I wouldn't ever ask a real Pantha fan to pull for someone else in the NFC in the middle of the season- but who do you pull for in the other conference (obviously not when they're going up against our boys), if anyone?

...ok, the post has to be 30 more words long...

I'd say the least likely choice -call me crazy-  is going to be the Patriots.

I'm also pretty sure that my "true" fanhood will be called into question, but I'm bored at work and need something to pass the time.

And in my GIS, I found this gem I had never seen before...(can you spot the remaining Panthers- and Sir Purr's bitchass doesn't count!)

via www.panthers.com

Like many of you folks, I like my football. I mean, if you're reading this in the middle of May when there is literally nothing happening in the football world, then you clearly are an obsessed fool like myself.

I also like football video games, and I played the heck out of the NFL 2K series (RIP). One of my favorite things to do was to load up the Season mode, and play through a half-dozen seasons or more with a team, until most of the squad were players I'd drafted. Nothing quite like watching your own players progress.

Well, there's now an online game that has that same quality. It's called Goal Line Blitz and lets you create players, own teams (or be the GM, or O- or D-Coordinators), and develop the players over the course of month-long seasons. I've only been playing for a couple of weeks, but I'm constantly amazed at the depth and complexity of what is a simple online game.

Feel free to try it out. If you don't like it, you won't hurt my feelings a bit. But if you, as I do, think it's a smart take on football sims, then make a player for this Panthers-related team, where I've got a 2nd-string Guard. Or just drop me a line. Either way.

It’s been a typical mini-camp for the Panthers, all sunshine and butterfly kisses about all the new players and prospects for the coming year. The only interesting topics are the depth chart that can be surmised by who’s lining up with what team and the position changes.

 Saturday Mini-camp Notes

Some of these notes are repeats from yesterday though with slight differences.

The last guy off the practice field was Jordan Gross, who stayed late to work on the footwork he'll need playing left tackle instead of right tackle.

 So moving Gross to the left side seems like a done deal.

Wide receiver Jason Carter put on a show late in the practice. He caught a short pass and zig-zagged his way through the secondary, then made a dramatic one-handed grab in the end zone on the final play of the practice.

We could have another Steve Smith in the making, who knows. Man are we deep at WR.

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 Peppers to Move to the Right Side

Looks like we have confirmation on what’s has been theorized this off-season .

 According to two sources with knowledge of their plans, the Panthers are expected to go with a number of alignment changes, including swapping defensive end Julius Peppers from the left side to the right, the primary pass rush spot in most defenses.

 Here’s another new wrinkle in the defense:

 The other new wrinkle will be in the way they align their defensive tackles. By using Maake Kemoeatu as a nose tackle and Damione Lewis as the "under" or "three-technique" tackle, they're hoping to add more push from the inside. Both Lewis (18.5 career sacks) and Darwin Walker (28.5) are accomplished inside rushers, and they hope by putting them into more aggressive positions, they can make up for what they missed a year ago.

 I’m having a hard time visualizing what he’s talking about here unless it’s a 3-4 alignment. Otherwise it seems we are either leaving a whole or the DE is playing over the  guard. I'll be interested to see this one in TC.

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Moose is Glad to be Back

Musin Muhammad isn’t the only person that’s glad he is back in a Panther uniform .

 "He's somebody I'm not sure we ever replaced," said Panthers coach John Fox.

I could venture that until this off-season we never replaced S Deon Grant or LB Will Witherspoon either. We have upgrades at those positions now. Count Moose as another player who has the right attitude. Also know he's not about to surrender the #2 receiver position to anyone.

 "The last time I checked, man, nothing was given in this world," Muhammad said when asked about that theory.

"I'm just here to play. I'm here to make the team better. May the best man go out there and may the best three be on the field.

"Whatever it takes to get us to the championship game; that's what's going to matter."

Hackett and company better be ready to work hard to fend off Moose. If the Panthers don’t win this year it won’t be because of team discord. Everyone seems to have the right attitude.

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 Fox Stays Grounded in Reality

 You’ll never be able to accuse John Fox of being overly optimistic .

"I like the looks of it on paper and we have put a lot of work into this," Fox said. "Just like a college coach after recruiting season, the prognosticators will pick how you did, but really the reality is until you start playing you don't know."

 Right now there isn’t a single bust in the entire draft but we all know the statistics. I think the Panthers first four picks are as good as they have ever made but as Foxy correctly points out we won’t know for another year or so.

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Williams Welcomes Rookie Stewart

It doesn’t surprise me that DeAngelo Williams has no problem with the Panthers drafting RB Jonathan Stewart.

"It didn't bother me at all. I still have the same mind-set whether I'm the starter or not the starter," Williams said. "I was thinking everybody is going to the two-back system, so whether he starts the game off or I start the game off, we'll both get the same amount of carries, give or take a few." [snip] "It will be fun," Williams insisted. "I'm not going to hold hard feelings toward anybody because that is not the way you play this game. It's we, not me."

 So Williams is not only expecting to split carries but he realizes he may not start in game one. I would be very surprised John Fox did that but still I love D-Will’s attitude. He is such the example of a team player.

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 Jake Throws with No Problems

 It won’t be too long before we stop worrying about Jake Delhomme’s elbow. He is making great strides and I have to tip my proverbial hat to him for following the schedule and not doing anything to jeopardize the elbow.

Delhomme, who is coming off Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last year, practiced for the first time since last September. The quarterback threw 34 mostly short-to-midrange passes during individual drills in the morning session, though nothing longer than about 25 yards.

 He apparently threw some of the tough out patterns as part of the work out and looked good doing it. He still has two months till TC to get the rest of the throws working.

