The Carolina Panthers and Jimmy Clausen

There seems to be steam gathering among most senior analysts from both NFL.com and ESPN that the Carolina Panthers will select Cam Newton with the first pick for the 2011 season. Now while it is clear that Newton's up-side is crazy, this is a team that has many other positional needs than qb: both o-line and d-line needs to be improved. They could also do with help at linebacker and cornerback. There is a common arguement that you cant win in the NFL without a good qb, and after the performances of Matt Moore and Jimmy Clausen the qb position needs to be looked at, however the two top qbs in this draft have enough questions to be avoided with this pick.

IMO it is not just the questions about Newton and Gabbert that should stop Carolina drafting a qb, but also the fact that Clausen will be on the roster. The kid statistically had an awful rookie season with at 58.4 QB rating, 52.5 pass completion percentage and 3TD to 9 picks and one win in his 10 starts (against my woeful cards ). He was also sacked 33 times. Its been easy to criticize his pocket awareness, and accuracy.

These criticisms have certainly have some substance, but it must be said that the supporting cast was not there, and in a lot of his games he was left like a sitting duck by his O-line. Also a closer look at the tape, shows that his recievers ran poor routes and were often not open (even the reliable Steve Smith was poor in the latter hald of the season). Dont get me wrong im not saying Clausen played well in his first season, but i believe that this team has much more pressing needs especially on defence and with over a half of a season under his belt, he could learn from some of the mistakes he made in his rookie year and he seems to have potential.

For him to go into the season as starter, would be a hard sell to the fans but in my view it would be wise for this time to take a player who could have an immediate impact on this team, and is a safer pick such as the DT Marcell Dareus or CB Patrick Peterson, and maybe Clausen can improve on his poor rookie campaign.

Im sure many will disagree so let me know what you think....

If i was there, id go for Dareus or Peterson, but I think Newton will go there, as they can't pick up a QB in 2nd round. Mind you i bet alot of it depends on how his 2 day visit goes, which i beleive is going on now.

But they have to rebuild and its never clever doing that with the QB straight away.

I'm not sure there's a whole lot wrong with the Panthers D, they did a pretty good job at stopping teams last year but created nothing on offence and turned the ball over too many times.
When you get the #1 pick it has to be a game winning man and a single lineman/corener is not going to win you games because oppos will develop a plan away from your strengths.
They have to take the best offensive player available, they already have a decent running game but those two had no help in creating lanes last year, the lack of FA has hurt them as they could have traded a Clausen or Moore away and gained another pick or two.
QB with pick one, and O-line with the rest would be my call !

Yer i can see your point, but is a Newton or Gabbert really going to make an impact. Clausen had atough rookie year but so did other good qbs in the league now. If hes prepared to work hard in the offseason and learn the lessons from last year, he could arguably be better for the carolina offence than both Newton and Gabbert, who both as i said earlier have drawbacks

Tom, I agree with you. Look at Josh Freeman's rookie year stats, terrible! But after he'd had a full offseason as a starter and he was provided with weapons to work with, he started to shine.

I think the same could be true for Clausen. It seems mightily unfair to throw him onto the scrapheap after stats gained when he wasn'tthe permanent starter and he was working with an o-line like a sieve.

Clausens problem was that he joined a franchise going backwards.
They strated with Moore who failed, then promoted Clausen which put huge pressure on the guy, in the end they couldn't decide which QB they wanted and seemed to use a different guy every week.

Compare that to the Rams who were in turmoil the year before, they drafted Bradford and said it's your job, go learn how to play at this level and make us a competitive side in a couple of years, he started his NFL life with no pressure.

I'm sure the lack of FA has hurt the Panthers, if they'd been unsure about where to spend the #1 pick they could have traded and strengthened in a number of areas, I really think they've been unlucky.
But I still believe that it won't take much to make them a good team again

I agree Grizz. They have a great DE in Charles Johnson, a top-5 LB in Jon Beason and a pretty good secondary. They still have Steve Smith, DeAngelo Williams and Stewart on offense. They have all the key parts apart from the leader.

I still think that if they make Clausen the starter, get him to train with the line and WRs and hand him the franchise, they will be fine.

First of all gents, massive apologies for missing the start of the mock draft (especially to Pr4wn), you made the pick I would have been making anyway.

And so to the problems with the Panthers, having watched every single Panthers game last season and essentially cried into my Peppers shirt every evening around 8, there are clearly an insane amount of holes in the team.

