History of WR problems?

[Leeroy Jenkins PhD]

I have been a fan of the Panthers since they came into the league. Looking back on our 14 year history, it seems we have never had a seriously talented WR core.

I think the closest we have come to a good group of WR's was in 1999. We had Mushin Muhammed in his prime, Patrick Jeffries who each went over 1000 yards and of course TE Wesley Walls.

Since 1999:

Ricky Proehl - past his prime

Mushin Muhammed - past his prime

Keyshawn Johnson - past his prime

The only decent thing to happen to our WR core has been Steve Smith!

Our recent attempts to find someone to start next to the amazing Steve Smith . . . Rod Gardner, Drew Carter, Dwanye Jarrett, Keary Colbert, D.J Hackett, Rhyn Robinson..... and many others I cant think of off the top of my head.

The point is, maybe we are not bad at pulling in WR talent, maybe they are not being coached correctly (steve smith being the exception do to amazing natural talent)

the most promising thing the panthers have done this offseason is to bring in a new WR coach. Richard Williamson had been here since the start, but he was 68! That is almost as old as John Kasay.

Tyke Tolbert is the new WR coach and is specifically known for the ability to mold young talented recievers. I think with just a little help in the WR coaching department, with the peices we have in place, our offense could be suprisingly explosive next year.

[bleys]

the theory that maybe we get talent but are not good at coaching could be true, but since most of the players we drafted are barely on NFL rosters after they leave I'd have to think we don't draft them well either...

[Leeroy Jenkins PhD]

Of course we will never actually know, but what if some of those recievers had come into the league and had proper NFL WR coaching??

[Fiz]

some teams are historically bad at acquiring certain position players. There's really no rhyme or reason behind it.

The best two wide receivers the Eagles have ever drafted were Desean Jackson and Christ Carter, and Carter barely even played for them.

The bears have NEVER had a good qb (though I think that has some to do with the elements at Soldier Field).

[Fright]

Have we ever really had a team that threw so much to make a solid #2? We run a lot and go to our #1 a lot. That doesn't leave much for other guys, especially when we don't have guys who are demanding the ball. Jarrett (at least in my oppinion) seems like he's happy not making a single catch a game, so why are they going to want to go to him?

I'm really hoping Moore is demanded to take over a couple game and blows up the stat sheet next year to show its been bad QBs rather than bad WRs haunting us.

[Fiz]

Have we ever really had a team that threw so much to make a solid #2? We run a lot and go to our #1 a lot.

98 and 2004

[Ricky Spanish]

when we went to the superbowl, our receiving core was pretty beast. moose steve and ricky combined to be pretty beastly

[Leeroy Jenkins PhD]

when we went to the superbowl, our receiving core was pretty beast. moose steve and ricky combined to be pretty beastly

i can agree with that.

[Dpantherman]

all we need is 1 guy to step up. and to be honest. i really think Jarret can make a good slot. Moore tends to spread the ball more effectively. Jarrett and K Moore can rotate in the slot, and hopefully we draft a WR capable of playing right away opposite Smith. of course, that would be in a perfect scenario (to me), that probably won't happen

[theyhateme45]

all we need is 1 guy to step up. and to be honest. i really think Jarret can make a good slot. Moore tends to spread the ball more effectively. Jarrett and K Moore can rotate in the slot, and hopefully we draft a WR capable of playing right away opposite Smith. of course, that would be in a perfect scenario (to me), that probably won't happen

Disclaimer *I do not want this to turn into a Moore vs Jake Debate*

However Jake was spreading the ball around just as much as Moore if not more. Jake's #1 issue was decision making.

I don't believe it's our coaches.... Steve smith has developed within our system just fine. Moose had Good years, and Key fit in during his limited time here.

The WR is not an easy position to evaluate a draft. Some teams like the lions spend multiple early 1st round picks on WR's who failed... until they got calvin johnson. The eagles drafted plenty of WR's and finally found something with Jackson. The saints have found some steals in the draft. The Buccs had what everyone thought was going to be a beast in Clayton after his first seasons... then he disappeared.

