Scott Fowler published an article at the Charlotte Observer listing his top 20 players in Panthers history, and it gave me the idea to do the same thing here at Cat Scratch Reader in hopes that it will facilitate a healthy discussion between all of us.
I’m not going to share the whole list. (That’s what the link is for — go read his piece and come back here for my thoughts... I’ll wait.)
[Waiting...]
Welcome back.
Anyway, I will share his top five because it’s probably obvious who those five players are.
- Steve Smith
- Cam Newton
- Luke Kuechly
- Julius Peppers
- Thomas Davis
I can’t argue too much against his top five. I might be tempted to put Peppers in second place and switch Newton and Kuechly, but I do believe Fowler has the right guys in the top five.
One of the challenges to doing a top-[insert number here] list is that you will always leave someone off who deserves to be included. That’s just the nature of lists. But, fortunately for us our job is much easier because we only have 23 years of history to work with.
Without further ado, here’s my top 20 Panthers of all time:
- Steve Smith
- Julius Peppers
- Luke Kuechly
- Cam Newton
- Thomas Davis
- Muhsin Muhammad
- Sam Mills
- Greg Olsen
- Jake Delhomme
- Wesley Walls
- Ryan Kalil
- Jordan Gross
- John Kasay
- Jonathan Stewart
- Chris Gamble
- DeAngelo Williams
- Mike Minter
- Charles Johnson
- Mike Rucker
- Kevin Greene
Just missed the cut: Jon Beason, Kris Jenkins, Steve Beuerlein, Eric Davis, Lamar Lathon and Dan Morgan.
Who are your top 20 Panthers of all time? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!