FanNation - The Republic of Sport

The bombs have fallen, the fallout rests lightly on every surface, you unseal and open a metal hatch with a nuclear symbol on it, you climb down a ladder into the fallout shelter, and what do you see? John Gruden playing poker with six or seven quarterbacks.

Great blog as always, Dan.

HAHA Curly.

I think you're being generous with the C-. But the biggest plus they have is, like you said, the coaching staff is unchanged. And that can have a huge impact.

Very nice job Dan.

Perpetually Concussed ?
I like it !
Im stealing it !

As always.. a well done blog !

God Dan, if your going in order, the Patriots wont be up for MONTHS !

Hartwig was a center that was released, not a guard, Wahle was the guard the Panthers released, who later signed with the Seahawks. If you going to talk junk about the Panthers, at least get your facts straight. Are you getting paid for this?

Rob, the Steelers are considering moving Hartwig to Guard.. maybe thats what he meant ?

Lighten up Robs. Just because the Panthers sucked last year don't take it out on a man just sharing his opinion.

Smith will return to the pro-bowl as Jake has returned and he has more receivers to take the double teams off him. Peppers is in a contract year and players always do their best work in contract years. He will have something to prove and get 12-15 sacks this year.

Godfrey if you didn't know was a corner for Iowa in 2007. He didn't surrender 1 TD all year while getting 5 picks, 9 PDs and 65 tackles. How he is now going to give up a ton of them playing slot receivers and deep cover as a free safety.

Connor is currently listed as a third teamer in OTAs behind Johnson and Diggs. Johnson had 143 tackles to lead Cincy before being traded to Carolina. Connor won't see the field much this year but will play on STs.
Barnidge won't play in run sets, King and Rosario will. But Barnidge runs a 4.6 and at 6'5" and 247lbs is a receiver in a TE body. Few safeties or linebackers will keep up with him as we use him to stretch the field.

Tell me why we would draft a quarterback in the third round to sit on the bench for years as a back-up when we have Moore who was 2-1 as a starter and had a passer rating of 87 against Tampa, Seattle and Dallas (all playoff teams). Maybe Ainge would do better?? Basanez is also there and this is his second year in Davidson's scheme.
Jake is healthy two months ahead of schedule. He injured his elbow in 2003 and played another 4 years and took 100 sacks on that bum elbow before it finally blew in 2007. How is he now fragile after his elbow is surgically repaired and he has rehabbed his whole body for the past 9 months. Sure it is Tommy John surgery but Jake is a fast healer. In 2006 he hurt his thumb on his throwing arm and was supposed to be out 6 weeks but came back in three. If he were a major league pither, then maybe but non-pitchers routinely come back in 7 months. The torque on his arm is not nearly the same as a major league pitcher who throw 90 MPH curves and sliders on a pitch count often over 100 on a five day rotation.

Finally they have more depth at most positions then they ever have. We can withstand an injury to most positions without much of a dropoff. As for Smith, he has not mised a game since the 3rd game of the 2005 season. How is he injury prone??

I could go on about Brayton and Taylor, etc. But suffice it to say that you appear to form your opinions from reading too much ESPN and popular opinion. Visit some message boards and local writer's articles and blogs of the teams you write about. Many times they can give you a better understanding then the supposed experts.

If Stewart is better at power running than Foster was, they'll be a great tandem. That alone will be worth a win.

Last year Carr was horrible, and that's why they were scrambling at QB. This year they have Delhomme back, and two young QBs that they trust. It's not bad depth, and the Panthers don't depend on their QB to win games. If Delhomme lasts the season, that's easily worth a win or two.

This year the schedule is pretty soft on the Panthers. They play the Falcons twice, the Raiders, the Chiefs, the Broncos, the Lions and the Cardinals. That's a lot of cupcakes compared to last year, which might be worth a win itself.

Last year the Panthers went 7-9 despite the injuries and terrible QB play. They only managed 16 points a game. If they can improve on that and get it to the 22-24 range, then they're likely a playoff team.

Just my absurd prediction... :)

definitely a "glass half empty" point of view, and I may be being very generous.

The only reason you draft a QB and pay him that kind of money is if you think Jake is not gonna return healthy. Obviously Fox and co. felt confident enough about Jake during the draft and did not think that Ainge (or the others mentioned) would do any better than what Moore or Basanez could in necessary relief.

If that is the biggest portion of his complaint, I do not see any reason to read future submissions.

No mention of Godfrey or the versatility Carolina gains with the players they picked up or how they added depth at key positions for down the road. He mentioned "special teamers" like that was some kind of curse carefully forgetting how dismal kickoff coverage was last season and that it is a definite need in Charlotte. He thinks Brayton is a downgrade to Rucker and while that may prove true over Rucks whole career, Ruck had nothing in the tank last year. Tyler Brayton is a young athletic machine who is hungry to get an opportunity to prove his 1st round status and is DEFINITELY an upgrade compared to what Carolina had opposite Pepp in 07 in my opinion. He is physically capable and comes packaged with a very favorable hunger/price ratio attached which makes him a stellar pickup as cap space goes.

