Interesting Paralells with Davis/Anderson and Morgan/Witherspoon.

[SorthNarolina]

Wrong. He has made tackles his whole career, but he has rarely made plays. That's why he was a solid, but unspectacular player.

are you sure you aren't thinking of brandon short?

I remember INTs, deflected passes, solid tackling. 03 to 05 were his best years in the league.

[SorthNarolina]

And there lies a problem, thinking the Panthers should have overpaid for a WLB.

We'll he left to be an MLB so I'm not sure his contract would be the same here. I'm not going to fault the panthers in hindsight but even then after 05 signing Dan Morgan to a 5 year extension did not seem like a sound investment. People were crossing their fingers but it had a lot of risk to it.

[bleys]

I will be devistated if we lose most of our free agents.

how would that happen?

[Seal (SmittyIsOurSavior)]

Honestly, I'd do Beason in the middle with Davis and Anderson on either side. Why choose between the two?? Anderson had a brilliant year, well outplaying Beason, yet got no Pro Bowl consideration. (Popularity contest.)

[Peppers90 NC]

And there lies a problem, thinking the Panthers should have overpaid for a WLB.

I do agree he would have been overpaid for his position, he was very good for us, no denying. After giving the contract to Morgan, we were left with either Spoon or Foster. After losing the NFCG the way we did, with no rb's, I think that helped make the decision easy to sign Foster.

[Panthro]

I would have rather spent the money on keeping Moose.

[Woodie]

How soon people forget.

The Witherspoon and Morgan contracts were mutually exclusive of each other. Both had similar offers on the table, and Morgan decided to accept his. This had no impact on the Witherspoon negotiations whatsoever since they kept his offer on the table even after Dan signed. In fact, they even raised the offer a bit, but when the Rams offered him a ridiculous contract, the Panthers had to bow out since they felt the value of the contract was greater than the value of the player.

It was never an either/or situation like some seem to believe. The team wanted to keep both, and made strong attempts to keep each.

[Kurb]

Witherspoon might be one of the most overrated Panthers of all time. Besides Hoover.

For serious.

Also Morgans extension wasn't all that impressive.

Spoon got paid WAY too much by the RAMS.

[frash.exe]

at some point in time i thought Witherspoon was the best linebacker overall for the fox era, considering injuries also

and then we drafted Beason

[pantherclaw]

Re-reading what I wrote I don't see anything that I'm beating my chest about. If it seems a little too brash for you then take this response as me trying to clarify on the chest beating.

I say right at the bottom we have plenty of cap room this time but it just struck me as to how similar the situations looked. I'm just throwing this out there as an observation I'm not trying to drive some point home about anything.

The team did what they thought was best so I'm not going to fault them in hindsight. But it did work out horribly for all the parties involved. Witherspoon's play declined, Morgan injured himself out of the league and they panthers lost two great defenders which hurt even with the eventual replacements of davis/beason.

Sorry that took it differently.

That being said, there are going to be simularities with every free agency period. Some more than others.

[Snake]

Davis want be looking for a big paycheck, more like just a paycheck. I think we will sign him on the cheep.

[pantherclaw]

Davis on the reduced "I haven't played meaning football in a year an a half" contract.

Anderson, has player better this last year than spoon ever did, will get a decent size contract after his breakout season.

[MadHatter]

How soon people forget.

The Witherspoon and Morgan contracts were mutually exclusive of each other. Both had similar offers on the table, and Morgan decided to accept his. This had no impact on the Witherspoon negotiations whatsoever since they kept his offer on the table even after Dan signed. In fact, they even raised the offer a bit, but when the Rams offered him a ridiculous contract, the Panthers had to bow out since they felt the value of the contract was greater than the value of the player.

It was never an either/or situation like some seem to believe. The team wanted to keep both, and made strong attempts to keep each.

Spoon wanted to be a MLB.

[SorthNarolina]

i didn't realize i was such a witherspoon nut hugger. He made a great number of plays I remember. He was very good in coverage and seemed very intelligent he usually sniffed out screens pretty quick.

He didn't just fall off the map when he left here either. He certainly shouldn't have been a MLB and I remember people already predicting his demise once that was announced. But I think he was excellent in coverage while he was here in 04 and 05.

I would take 04-05 Witherspoon over Anderson. It's hard to compare since they played different positions and witherspoon had far better defensive lineman.