Former Iowa Hawkeye and Panthers 3rd round pick Charles Godfrey (5-11, 205) brings more than speed (4.38), strength and ball-hawking ability to the Panthers secondary. He also brings the experience and flexibility to play corner or safety. It’s pretty safe to say the Panthers do not need another CB but would instead move him to free safety. The Panthers did sign free agent S Terrence Holt this off-season who more than likely will be the starter come game one. Even if he doesn’t start right away Godfrey could have an immediate affect on the Panthers in another area:

That is one thing about Iowa, we take a lot of pride in special teams. I started playing my freshman year. They tried to take me out a little my senior year, because I was starting at cornerback, but I told them no. I trained and I've been training all year to handle that load. I played all four years, and it was great. I'm looking forward to being able to play special teams right away also.

I’m assuming he plays coverage because I’ve heard no mention of him returning kicks. The word is he is ‘gunner’ material. Between he and Richard Marshall be should have a couple guys who can get downfield and make plays on coverage. Godfrey also brings good hands, a quality the Panther secondary could sorely use. He recorded five interceptions in 2007 as the Panthers recorded 14 as a team to tie for 23rd in the NFL. If Godfrey does move to free safety he should certainly provide an upgrade in the INT department over last season’s starter Deke Cooper

.

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Former Scout Tom Marino Give the Panthers an A

Tom Marino is the guy I posted about a few weeks ago who did an amazing job of predicting the 7th round of the 2007 draft. Marino is a former scout who graded each teams recent draft performance. Add Marino to the list of people giving the Panthers an A.

The Panthers addressed some offensive concerns with the first two selections and got excellent value. Although he possesses excellent straight speed and size, I was disappointed in Godfrey's man-cover skills. I'm a big fan of Dan Connor and it wouldn't surprise me to see him in the starting lineup by the midpoint of his rookie season. Barnidge was a very underrated TE who is an excellent receiver. From the late rounds, Hayden is a steady inside player and run stopper, Taylor a nifty nickel-rusher and Schwartz is a massive, wide body. All are solid picks, but in my opinion none will contribute significantly in 2008. The Panthers' seventh selection, Mackenzy Bernadeau from Bentley College, was injured and missed the second half of the '07 season. But I really like his game and playing potential. A solid well planned draft overall.

The Panthers could have four starters from this draft starting by mid-season. If Jonathan Stewart makes a splash it will lessen the sting this time next year when the draft rolls around. The true test of this draft, for the Panthers anyway, if whether they make the playoffs. It’s a relief though that at least on the surface it looks like Fox and Hurney did a good job.

This shiny new SB Nation world is a nice one. Flowers and rainbows and nymphs splashing in waterfalls. All that, and a real nice WYSIWYG editor. What more could you ask for?

Okay, I suppose there are a couple of kinks. Or one, at least.

Like just now. I tried to post this new FanPost (because really, Diary? Diary?! Who came up with that name, a twelve-years-old girl?) with just that first paragraph, but it said "Your FanPost must be 75 words long!" What an arbitrary limit. Maybe I don't have a lot to say. Maybe I'm like Lincoln and can express my thoughts in few words. Either way, who are you to say I can't post short posts?

Unshackle me, SB Nation!

But seriously, this is nice. Good job, fellas.

Hey Cat Scratch Reader,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Cat Scratch Reader from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Cat Scratch Reader and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Cat Scratch Reader now has all the basic information about the Carolina Panthers and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Carolina Panthers material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

Over at MileHighReport.com, we are holding a community Mock Draft, and right now the Panthers are on the clock!  The first 12 picks look like this --

#1 - Miami Dolphins - DE Chris Long, Virginia
#2 - St. Louis Rams - OT Jake Long, Michigan
#3 - Atlanta Falcons - DT Glen Dorsey, LSU
#4 - Oakland Raiders - RB Darren McFadden, Arkansas
#5 - Philadelphia Eagles(via Trade w/ K.C. Chiefs) - DE Vernon Gholston, Ohio St.
#6 - New York Jets - DB Leodis McKelvin, Troy St.
#7 - New England Patriots - CB Dominique Rogers-Cromartie, Tennessee State
#8 - Baltimore Ravens - QB Matt Ryan, Boston College
#9 - Cincinnati Bengals - DT Sedrick Ellis, USC
#10 - New Orleans Saints - CB Mike Jenkins, USF
#11 - Buffalo Bills - WR Malcolm Kelly, Oklahoma
#12 - Minnesota Vikings - DE Derrick Harvey, Florida

Who should the Panthers take next??  Let me know @ milehighreport@gmail.com

I was reading an artical on the Panther's homepage.
There are some words written on a wall that coach John Fox believes to be critical to success.
Tough, and Heart, were not on the list.
I wonder why???? When John Fox took over the head coaching job in Carolina. He said that the Panthers were not tough enough to win in the NFL.

Well with the number of starters that we have that have not played a full season in years. I ask this Question

Are we tough enough?

Continue reading this post »

Greetings from MileHighReport.com!  The readers over there are putting together a mock draft and we currently still have a need for a Chiefs "GM".  The goal is to do as many rounds as possible, and it is going to be run completely by the readers.

If you are interested, get there first and add a comment!

http://www.milehighreport.com/story/...

You'll have to create a free account, but why not, you'll be able to add to the fun of the rivalry over there as well!!!

Here it is.

The Panthers, Redskins (+$7 million) and the Colts ($9 million over).  It will be interested to see how this all pans out.

This article does a good job of breaking it down for the Panthers.

Remember, the quarterback situation still has to be figured out.  Really, any of the QBs could/should be cap casualties.  We already franchised Gross.  

Who else can we cut to trim the fat a bit?