8:25 PM Mon, Apr 21, 2008 | Permalink
Melissa Wheeler
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Greg Bailey
WCNC Sports Director |
That's really what the NFL draft is, a soap opera for men. Who likes whom? Who secretly wants to get with someone else? Does your favorite team really like that player? Or is all the praise for prospect "A" just a smoke screen? Does hooking up with someone new at tackle mean your favorite team is ready to dump their steady? It's all there, and we can't get enough of it. But remember rule #1 for everyone who loves the draft: Don't believe any of it. The Panthers have no real incentive to tell you anything. Why let some other team know what you really think?
Today's hi lites from the pre-draft press conference include this: the Panthers will now take the best player available. No longer will Carolina reach to take a player at a position of need (Eric Shelton), they'll just take the best player left on their board. John Fox explained that they make decisions based upon "groupings of players." So last year when Carolina traded down to get more picks, they did it knowing they would get someone from a group of six or seven players. The pick turned out to be linebacker Jon Beason. Credit the Panthers for a great pick. Not a good pick, a great pick.
Carolina's brain trust also explained that no one expected USC center Ryan Kalil to be available when they picked in the 2nd round last year, but Kalil was ranked so high on their draft board that they grabbed him. The best case of "taking the best player available" that I have ever covered came from the Seahawks. Mike Holmgren and company had Michigan guard Steve Hutchinson ranked at the very top of the board. Seattle had no intention of drafting a lineman, but when Hutchinson "fell" to them in the first round they took him. Steve Hutchinson is well on his way to a Hall of Fame type career.
Right now if you buy the idea that Carolina really might draft Boston College QB Matt Ryan (as reported in places like the Charlotte Observer and now repeated by Sports Illustrated) then GM Marty Hurney and Coach John Fox have far more job security than most people believe. Ryan looks like he'll be a fine NFL quarterback, but history tells us that quarterbacks take years to develop into players who can lead their teams into the playoffs. (An exception would be Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger.) Conventional wisdom says Hurney and Fox don't have years to wait to get their team back to the playoffs. But maybe they think a healthy Jake Delhomme is all that's missing from Carolina running right back into the post season. If the "healthy" part of Jake's return turns into an issue, then Matt Moore looks to offer a great option. After covering the team last year I say Carolina has far more pressing needs than at quarterback.
Leadership is the number one issue I'd like to see Carolina address. Jake's return would help, but this team needs all the leaders it can get. I'm still surprised that Mike Rucker hasn't been welcomed back as a backup, say 15 snaps a game, at defensive end. I always believed that Rucker's recovery from knee surgery was really a 16 month process. That's probably why Rucker played so much better at the end of last season. This one is a mystery to me.
I hope you caught Marty Hurney as our in-studio guest on Sunday night's Sports Extra. 
(You can watch it all right now on WCNC.com).
Hurney was relaxed and informative, up to a point. That point leaves us guessing again. What's real and what's just a smoke screen? We'll know the answers on Saturday and Sunday once the NFL draft cranks up.
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