trade of Christian McCaffrey signals that the Panthers are already living in 2023 and accept what should be painful results from the rest of the season. But – when teams go as bad as the Panthers seem to be heading, there is fantasy value. Even if only in the final fifteen minutes when their opponent is packing equipment boxes and resting starters. Sending Robbie Anderson to the Cards opens up the receivers for a team that is going to need to throw the ball. The Panthers defense is average at best and if the offense cannot generate enough points to stay in the game, the defense will suffer battling field position and opponents just trying to get first downs and kill the clock.
D’Onta Foreman offers fantasy value and should produce fantasy-relevant starts every week. He’ll be limited by the offensive line and the reality that the Panthers will be faster to abandon the run. On the plus, when it all goes really bad, even the losing team runs the ball to get the game over. Terrace Marshall takes over for Anderson and the 2021 second-round pick is the one to watch among the wideouts. D.J. Moore will continue to be blanketed by the opponent. The quarterbacking is and will be below average, but Marshall is in an ideal spot to get his career going against a secondary that may spend much of the second half dropped back and just watching Moore.
4.) RB Gus Edwards (BAL) – It is hard to remember back to 2020 when we last saw him. Edwards tore his ACL before the 2021 season and has rehabbed since the injury. He’s in his third week of practice since being cleared and the Ravens have one more week to add him to the active roster. With J.K. Dobbins having continued problems with his knee, there could be an opening for Edwards to be more involved. Kenyan Drake was getting half-a-dozen carries this season but then blew up with 119 yards on ten carries at the Giants. That should earn him more work but the coaching staff is excited to get Edwards back. He’s not likely to turn into any workhorse stud, but he will generate fantasy value when he is back to form. There is a chance he may play this week.
5.) Broncos backfield – Melvin Gordon was unhappy with his minimal workload against the Chargers last week, while Latavius Murray ran well with 15 carries for 66 yards. HC Nathaniel Hackett said of the fourth-quarter benching that their offense simply wasn’t controlling the ball or getting first downs. Murray was coming off a solid series, so they went with the hot hand at the end of the game. By most accounts, it was just a one-game situation and there is no change in the backfield committee of Gordon and Murray. Mike Boone appears to be the loser on the depth chart. But this situation bears tracking and the workload distribution could still continue to change.
6.) WR Tyquan Thornton (NE) – The Patriots’ second-round pick is one to watch. He started the season on injured reserve with a collarbone injury, but he impressed with his dedication even while injured. His debut in Week 5 was only two catches for seven yards but he caught everyone’s attention last week with four catches for 37 yards and a touchdown, plus three rushes for 16 yards and one score. That alone gets him scraped off waiver wires to be held in reserve on fantasy rosters. His 4.28 40-time was enough to get drafted but he further impressed with route-running and shiftiness even in tight spaces.
Despite rumors, the Patriots reportedly do not play to trade away their crowded receiver room with Jakobi Meyers, DeVante Parker, Kendrick Bourne, Nelson Agholor, and Thornton. The rookie did his damage when he entered the game in Cleveland after Bourne left with a toe injury. What makes Thornton a bit more interesting were those three carries and that rushing score. He only carries three times in his entire career at Baylor. The Pats are trying to get him onto the field.
After Jonathan Stewart called Robbie Anderson out for his “temper tantrum” on Sunday, the former Panthers WR went off on the franchise’s all-time leading rusher.
Despite what went down at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, former Carolina Panthers wideout Robbie Anderson still demanded his respect. And that demand, apparently, goes for people who may not even be in the organization anymore.
On Monday’s episode of the Bleav in Carolina Panthers podcast, franchise great Jonathan Stewart dropped his two cents on Anderson’s actions during the Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Carolina’s all-time leading rusher, clearly, was not amused by what he called a “temper tantrum.”
"Shut your mouth and play."@Jonathanstewar1 reacts to Robbie Anderson's sideline outburst and subsequent trade out of Carolina.
Anderson, of course, was sent off into the locker room by interim head coach Steve Wilks in the fourth quarter of the game. That move, in what would be the pass catcher’s final scene as a Panther, was preceded by a shouting match with receivers coach Joe Dailey—one in which Anderson vented his frustrations for being taken out of a third-down situation.
Less than 24 hours after the incident, the disgruntled veteran was traded to the Arizona Cardinals for two future late-round draft picks. But, Anderson (or @chosen1ra on Instagram) wasn’t too busy to hear Stewart’s shots, or show that he was packin’ that thang too . . .
@bleavsports/IG
Anderson and Stewart were never teammates in Carolina, as the latter wrapped up his Panthers career three years before the former’s arrival. Regardless, it might be safe to say that the two won’t be buddy-buddy, at least anytime soon.
The Cardinals give up a 2024 sixth-round pick and a 2025 seventh-round pick to acquire the speedy 6-3 receiver.
The Arizona Cardinals made a move Monday to add a wide receiver to the team after the injury to Marquise Brown. They acquired receiver Robbie Anderson from the Carolina Panthers for what was announced by the team as undisclosed future draft compensation.