Downplaying Moose and Hackett after making a point to bring the Carter/Colbert "FA defection" to light is almost as damning a path of logic as any sports writer or fan can have as far as credibility goes.

Also I agree that neither RB is "fast" but they are both very quick and very strong and that is precisely what a power game is looking for...

Duuuuh!! Didn't the dude acknowledge that he understands that this is the offense Carolina runs?????


So Dan, in short, please relay the message to all those "dominant" teams in the east to stuff the inside run, not to ever worry about a bounce, and basically stack the box since Smith won't have a "renaissance year", we lost Colbert and Carter, and we did not draft Danny Ainge.

wow, lotta novelists in Carolina. I've got catching up to do.

KP is right, Robs, I saw Hartwig now listed as a guard and mentioned him as such... it didn't sound right, I thought I remembered him as a center. If I had a team of editors, this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

Curly, i, KP, thanks for stopping by as always.

The other guys - you each get your own comment, hang on.

Panthers55, I don't read much ESPN at all, I'm an SI and Yahoo! guy, but none of those helped me form my opinions of the Panthers much. They're too busy talking about Spygate and Jason Taylor. I also didn't read any of the local guys - I agree with you that they and you know the team more intimately than I do, but I have something you don't - objectivity, so I won't agree that you can look at your team's chances this year more realistically.

Since I'm so determined to look at these teams as objectively as possible, I do most of my blog based on stats and video research, particularly of the rookies. Most of the players drafted have video clips that I watch on SI.com or rivals.com. I watch the videos first, make my impressions, then read scouting reports to see if what scouts say match what I see. I understand, in watching the video, that it's a highlight reel; I'm not going to see when they blow a play. But I can see from the way a guy plays what kind of mistakes he might make; if he makes an interception on a play because he gambled and got lucky, or because he read the situation and took the right course of action. This brings us to your guy, Godfrey.

You ask, based on his college stats, how he's going to give up TDs against slot receivers, etc. Have you considered the fact that in college, he was mostly playing against guys who WON'T EVER be good enough for the NFL? Who was that one TD given up to? Could it have been James Hardy's 39-yarder on Sept. 29th? James Hardy... got drafted by the Bills and will possibly be the sort of guy Godfrey will have to cover in the NFL as his team's #3 receiver.

We love WRs in TE's bodies, don't we? By we, I mean you, because I don't. And if Carolina's a power running team, shouldn't they be more concerned about run blocking TEs?

Yes, Jake is a fast healer, but he's also a fast hurter. The guy has missed games. They need a backup. Steve Smith has missed three games in the past two years, and if injury isn't the reason his numbers have steadily declined, what else could it be, and why should we believe he'll be back to his Pro Bowl self?

That ought to do it for you.

Cyberjag, your points are fine. Except I take issue with one of them - it's ludicrous to assess strength of schedule based on last year's performance, when teams easily jump from playoff caliber to bottom-feeder and back all the time. But you didn't feel the need to rip me while disagreeing, so I'll leave it at that, and say thanks for reading.

Thanks for reading!

carolinarolls - is that anything like California rolls? Mmm... - I'm talking about a fifth-round pick. Those guys don't cost much. And Moore is a fine #2 option, but making Basanez compete with someone for #3 is a GOOD IDEA.

Should I be talking about you in the third person? Gotta say THAT was a turnoff.

"No mention of Godfrey," except for the part where I mentioned Godfrey.

Brayton's the sort of guy who could surprise us all and face-plant all six Bucs quarterbacks in one game. But the fact is, the Raiders weren't interested in extending his contract, either because of ineffective play or anger problems. The Raiders.

As for the mention of the WRs coming and going - and let's face it, it's a constant revolving door in Carolina - dude, it was a list of transactions. And if you think I'm crazy to think that an aging Moose and D.J. Hackett won't do better than Carter and Colbert... I think you're crazy.

And I assume you meant Erik Ainge, not Danny. Was that a joke, or a beautifully ironic un-researched fact at the end of your critical piece on my blog?

Oh, and just for the record, of course I don't get paid for this. But you're welcome to send me a check.

Dan -- at the risk of sounding like I'm just your fanboy, I thought your views on the players and draft were dead on accurate. Frankly, I've love to see the Panthers have a good year, but I just don't know what Fox is doing.

I've got a friend here in Indy who's a Panthers fan, and he insists the problem is John Fox -- that he's not a tough enough coach for the style of play and the personnel they have. I'm not sure I agree with him on the specifics, but I have to wonder if the time has come for a new coaching regime. I know you liked that the coaching hadn't changed, but the Panthers haven't done much in a while... at what point does a consistent coaching staff become a liability?

Thanks, David. I don't think toughness is Fox's problem, but if he lost the locker room like Brian Billick did in Baltimore last year, it wouldn't surprise me. But yeah, when I say I like continuity in a coaching staff, I really mean I don't like discontinuity because it's the sort of thing that can go overlooked and cause a team to tank the season, even if it helps in the long run. Since I'm looking season-by-season, I'm just worried about the immediate effect, therefore continuity =good.