Jaycee Horn won’t sell a lot of tickets for Panthers, but he was a risk worth taking
The Carolina Panthers could have done something a lot flashier Thursday night in the NFL draft. What they did instead was select South Carolina cornerback Jaycee Horn, who won’t sell a lot of tickets but who will improve a defense that the Panthers have made their pet quarantine project for the past year.
I like the pick of Horn at No. 8. Before the draft, I wrote that I wanted the Panthers to end up taking a cornerback with their first-round pick. But in my preferred scenario, Carolina first traded down and then got the corner, thus giving themselves the extra bonus of another high draft pick as well.
That would have been ideal, but the trade part didn’t happen. The offers to trade down Carolina fielded “didn’t match” what the Panthers thought they should receive, general manager Scott Fitterer said, and so instead they simply took the top-rated player left on their draft board at No. 8.
If you want a one-game example of exactly why Carolina took Horn, think back to the Panthers’ game at New Orleans last Oct. 25. Head coach Matt Rhule certainly does. That game still sticks in his craw, and he still recites a statistic from it every now and then.
New Orleans had 14 third-down plays in that game and converted a remarkable 12 of them into first downs, succeeding 85.7% of the time on football’s most difficult play.
When Rhule said Thursday night that sometimes the Panthers just “couldn’t get off the field last year” on third down, it is that game — along with a couple of others — that he is referring to.
The plan is to have Horn start immediately at cornerback opposite Donte Jackson; he’ll have to really flub up or get hurt in training camp not to be in the starting lineup in September. Horn now makes it eight straight defensive players taken by the Panthers, including that NFL-record seven in a row in 2020, as Carolina tries to build a defense that can actually scare somebody.
They are starting to climb that mountain. Jeremy Chinn, Derrick Brown, Brian Burns, Donte Jackson, Shaq Thompson and now Horn — that’s a half-dozen players who can form a strong nucleus for defensive coordinator Phil Snow.
Left tackle remains a problem. Oregon’s Penei Sewell got picked one spot before Horn, at No. 7, and that one stung.
And quarterback remains a big question mark. The Panthers tripled down on their trade for Sam Darnold this week, first trading away Teddy Bridgewater and then skipping over Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields in favor of Horn.
The Fields snub certainly has the potential to haunt Carolina, if he becomes a Pro Bowl quarterback and Darnold washes out. But I was OK with selecting Horn over Fields; he fills a major need right now.
I’m old enough to have actually covered Joe Horn, Jaycee’s father, when he played for the New Orleans Saints against the Panthers. The elder Horn was a thorn in the Panthers’ side for years; the sort of wide receiver his son will now be paid to stop.
Joe Horn played 14 total games vs. the Panthers — almost a full season’s worth over his career —and in those 14 games, he had 1,094 receiving yards and nine TDs.
In the game I remember most, Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks threw to Horn a staggering 18 times in 2001. Horn caught 13 of those for 150 yards in a New Orleans win only secured after Horn scored the game-winning TD on a 17-yard pass in the final two minutes.
So Jaycee Horn’s pedigree is exemplary, and the fact that he’s a Gamecock adds some local juice. But the real value will be if he can cover the Mike Evanses and Calvin Ridleys and Kyle Pittses of the world; if his fantastic measurables translate into the press corner the Panthers so badly want.
There’s no way to tell for sure on draft night, no matter what grades the “experts” hand out. But this was a good risk to take.
This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 10:59 PM.
