Don't Back Down

It's that time of year again. For a while now, we've had to suffer through the torture while our favorite teams didn't win The Big One (unless you are a fan of the Giants, that is). Luckily, the game was a pretty decent one, and we got to see the Patriots - finally - fall. Most anyone could enjoy that. Everyone likes an underdog. Though a certain part of me wanted to see the Pats finish the first perfect season since the 1972 Dolphins, it's just as comforting to see it not happen. The Giants played a good game.

Still, for most of us, it means that the long, long summer was upon us, and we had to wait for what seemed like ages before football picked up again. As luck would have it, the NFL draft came along this weekend, and what used to be a mere afterthought has turned into a veritable sideshow. Just look at Keyshawn Johnson. He deserves pages all to himself. Did you see that suit he was wearing? A plaid shirt, pink polka-dot tie, reverse pinstripe suit and what looked like an olive green pocket hankie. I don't care that he played for the Panthers, how good he used to be, the fact that he made (or makes) all kinds of money or that he could beat me up. It looked stupid and was just plain ugly to boot.

So why did I watch? Because I just had to know if the Panthers would do anything. I won't say that I watched the entire thing. But I did catch most of the first round up until the Cats made their first pick. Most of it went pretty well by-the-book, but it's still kinda fun to see what happens. You just never know who will do what. Like the Jaguars making a trade to jump ahead of the Panthers and pick up Derrick Harvey. Didn't see that one coming, but with ex-Panther Assistant Jack Del Rio at the helm, it's no big surprise. Del Rio is a defensive guy, so he should have expected the Panthers to pick him. I did.

When the Panthers finally came on the clock with the 13th pick, however, they wasted no time in selecting Jonathan Stewart, a running back from Oregon. This was one of the top three choices for the Panthers, but the fact that the Panthers made the pick so quickly came as a bit of a shock. In the first round, teams seem to take their time - even if they know who they are taking, they almost always take up the whole time (ten minutes this year, down from fifteen in years past). But the pick was in and Stewart came off the board in less than five. That tells me that perhaps Harvey wasn't the first choice of the Panthers. Or maybe he was. We'll never know.

The big surprise - for just about everyone - was that the Panthers traded next year's first round pick, as well as a couple from this year to get back into the first round and select an offensive tackle, Jeff Otah. This one came as a bit of a shocker, because Otah isn't a big name. He's a big guy, but most everyone thinks the Panthers overpaid here. I don't. Otah has some room to prove himself, but because the team has bulked up, and because John Fox and Marty Hurney think they have what they need to go all the way next year (or close to it), that pick could end up being close to a second-rounder. That makes it less of a trade.

And if it doesn't work? Fox and Hurney are gone, and it's someone else's problem. Namely Bill Cowhers if I had to put money on it. But we'll see how that works.

I like the direction the offense is going. It's just too bad that the defense didn't get as much attention. The pickup of linebacker Dan Connor was nice, even though they didn't need a linebacker. He was highly-ranked, so you have to wonder why he had fallen so far (to be picked in the 70s). But still, he seems like a solid pick, giving the Panthers a good set of players across the line at the position. I also like the Charles Godfrey, and think he'll do a good job at safety when teamed with Chris Harris. With Julius Peppers' weak year last year, and defensive tackle looking pretty bare, I'm not sure that the defense can help out the offense, however - the first line of defense may make it tough on the secondary.

Maybe there are some free agents that can help. Let's hope so.