We gave you the quick grades on each of the Carolina Panthers 11 draft picks on Sunday, but didn’t offer a ton of justification. Each of these guys is an intriguing pick in their own right and they each deserve more than 30 words about why the Panthers picked them and why we judged them the way we did. Also, this way you can roast me in the comments for each individual grade instead of having to do it all at once. Today, we’re talking about the Panthers No. 204, Shi Smith.
Round 6, Pick No. 19 (No. 204 overall): Shi Smith, WR, South Carolina
This is your Curtis Samuel replacement, everybody. Smith won’t step in and have the immediate impact that Samuel did last season by any means, but the plan will be to see if he can develop into a slot/gadget guy for Brady to play with for as long as Brady is working in Bank of America Stadium.
Smith is a sure handed receiver who has work to do on his routes. He’s also undersized at 5’9” and 186 pounds. He is going to be limited to an interior role at that size, which also puts him at risk of being hospitalized by errant linebackers. Still, if he were bigger then he may well have been drafted earlier. As it is, it is worth taking a flier at this point in the draft on a guy who says his “character issues” are behind him.
Grade: B
I’m on Team Give Joe Brady All The Toys He Wants. I’m docking the Panthers a little bit here just because they already have a lot of bodies at wide receiver and probably could have found a more needed position to stock up on this late in the draft.
At this point on day three, however, the Panthers were clearly out of their “draft the aggressively athletic” phase and well into their “who did we like at the Senior Bowl” phase. Smith fits that bill, with the added benefit of giving the Panthers another shorter Smith from an unheralded school. A Panthers tradition unlike any other.