We know what the compensation is.
The Cardinals agreed to give up a 2024 sixth-round pick and a 2025 seventh-round pick.
The Cardinals had already committed their 2023 seventh-round pick to the Las Vegas Raiders in the trade for cornerback Trayvon Mullen.
Anderson is under contract through 2023.
The 6-3, 190-pound receiver had 95 receptions for 1,096 yards and three touchdowns in 2020. His usage is down this year. Through six games he has only caught 13 passes for 206 yards and a touchdown.
The Cardinals play on Thursday night this week and Anderson could have a small role even this week.
The Carolina Panthers have traded wide receiver Robbie Anderson to the Arizona Cardinals for multiple draft picks
Compensation update: Panthers traded WR Robbie Anderson to the Cardinals in exchange for a 6th-round pick in 2024 and a 7th-round pick in 2025, per source.
The Carolina Panthers have traded wide receiver Robbie Anderson to the Arizona Cardinals for a pair of draft picks.
Carolina will receive a sixth-round pick in the 2024 NFL draft, as well as a seventh-rounder in the 2025 draft, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Anderson was removed from Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers by interim head coach Steve Wilks after exchanging words with his position coach.
Arizona is dealing with the loss of Marquise Brown to a foot injury, but also welcomed back DeAndre Hopkins from his six-game suspension Monday.
The Cardinals have traded for disgruntled Robbie Anderson
The Arizona Cardinals have lost a receiver, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, and quickly added another one via a trade Monday, former Carolina Panther Robbie Anderson.
Brown injured his foot in the Cardinals’ loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
Some good news for #AZCardinals WR Hollywood Brown: Following the MRI, his foot isn’t as bad as was initially thought. It’s a small, non-surgical fracture, source said. Recovery time is about 6 weeks. He’s getting a second opinion from Dr. Robert Anderson before moving forward.
Timing is everything. The compensation, per Adam Schefter:
Compensation update: Panthers traded WR Robbie Anderson to the Cardinals in exchange for a 6th-round pick in 2024 and a 7th-round pick in 2025, per source.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports the Panthers are getting a 2024 sixth-round pick and a 2025 seventh-round pick in return.
Compensation update: Panthers traded WR Robbie Anderson to the Cardinals in exchange for a 6th-round pick in 2024 and a 7th-round pick in 2025, per source.
Anderson, who spent the first four years of his NFL career with the Jets, signed with the Panthers as a free agent in 2020 as one of the first new faces of the Matt Rhule era.
Rhule was fired last week after a 1-4 start and, after a lengthy time of wanting out of Carolina and the team having been shopping him, Anderson followed suit Monday. But not without fireworks.
Anderson was seen getting into verbal altercations with Panthers WR coach Joe Dailey and then sitting by himself on the sideline. Interim head coach Steve Wilks saw enough and sent Anderson to the locker room. That would end up being the last image of Anderson in a Panthers uniform.
The Cardinals did also become in need of a wide receiver as Marquise Brown may potentially miss the rest of the season with a foot injury. They also get DeAndre Hopkins back from suspension this week.
In four years with the Jets, Anderson played 62 games and caught 207 passes for 3,059 yards and 20 touchdowns, including seven in 2017 and six in 2018. In 39 games with the Panthers, he had 161 catches for 1,821 yards and nine touchdowns. He has 13 catches for 206 yards and one touchdown so far this season.
After a career year during the 2020 season — 95 catches, 1,096 yards, three touchdowns — his numbers dropped almost in half across the board to 53 catches, 519 yards and five touchdowns after going from Teddy Bridgewater to Sam Darnold at quarterback and then to Baker Mayfield in 2022. He went without a target against the Rams as the Panthers did next to nothing in the passing game.
Panthers fans said their goodbyes to WR Robbie Anderson after three bizarre seasons in Carolina.
On Monday, the Carolina Panthers reached the end with receiver Robbie Anderson. The seventh-year wideout, who headlined the Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams with a “sideline-type situation,” is now on his way to the Arizona Cardinals after three seasons in Charlotte.
Robbie Anderson provides the deep ball threat the Cardinals badly need. It might not make a difference under Kliff Kingsbury.
The Arizona Cardinals receiving corps will look very different in Week 7’s matchup with the New Orleans Saints. Marquise “Hollywood” Brown will likely miss the game thanks to a foot injury that could cost him the rest of the season. His targets could be split between two players making their 2022 Arizona debuts: DeAndre Hopkins and Robbie Anderson.
Hopkins’ return from a six-game PED suspension was expected. Anderson’s arrival was not. The Panthers shipped their former 1,000-yard wideout west Monday after sending him to the locker room in the middle of the team’s 24-10 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Rather than release him and let him hit the open market, Carolina found a willing buyer in a Cardinals offense in dire need of playmaking talent at the cost of two late-round draft picks.
