What do you see going on in the draft next year?

[rayzor]

No....i'm not giving up on this season by any means. we have a lot more to see from our panthers this year. i still believe we can go all the way.

two things are incredibly obvious to me:

1) we are set on offense. no glaring needs. (shut up you jake haters. not talking about that now )

2) we need some serious help on the Dline as far as depth, especially

i can see us spending 80% of the draft and FA acquisitions on defense concentrating mainly on doing to the d-line what we did to the o-line.

having the DEs and DTs mirror what we have on the offensive line would be fierce. going big and physical.

any thoughts or too soon to be thinking about such things?

[Lt Pinkerton]

I think we can use the 64th overall pick on a good DT. The draft is VERY deep this year.

I would like to see a push for Matt Cassel or Nnamdi Asomugha but Fox/Hurney never sign big FAs. If I were Fox I would:

1. Cut: Nick Goings, Landon Johnson, Julius Peppers, Ken Lucas (This leaves a LOT of cap space)

2. Sign: Matt Cassel, Jordan Gross, Nnamdi Asomugha,

3. Restructure Jake's Contract to save Cap space.

4. Draft a good DT.

Then our Starting Roster looks something like this:

Offense:

LT Gross

LG Wharton

C Kalil

RG Vincent

RT Otah

QB Cassel

RB Williams

FB Hoover

WR Smith

WR Muhammad

TE King

That's a Damn good offense.

Defense:

DE Johnson

DE Brayton

DT Kemoatu

DT Lewis/Walker/Rookie

OLB Diggs

MLB Beason

OLB Davis

CB Asomugha

CB Gamble

FS Harris

SS Godfrey

That looks like a Super Bowl 22 in my opinion.

[ACobra289]

Every pick: Defense

[rayzor]

matt cassell?????? no way.

[rayzor]

oh....we might need to find an heir for hoover.

[runrunpass]

You do know that Cassel is a product of New Englands system and he rarely throws the ball 10 yards downfield.

[Lt Pinkerton]

You do know that Cassel is a product of New Englands system and he rarely throws the ball 10 yards downfield.

I guess you haven't watched him. He's a great QB for hooking up with smith and he's mobile which is great for the kind of offense we have. (Run First)

[Scrumtrilescent]

You just made a DL that was thin to begin with even thinner.

[BIG JASON]

cut peppers? you must be drunk.

[PanthersFanNY]

-Sign Peppers... We can't replace him, he is a beast.

-Sign Gross... O-Line continuity please.

-Maybe Cut Lucas... This could leave us thin at CB but his play doesn't warrant his contract.

-Try to restructure Jake's contract.

-Attempt to free up as much cap room as possible.

-Sign Albert Haynesworth... This would be awesome; him and Julius would dominate.

-Repeat a Super Bowl win.

[Lt Pinkerton]

cut peppers? you must be drunk.

No I'm just being realistic. There is no way we can re-sign Peppers. Sure I would prefer that we keep him, but he is going to want his money and we can't provide him with that.

[Lt Pinkerton]

-Sign Peppers... We can't replace him, he is a beast.

-Sign Gross... O-Line continuity please.

-Maybe Cut Lucas... This could leave us thin at CB but his play doesn't warrant his contract.

-Try to restructure Jake's contract.

-Attempt to free up as much cap room as possible.

-Sign Albert Haynesworth... This would be awesome; him and Julius would dominate.

-Repeat a Super Bowl win.

I'd rather have Asomugha, and we could get him for much cheaper.

[rayzor]

QB is not the concern that DT or even DE is.

cassell is going to be getting way too much cash and is not nearly worth what he will be getting.

focus on this....

[ShutDwn]

I think we can use the 64th overall pick on a good DT. The draft is VERY deep this year.

I would like to see a push for Matt Cassel or Nnamdi Asomugha but Fox/Hurney never sign big FAs. If I were Fox I would:

1. Cut: Nick Goings, Landon Johnson, Julius Peppers, Ken Lucas (This leaves a LOT of cap space)

2. Sign: Matt Cassel, Jordan Gross, Nnamdi Asomugha,

3. Restructure Jake's Contract to save Cap space.

4. Draft a good DT.

Then our Starting Roster looks something like this:

Offense:

LT Gross

LG Wharton

C Kalil

RG Vincent

RT Otah

QB Cassel

RB Williams

FB Hoover

WR Smith

WR Muhammad

TE King

That's a Damn good offense.

Defense:

DE Johnson

DE Brayton

DT Kemoatu

DT Lewis/Walker/Rookie

OLB Diggs

MLB Beason

OLB Davis

CB Asomugha

CB Gamble

FS Harris

SS Godfrey

That looks like a Super Bowl 22 in my opinion.

You have learned nothing from the last three years. It is ridiculous how you can still thing this way. Get rich quick schemes don't work, not in real life and they don't in the NFL.

First off, signing Aso won't happen

Second, signing Aso and Gross won't happen

Third, signing Aso, Gross and Cassel won't happen

Fourth, signing Cassel is stupid, he will demand too much money for too little proof that he can play and Jake will not take a back seat until he plays himself out of the starting spot. If you knew anything about Fox you would know that.

Aso won't matter much in coverage if you only have Tyler Brayton and Charles Johnson rushing the passer.

Now, lets get to what you haven't learned. You're entire offseason is based of signing big name free agents. THIS DOESNT fuging WORK. HOW fuging HARD IS IT TO SEE THIS? This isn't madden. If it worked we would see the Raiders winning and the Redskins would have 10 superbowls over the last 15 years.

The Panthers got caught up in this whole thing a few years ago. You can't just look at a team and say, well if I add this guy we are ____ much better. There are politics in a team, there was an article about Lucas, he wasn't accepted until this past year. He wasn't a showboat, he was just a loner type guy.

The Draft is the only way to build a championship. You can only gain players that play for each other if they are grown in your system. Only once you have the consistency and you know how to win can you bring in guys like the Patriots did two years ago. You must have the players and coaches that warrant immediate, undeniable respect. However, what the Patriots did was still completely different from your get rich quick scheme. They went bargain basement on Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Sammy Morris.

If you have players that are drafted by your team, developed by your team, and developed with the same guys, you will have a team that is 10x better than a bunch of high name guys. Guys bond, they grow together and they play FOR each other. Bringing in some big name guy only creates a divide, like Smith thought of Lucas for so long, and many people thought of Whale.

It's like a company buys another one. The paper always says that this is the best move and it will yield great profits, its always a good idea at the time. But the success rates of acquisitions are incredibly low, because they forget the human element. Employees ask, who are you to tell me what to do, how do I know you have my back, you replaced my friend.

You did think of a way to bring the team down completely though, bringing in another QB like Cassell would completely send the team into rage. Possibly replacing Delhomme with an outsider would piss everyone on the team off. Why not replace the defensive leader Beason too?

True, this is a business, but team chemistry is far more important than any single player will ever be.

Fox and Hurney will not sign a big money free agent other than Peppers or Gross. They may go bargain hunting and try and get lucky like they did with Brayton, what they did this past year was right. Hackett and Johnson just didn't turn out.