Defensive line - no replacement for Peppers, honourable mentions to James Anderson at ROLB and Charles Johnson at LE. Both DTs (Hayden especially) are decent players but not of starting standard in the NFL.

Offensive line - Injuries caused the bulk of the problems here, the word porous would describe these guys last season, no running game and QB sacks-a-plenty followed.

QB - Would be unfair to blame Matt Moore for not setting the heather alight, concussed in week 1 but at least showed pocket awareness and glimpses of his late 2009 season form.

Clausen - Nearly fell of my seat when he fell so far in the draft but now I know why. Obvious O-line problems contributed to his high number of sacks and TD-INT ratio, but from my experience he was terrible - when he had time in the pocket he would stare down 1 receiver (normally Steve Smith) and invite interceptions. Or in the worst case when pressured he would run away, as far away as he could and throw the ball out instead of showing a bit of poise.

I'm swithering between considering myself harsh on the kid or being realistic and drafting Newton for the future.

My number 1 choice would be bringing back Vinny Testaverde.

Hi mate.

Totally agree about your o-line, not having Jeff Otah there was a hge setback for you guys.

I just think that Clausen didn't have a chance to be great as he had no time to work up any sort of working chemistry with his receivers. This would generally lead him to stare down Steve Smith as he is the most talented and likely to be open.

Using the number 1 overall pick on a QB who only really has the talent of a second rounder seems daft to me. Get Dareus, build the defense and let Clausen do the job that he was drafted to do.

Clausen needs to round up as many of his team mates as he can and get them all working out together, this will give him the chance to develop his chemistry with his receivers, and if they can put together both an O and D lines they can try to help him develop his skills when pressured. If he can rally enough players it may also show the coaches that he can be the teams leader.

It's pretty harsh to judge a rookie QB on a season where nothing turned out the way you expected it to.

Glasgowhibs - What makes you prefer Newton over the rest of the QB's (mainly Gabbert)?

Interesting the Panthers don't have 2nd round pick but I think they have two 3rd round picks.
If you're not sure about the best QB then why not trade away the pick and get yourself a 2nd rounder and lower round pick ?
With 3 picks in the first 90 odd they could make some serious improvements to the O-line....

If it's me running that Panthers draft, I'm picking up Dareus with the No.1 and building the O-line with the remainder.

Honestly mate, I went back and forward all season when it comes to Clausen, one minute thinking he's a bum and the next thinking with a few seasons under his belt he could be the real deal. He made some mistakes but on the other side made some beautiful throws - think my frustrations around him are generally caused by the general frustrations with the team.

From what I hear on Twitter he's been working hard and meeting with the receivers and RBs.

Think Clausen could benefit with a wise head brought in during the off-season (FA pending), someone like a Mark Bulger to give him support and knowledge in the short term.

Derby - prefer Newton purely due to that explosiveness and the unexpected, Gabbert is the more pure QB but Newton can conjure something out of nothing with his rushing ability and his arm strength.

Overall though I think Clausen deserves a chance, seems to be working hard and the team has other more immediate needs for the draft.

Grizzly wrote:Interesting the Panthers don't have 2nd round pick but I think they have two 3rd round picks.
If you're not sure about the best QB then why not trade away the pick and get yourself a 2nd rounder and lower round pick ?
With 3 picks in the first 90 odd they could make some serious improvements to the O-line....

Who do you think they could trade with? To me it could be Bengals, Cardinals, 49ers, Titans, Vikings and maybe Redskins.

Trading is going to be tough as you can't trade any players.

I was never sold on Claussen as a can't miss QB, but to be fair to him, it's hard to judge a QB after a rough rookie season, particularly in Claussen's case when there were so many elements contributing to his failure such as poor play by his team. It's tough enough getting acclimated to the speed and complexity of the pro game and then toss in all the rest and it's not surprising he flamed out. But you need to view him under center some more before declaring him a bust.

If I were the Panthers management, I'd be looking hard at all my other needs. Cam Newton is a gifted athlete who performed well in a particular college system, but I'm not convinced he's a gifted NFL QB -- he has a lot of potential -- potential to succeed and potential to fail. Not sure if I want to spend my number 1 pick on him.

like i said in the article, even though there are questions about clasuens charachter (seen as the reason he fell to the 2nd round) 4 me drafting dareus or peterson is a no brainer. they would immediatly improve this team in a way cam cant