Carolina had shopped Robbie Anderson recently, and all parties appeared on the same page. But rather than have to release him after yesterday, the #Panthers were able to deal him to Arizona. https://t.co/jlarObdjJC
Anderson will join a 2-4 team beset by regression. Kyler Murray, fresh off a five-year, $230 million contract extension with $189.5 million guaranteed, has backslid mightily in his fourth season as a pro. He’s struggled to generate any kind of consistent, meaningful offense through the air thanks, in some part, to a receiving corps that’s been without two of his favorite targets from 2021’s breakthrough season — Hopkins and Christian Kirk.
Here’s a look at his numbers through the first six games of 2021, his 2021 season as a whole, and his first six games of 2022. They paint a pretty grim picture of decline that runs parallel to the Cardinals’ record over that span.
It’s reductive to blame that all on Hopkins’ absence over the back half of the 2021 season due to injury and the start of 2022 thanks to suspension, but it’s not entirely wrong. Murray is a very different quarterback without his All-Pro wideout serving as the rising tide by commanding double coverage and allowing his supporting cast to thrive. A.J. Green, for example, caught 67 percent of his targets last season with Hopkins in the lineup and just 51 percent when Hopkins sat.
Head coach Kliff Kingsbury is hoping Anderson can be the beneficiary of that extra exposure, especially of Brown’s injury keeps him out for multiple games — and it appears it will. Anderson spent the past two seasons languishing alongside the league’s worst quarterbacks en route to his two least productive seasons in the NFL.
He’s caught just 48 percent of the passes thrown his way since 2021. His 5.3 yards per target in that span ranks dead last among 47 wide receivers with at least 100 targets. But these were the guys throwing him those passes:
via RBSDM.com and the author
Murray is flawed, but he’s significantly better than a quarterback stable whose *best* passer ranked 46th out of a possible 53 qualified players over the past two years.
It will be interesting to see how Kingsbury incorporates Anderson into his offense. The former Texas Tech head coach thrives when he can stretch the field vertically, but those throws have been limited without Hopkins on the field to lure deep safeties to his chunk of the field. Murray averaged a healthy 7.9 air yards per throw en route to 2021’s 6-0 start, but that number fell to 7.4 over the back half of the season and sits at just 6.8 yards downfield after Week 6 — seventh-lowest among starting QBs this fall.
Anderson is capable of taking the top off this offense and getting downfield in a hurry. Go routes and deep posts were pretty much his jam as a New York Jet, where his average target was at least 15 yards downfield in three of his four seasons.
As you’re probably well aware if you’ve watched even a modicum of football the past decade, it’s not like the Jets had surrounded him with quality quarterbacks either. Now he gets to work with Murray, whose most notable deep threat before Monday was a 34-year-old A.J. Green, who leads the team in target depth (10.5 yards downfield) but has 10 catches on 22 targets and just 56 receiving yards. Brown was the only other regular WR whose average throw went more than 5.3 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, and now he may be done for the year.
Fortunately for Kingsbury, Anderson is more than just a burner. His most productive season came in 2020 when he teamed with Teddy Bridgewater to expand his route tree and do more work in the intermediate range. While his 9.8 yard target depth was the lowest of his career, his catch rate (69.9 percent), receptions (95), receiving yards (1,096) and first downs gained (49) all hit personal bests.
This is all very good news for Murray, who gets his WR1 back as well as a player capable of thriving in his wake — and that’s before we get to the recent rise of Rondale Moore. Moore’s ability to take short targets and turn them into big games makes him an important safety valve for an offense that’s twice been held without a touchdown in six games this season.
Hopkins-Anderson-Moore is a useful trio and Zach Ertz continues to produce at a reliable level for a tight end. The question now is how Kingsbury can fit this group together.
In-season adjustments traditionally have been Kingsbury’s blind spot. His teams were 13-3 before November 8 in 2020 and 2021 and just 6-12 afterward. There are plenty of jokes out there about how that coincides with the annual Call of Duty release and Murray’s love of video games, but the real culprit is an offense that spends all its skill points on Plan A and then scrambles when opponents find ways to stop it.
This will be Kingsbury’s biggest challenge and one on which his job likely depends. He earned a contract extension this offseason to keep him from heading into 2022 as a lame duck head coach. With Murray locked down through roughly 2027, however, it’s much easier to jettison a mediocre head coach than the highly-paid quarterback who’s foundering under his leadership. The Cardinals don’t have the early-season cushion they typically build in September-October; 2-4 is the worst start of the Kingsbury era, even worse than his 2019 debut that ended at 5-10-1.
Anderson isn’t a cure-all for everything bad about this offense — we haven’t even gotten into a rushing attack whose top two backs average less than 3.9 yards per carry — but he has the toolbox to make a few fixes along the way. It’s on Kingsbury to find a way to fit him in.
Logically, it seems like a solid move. Three years of watching the Cardinals fold in upon themselves like fresh laundry, on the other hand, suggests it probably won’t make a difference.
