Quote:I've seen this a few times so I'll chime in. Josh has been playing at an elite level for 1.5 years. When we were 7-8-1 and made the late season run a lot of that had to do with Josh's play. He became a starter in the middle of that 2014 season and was fantastic. He shut down Julio twice and we won a ton of games in a row to make the playoffs. 

 

When I came to this board before we played you guys last year I was preaching how good Josh was going to be. I got laughed at a lot by all of you. All Panthers fans saw it from the end of the previous season. The dude finally "got it", and a lot of that was he finally learned to play within our defense. 

 

Josh was terrific last year. You guys saw his pick 6 week 1. But beyond that QBs just stopped throwing to him after around week 4. He's good - very good. I don't think I would put him up with the top shutdown man-to-man guys, but he's certainly a top 5 CB.

 

That's where the issues come into play. Carolina was willing to pay him $11M-$12M. Josh is asking for $16M and to be the top paid corner. That's just insane. I love the dude - he deserves to get paid like one of the best - but we weren't going to overpay him. 

 

It's a sad day for us. Hope you guys can get him because he's great to watch and he's certainly a character.