Monday, August 2, 2010

My Monday Panther thoughts

I'm here in Spartanburg on a relatively cool, misty day -- a break for all those watching and participating in the Panthers' practices.

A few random notes:

-- My column in today's newspaper was on second-year defensive end Everette Brown, who sounds committed to being better than he was as a rookie in 2009.

-- My column Tuesday will be based on a conversation I had with Jon Gruden, the former Tampa Bay coach and current ESPN analyst. Gruden was a longtime rival of the Panthers and still studies the team closely in his current job (he will be in the booth for the Panthers' exhibition opener at Baltimore Aug.12). He had some interesting things to say about them.

-- Armanti Edwards was very open Monday about how much he feels like he's been struggling as he changes positions to wide receiver. According to Edwards, playing quarterback in college has barely helped him at all. Plus, he has to run more. "I thought I was in shape until the first practice," he said. Plus, he has so many plays to learn. This is one experiment that's going to take awhile before we see whether it pans out.

-- Kenny Moore impressed me Monday with a couple of nice catches in traffic.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

You need to post those articles here. I live about 600 miles away from Charlotte & dont get the paper.

Anonymous said...

I figured Edwards would have been helped by being a QB in that he would know routes and where a receiver is supposed to be. I'm not surprised that he wasn't prepared for the intensity of an NFL camp, given that he's coming from the second level of college ball rather than the top level.

As for Chucky, has he figured out our proper team name yet, or is he still calling us "North Carolina Panthers?"

Yes, I still have a lifetime's worth of Hate-orade to spew at Chucky.

Anonymous said...

What about Dwayne Jarrett? Anything new about him?

Unknown said...

How about that U-PICKEM weekly football pool? We have 1 week until the first preseason game. Last year the preseason games were included in the overall totals & i wanna be in it with all the games!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Armanti will be fine. he came from a college camp that many FBS transfers couldnt cut...ASU's camp is harder than most anywhere at any level. Armanti will be just fine.

bigjohn said...

I think Armanti's conditioning is a factor because of the change of position. Part of the reason they beat Michigan was because the Apps were a better conditioned ball club.

It'll take some time. I expect you'll see flashes this year but it'll take a year or so before we can see if he's going to be big time in the pros.

TheyDatCan'tCMe said...

Gruden seems to be keeping an eye on the Panthers a lot lately. I know he's an analyst and all, but he seems to spend more time watching the Cats than anybody else. Plus, he had that one on one sit down with our, at the time, future new QB. Heck, every time he opens his mouth he seems to find a way to throw a Panther's name, or the team as a whole, into the discussion some how and he raves, as he and everyone else should (yeah SeenThisB4, I'm talking to you) about our O-line and our running backs. Point is, you shouldn't hate Chucky. Besides him, no other analysts on TV even acknowledges our team's existence outside of the golden-armed god himself, Jimmy Clausen. To listen to him you'd think he was the former Panther's head coach, not the former Tampa head coach. In fact, I don't think he's ever mentioned the Bucs since being fired. I gotta figure his unusually high interest in our team stems from the fact that he wants a job coaching here next year. What do you think, Scott? Did you talk to him about it in your interview? Yeah, I know he says he's happy in his analyst job and there are some contractual obligations there, as well. But he seems to always be around and I gotta say, I'd like to keep Fox, but if he doesn't want to stay or if the Panthers want to go in another direction next year, Gruden would have to be in your top five candidates for the job, imo.