Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson letter to PSL owners: A good first step

[Mr. Scot]

Actually it was a Franchise Free Agent signing. We had to surrender two first rounders for it because of the tag. We'd bickered with the Redskins about alternate compensation but in the end we just gave them the standard fare (pretty dumb decision in hindsight).

Free agents signings in Panthers history that were considered "big name" at the time:

- Lamar Lathon, Mike Fox, Darion Conner Sam Mills (1995)

- Eric Davis, Greg Skrepenak, Kevin Greene, Wesley Walls (1996)

- Michael Barrow (1997)

- William Floyd, Doug Evans, Sean Gilbert (1998)

- Patrick Jeffers (RFA, 1999)

- Chuck Smith (2000)

- Brentson Buckner, Kevin Donnalley, Jeff Mitchell (2001)

Also picked up in that latter period were guys like Eric Swann and Reggie White. It didn't go so well.

In 2002, Hurney took over as GM and John Fox as head coach. That's when the approach changed to concentrate more on mid-level free agents. There were fewer "big names" but they still trickled in from time to time.

In the 05 and 06 seasons we spent big money on some highly coveted guys in Ken Lucas, Mike Wahle, Ma'ake Kemoeatu and Justin Hartwig. It didn't pay the kind of dividends we wanted.

The lesson here is if you want to complain about the free agent approach, you should probably be talking about Marty Hurney, but he's using a model other teams have used and been successful with while some who have gone whole hog after big names have watched them bust.

Bottom Line: Richardson isn't too cheap to pay for free agents, but Marty Hurney doesn't like to go after big names.

Will that change with John Fox gone? Unknown, but possible.

[Kevin Greene]

Sean Gilbert wasn't a big name free agent?

Yiou realize this was the worst NFL player move since the Vikings traded for Herschell Walker?

[Mr. Scot]

Yiou realize this was the worst NFL player move since the Vikings traded for Herschell Walker?

Ah, but he was a "big name".

People act like all "big name" free agent moves are automatically good ones.

Plenty of them bust, here and elsewhere.

[Cavscout]

We need some veteran FA's to help with the leadership of the younger guys, IMO

Even Pittsburgh signs some FA's