Who is the most important player on the panthers defense?

[Smith vs Lucas 153]

So I was browsing through Bleacher Report today and Matt Miller self proclaimed "NFL Scout" had an article up today about the " Top 100 players in the NFL"

In this article he had Luke Kuechly ranked 76th and Greg Hardy ranked 9th out of 100. I am really getting the feeling BR, ESPN, and FOX sports are not giving the credit Luke deserves. I can't remember the last time a MLB had 24 tackles and a pick in a game, that allowed their team to win their division.

So in the comments below state who is the most important player on the defense. I can watch a panthers defense without hardy, I don't think I can imagine one without Kuechly.

[thomas96 12,744]

Luke, but this defense is dominant because we have numerous important players. Take away Star or CJ or Hardy or TD and we lose a big piece and our defense suffers greatly.

 

Edit: I posted that up there without reading the paragraph, just the heading... After reading the paragraph all I have to say is What. The. fug. Luke should be top 5 and Hardy should be somewhere around 75-85.

[CarolinaCoolin 2,526]

Yeah luke was way underrated and hardy way overrated. But that's BR

[BeasonBeastingBacks 523]

Star

[jtnc 3,667]

Ahahahahahahaha

[shelbypanther 421]

Luke.

[Carolina_Crazy 54]

LUKEEEE!!!!

[davos 3,855]

Luke Starkraken

[TheRumGone 14,355]

Star is the most important. He's the glue

[Kakarot 3,435]

Star

[QCkilla 314]

Unanswerable question

Sent from my DROID RAZR using CarolinaHuddle mobile app

[panthers55 5,310]

The answer is clear.  Luke singlehandedly took our defense from the high 20s to the low teens in 2012 with many suspect components.  Hardy had a stellar year in 2013 but he didn't have anything close to the impact that Luke had. Hardy being that high simply reflects the importance that DEs get when looking at defenses.  Anyone who knows the Panthers also knows that Luke is the runaway best player on defense and it isn't even close.