I was reading Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column the today and he had an interesting part in it where he talks about how the Texan's GM RIck Smith applies GE boss Jack Welsh's business theory of 20-70-10 to the roster. Anyone that works in the business world is familiar with this. Here is the quote from Rick Smith.

GE boss Jack Welch's 20-70-10 philosophy: the top 20 percent of your employees are standouts and must be nurtured. The majority, the 70 percent, are the working class -- needed but still able to move if the right situation arises. The lowest 10 percent have to be churned and replaced, because a company always is looking for ways to get better by importing new blood. "If you have a 53-man roster, maybe you've got 10 or 11 core players,'' Smith said, "and then 25 to 30 roles players, and then you're always looking to churn the bottom of the roster.''

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/06/03/mmqb/index.html#ixzz1wpiwwWMC

So it got me thinking about the Panther's roster. Who would fall into our top 20%? Who would be bottom 10% that we are trying to churn? Who might be towards the top of our "working class" group?

If we apply Welch's theory of the top 20% to our Panther's roster who would be our top 11 guys that we need to "nurture"? Whomever we leave out of our top 11 would need to be considered more JAG type players. Then of course we have the bottom 5 or 6 that we want to get rid of for someone better.

Here's my list of our top 20%. Not necessarily in order, I'll save that fight for a post for someone else.

1. Cam Newton - Easy right?
2. Steve Smith - I can't leave him off even though he is getting older.
3. Ryan Kalil - One of the top centers in the league at an important position.
4. Jon Beason - Top ILB and the leader of our defense
5. Chris Gamble - Lock down CB's are hard to find, and imperative in today's NFL
6. Charles Johnson - Big money got paid big money, there was a reason for that.
7. Deangelo Williams- Part of our double trouble backfield
8. Jonathan Stewart - ditto
9. Greg Olson - A potential top 5 TE that we need in this offense.
10. Jordan Gross - Still a solid LT
11. Luke Kuechly- A top 10 pick, young, tons of upside.
12. Orlindo Mare - -just kidding, I couldn't help myself

The last few names on the list got harder. I could have chosen a few others, but I'm comfortable with this list.

The bottom 5 or 6 will be determined after camp is over and the final 53 man roster is set. It will depend on how many OL, WR and DL we keep. A few of these guys may just make the team based on how many of each that the coaching staff wants to carry.

With the middle 70% the thinking is that you want to be able to develop many of these employees to move into your top 20%.

A few names come to mind: Brandon Lafell, Greg Hardy, James Anderson, Brandon Hogan, Amini Silatolu, Sione Fua, Terrell McClain

What do you think? Any changes?