You can click through to Mocking the Draft to see my justification, which was really just BPA. I had a hard time with this pick because of some obvious flaws in his game which I will address shortly.
2016 NFL mock draft: Carolina Panthers choose Will Fuller - SBNation.com
Analysis: You could argue the Panthers should take offensive tackle Le'Raven Clark here because he fills a need on an average offensive line. But you really can't dispute Fuller's value. Why he dropped in this mock is unknown, but he brings a unique level of speed to the field.
The number of drops in his college career is concerning, yet he did get a lot of targets as well. That is easily my biggest concern but if Ted Ginn has taught us anything (and Kelvin Benjamin for that matter), its that even a guy with an occasional drop can still make plenty of plays. He did catch 62 balls for 1,258 yards and 14 TDs last season. That's a monster season for any college WR.
Other players I considered was WR Tyler Boyd, CB Xavien Howard, OT Le'Raven Clark and DE Carl Nassib.
Many pundits have additional issues with Fuller that I disagree with. For instance, he has small hands. Sure we would prefer every WR have catchers mitt size hands but that doesn't mean he is prone to drops. For example, you know who else has small hands? Steve Smith. I shook his hand at TC one year and my hand swallowed his and its not like I have huge hands. But his hand was like a vice. I'd rather have a WR with strong hands than large ones. (There's a joke in there somewhere me thinks).
Stephen White recently posted a less than flattering analysis of Will Fullers game on MTD, some of which I don't agree with:
Will Fuller is fast and ... well, that's it - SBNation.com
When I see a guy run a fast 40 time like Fuller's 4.32 at the combine, but their vertical leap, broad jump and short shuttle times aren't nearly as impressive (which also applies to Fuller's combine performance), it usually makes me wonder about how explosive they really are. Would a team be able to do other things with them like end-arounds or quick slants and have reason to believe that he might take one of those to the house? Or are fade/go routes pretty much the only ways to really take advantage of his speed?
I have those same concerns about Fuller in particular because it reflected pretty much what I saw on film. He's a definitely a big play guy on vertical routes, but he didn't look all that special as a run-after-catch guy. I didn't see Notre Dame even run him on any reverses or end-arounds, even with all that speed.
Just because White had high expectations for what he wanted to see on film about Fuller doesn't mean he can't be these things he seems to be missing. Fuller is a long strider versus short, quick runner. I get that but it's more about route running than natural ability. These are things he can learn in due time. What you can't teach is 4.3 speed. So in the end I think he would be worth the risk at the end of the 2nd round though he might fall even further next week.