The point is there is a lot of luck involved in finding a stud at the WR position, and it's not easy. Of course there are rare QB's out there like Peyton Manning who can make almost every WR look good.

[bleys]

let me just say that any coaching staff that cannot use #2 or #3 WR because they aren't "needed as much" is a coaching staff that will never be useful in the NFL..

if this is a theory to help our coaching staff sound like they have a reason to still coach, then it is not a reason/theory that sounds sane or reasonable...

I also have to throw in that our TE situation should look much better than it does... the fact that it doesn't severely disappoints me.. Rosario and Barnidge should get much more use than they are... especially Barnidge...

[Leeroy Jenkins PhD]

I love being known as a smash mouth football team. It does me good to know that our players will come out and hit you in the mouth (In SS's case, litteraly). As we saw last year, and I believe it began agaist Arizona in that horrible play off game, teams can stack the box against the run and still keep SS covered. Our offense was doomed!

That is the difference in our offense the last few games of the year, people were stacking the box, and covering SS, but somehow our QB (Moore) was able to get the ball to other recievers and TE's. He actually got it to them without throwing an INT. That is where the difference is, as teams attempted to adjust to our new found ability, it opened up the run and SS. That is why we had a vast improvement in offensive production against the playoff bound teams in the last few weeks.

You have to admit beating the Giants 41-9 and the Vikings 26-7. We were playing like we could have won the super bowl.....

[panthers55]

Williamson was old but everything I have read about him said he was very well thought of in the NFL by those folks paid to know who is or isn't a good coach. I don't think the problem is that we can't develop wide receivers since both Moose and Smitty as well as Jeffers were developed by Williamson. The problem as I see it, is that we aren't good at using our receivers to the best of their ability or tailoring our game around their skill sets. Instead we have an offensive scheme which we run come hell or high water and certain guys don't succeed in that scheme. Take Jarrett for example. If you look at his opportunities and his success when given the chance, he has actually done fairly well. But he gets very few opportunities since he is a 3rd receiver and we don't run very many 3 or 4 wide sets. I think Barnidge hasn't really been used to his advantage. We have a guy who averaged 22 yards a catch last year and he only got 12 balls all season.

You either need to draft guys who will succeed in your scheme and only draft those type of players, or you need to draft the best guys you can and adapt the offense around their skills. I think we try and draft the best guys available but not always the best guys for the scheme we run. So they underachieve. Or we pick guys like Carter and Colbert who for whatever reason just never got better and haven't done any better on other teams.

Since we seem to not be able to change schemes to take advantage of our talent, we need to really decide what type of player will fit best in our scheme and draft them. Otherwise we will have talented guys who will continue to disappoint.

[Cyberjag]

Mark Carrier and Willie Green were pretty good, as I recall. They were on the first two Panther teams.

In looking at the history, it's worth noting that we really haven't had a lot to work with. Here are the picks we've made, by round.

Rae Carruth was drafted in the first, and had a decent rookie season, leading the receivers in catches. He broke his foot in the first game of his second year, and in his third he was too busy plotting to kill his girlfriend to focus on the field. He had talent, but it was never developed and that's probably his own fault. It's tough to say what he would have done if he had kept his focus on the field.

We've drafted Moose, Colbert, and Jarrett in the second. That's one great pick, one poor one (started out good, but what happened???), and one that has bust written all over him. Jarrett can wipe off the bust label, but if he doesn't we're batting .333 here.

Smitty was a third round pick, and he's done ok. Batting 1.000+

Donald Hayes was drafted in the fourth and worked out ok. He was never great, but he wasn't awful. Ryne Robinson was also drafted in the fourth, didn't turn many heads, got hurt, and got gone.

We've taken three receivers in the 5th, which includes Drew Carter.

We've also taken two receivers in the 7th, neither of whom have worked out.

So if you look at the ones we've taken on the first day, we've taken five, gotten two long-term high quality starters out of them, two who were good in their rookie years, and one who's still teasing us with potential.

On the second day we've taken seven receivers. One was decent, one other contributed, the rest were wasted picks.

That's about what you would expect, right? Maybe the problem isn't our coaching after all--maybe it's a lack of opportunity instead.