You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who thought the Carolina Panthers had themselves a bad weekend. In fact, we even tried to find someone that did and came up empty.
We did, however, find a smidgen of negativity. That came from the most recent set of power rankings from NFL.com, pieced together by Around the NFL writer Dan Hanzus.
“Good for the Panthers,” writes Hanzus, who dropped the Panthers from No. 23 to No. 25 earlier this week. “As the results of the draft confirmed, talent evaluators had no affection for this class of quarterbacks, so credit Carolina brass for resisting the temptation to fit a square peg into a round hole with the sixth overall pick. The Panthers instead focused on another glaring weakness at that spot, selecting Ikem Ekwonu, a tackle with All-Pro potential. With one sensible move in the can, the Panthers made another by stopping Matt Corral’s slide late in the third round. Barring a move that brings a veteran to town (Baker Mayfield? Jimmy Garoppolo?), Carolina could be ready to bite down hard and give Sam Darnold one more chance. If he flops, the team has the window to give the intriguing rookie from Ole Miss an early look.”
Well, at least from the looks of his entirely positive blurb about the Panthers, Hanzus likely had Carolina dropping only as a result of movement from above. Plus, he does bring up a salient point.
General manager Scott Fitterer and head coach Matt Rhule have been seeking out competition for Darnold under center. So even if the fifth-year passer does take the job and run with it into Week 1, the team does have the flexibility to turn to Corral if (or when) the bottom falls out.
Until then, the competition shall commence.
