Carolina Blues

The Future?

My Good Friend Jared Weiss, has wrote a post about his Favorite NFL team, the Struggling Panthers and Analyzes what's wrong, why its wrong, and how it can be better in this exciting post:

The Carolina Panthers are officially the worst team in football. I am sorry to say it, but it's true. First, lets look at the few bright spots from this season. 40 year old kicker John Kasay has been playing well, with multiple kicks of over 50 yards and he is yet to miss. 6th round pick David Gettis has been playing much better then expected. It will be a little bit easier to say something good about their defense. OLB James Anderson is leading the league in tackles, and he also has 1.5 sacks, many TFL's a forced fumble, two fumble recoveries, and even a pick. S Charles Godfrey is leading the NFL in interceptions with four, and the panthers pass defense is top five in the league. Too bad that might be because opponents don't need to pass in the second half.
In this past off-season, Fox made some bold moves in letting go of formers stars and leaders like Julius Peppers, Jake Delhomme, Brad Hoover, and many others. The Panthers now are the youngest team in the NFL, with the only players over 30 being their kicker and punter (John Kasay and Jason Baker), and star WR Steve Smith. Now, with injuries to key players like Tackle Jeff Otah and the aforementioned WR Steve Smith, the Panthers are missing much of their offense. With these injuries, much pressure was placed on quarterback Matt Moore, who was not able to handle it. After he failed, much pressure was placed on rookie quarterback Jimmy Clausen, who need more time to develop before he can make an impact on the NFL. 


The Panthers are getting close to rock bottom, and they need to figure out what to do next. For one, they should wait until the end of the season to figure out who their next head coach will be. After a bad experience with a coach who had been out of the league for a while, in George Seifert, they will want to go after a coordinator like Brian Schottenheimer from the Jets.
After that, they need to make a good decision in the draft. With a likely top five pick, this is a very crucial pick to get right. My advice would be for them to go after star Georgia WR A.J. Green. Green reminds me of a young Andre Johnson, and the WR-weak Panthers can not pass up on an opportunity for a star like Green. Even with many great quarterbacks available like Andrew Luck and Ryan Mallett, they should still give Clausen a chance, as he was such a highly touted prospect for a reason. 


Finally, they need to figure out what to do in free agency. I can not stress this enough, there is NOT a savior out them. It will be a long time until they get back into contention, and there is no point in going after a star who they will pay top dollar to, who would not be able to make a big impact on the franchise as a whole. It is going to be a long road back to the top for the Panthers, and they just need to take things one step at a time, so they don't end up being screwed for eternity, like the Oakland Raiders.