I was reminiscing about the 2007 draft the other day and recalled how I selected S Reggie Nelson in the 1^st round of the SBN mock draft. The Panthers had a big need for a starting safety and this draft was deep with them. As you know the Panthers passed on the four top safeties and instead traded back and selected LB Jon Beason. No complaint there.

But I did complain about the lack of a quality FS in 2007. Instead of spending a high draft pick on the position the Panthers had pinned their hopes on former 4^th round pick Nate Salley.  Salley looked ready to start but a preseason injury ended his season before it started leaving the Panthers to fill the spot with journeymen Deke Cooper early in the season and then Marquand Manuel later.

The Panthers finally addressed the position in the following draft but not with a high pick. They instead selected Charles Godfrey in the 3^rd round, a safety who was converted to CB in college who would now be converted back to safety. The explanation is that John Fox doesn't think you need a high pick for this position, that adequate talent can be found in the later rounds to man this position. So let's test that hypothesis. Here's how Charles Godfreys rookie season at FS stacks up against the rookie seasons of the five safeties taken in the 1^st round the past two seasons.

The first point has to be that Brandon Meriweather is not a good comparison because he did not start until the final few games so he didn't get the snaps the others did, who started from game one. LaRon Landry might also not be a good comparison since he ended up playing SS, which explains why he had so many more tackles.

Those two points aside, we can see Godfrey measured up well in number of tackles and passes defended, two very important measures. That is not bad for a 3^rd round pick as opposed to 1^st rounders. Where you could make a case he fell short would be interceptions but outside of Reggie Nelsons' 5 Godfrey really didn't fall short by much. A better case would be that Nelson had a great rookie campaign and so far is the best FS of the bunch (which validates my mock draft selection!).

Unfortunately for Godfrey INT's is what fans and coaches want to see. Now that Godfrey has a season under his belt we should see his reaction times to the ball increase and with it hopefully the passes defended as well as INT's. I think he has the defensive coach to help him improve given Ron Meeks recent Colts defenses ranked high against the pass these past few seasons. I doubt anyone will argue that he also molded a super star safety in Bob Sanders as well. Will he do it again?

I think Godfrey has the skills to play at a high level when it comes to speed, athleticism and hitting ability. The kid tries to make big hits to fault, at times failing to wrap up. That is correctable. What he lacks so far and what might not be correctable is that natural, ball-hawking ability that some might argue comes when you are born. So what can we expect from Godfrey this season? I'm not expecting too many more tackles because realistically if he makes a lot more tackles that is not good. So the tackle range should fall somewhere between 55 and 70. Where we really want and need improvement is passes defended, where 12-18 in 2009 would be a nice sophomore season. If he could throw in 4-7 INT's then that would be ideal. If that should happen then we can certainly say that John Fox and Marty Hurney found first round value in the 3^rd round. Thoughts?