Tom Talks: It’s time Carolina Panthers gave Will Grier a shot at quarterback
I’d like to see Will Grier start for the Carolina Panthers Sunday at home against the Seattle Seahawks. What’s left to lose? The Panthers have lost their coach, lost five straight games, and, temporarily, lost many of their fans. When going to Bank of America Stadium Sunday finishes behind going to SouthPark, Sears and brunch on your list of social options, the bottom has been reached.
The Panthers selected Grier with the 100th pick in the 2019 draft, and he has yet to play.
The Panthers have started Kyle Allen the last 11 games. Some games, Allen looks as if he could evolve into a potential starter. Most games, he looks like a reliable backup.
Is there a reason not to start Grier?
According to a man who has long made his living in the NFL, there is.
When a team doesn’t start its best quarterback, it loses credibility with players and perhaps it loses the locker room. If a player believes his team is not using its best quarterback, why should the player run out and hustle, hit, be hit and risk injury? If his team doesn’t commit to winning, why should he?
I almost wish I had not talked to the man. I’m curious about Grier, who has been covered by a protective bubble since games began to count.
Grier was drafted with two picks remaining in the third round. Is he overmatched or underdeveloped? Do you know where Grier ranks this season in passes thrown by a Carolina quarterback?
He’s fourth behind Allen, Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey threw one pass. It was incomplete, so Grier and McCaffrey are tied in completions.
Most of us don’t view Grier as a savior. We view him as a good college quarterback who, perhaps, has the potential to evolve into a starter.
Yet we don’t know if he’s more Jimmy Clausen or Jake Delhomme?
The issue is complicated because of the injuries Newton has collected. He had surgery Monday for the Lisfranc injury on his left foot.
If Newton is healthy next season, and if he’s still a Panther, he’ll start. But the season will be his last under his current contract. And he’ll turn 31 in May, a month after the draft.
Where will the Panthers draft? There are eight teams with a lesser record, five teams with one more victory and three teams with the same record. Do the Panthers draft 12th? Do they draft 13th? Do they draft 10th?
Do the Panthers invest their top pick in the 2020 draft on a quarterback? And if one of the most coveted quarterbacks – there are three at the moment – falls to them, do they take him?
Ten is a magic number for the Panthers in the draft. Since 1997, they’ve drafted in the top 10 five times, and hit on each pick.
In 2002, they took defensive end Julius Peppers with the second pick. In 2003, they took tackle Jordan Gross with the eighth. In 2011, they took Newton with the first. In 2012, they took linebacker Luke Kuechly with the ninth. In 2017, they took running back Christian McCaffrey with the eighth.
The draft is April 23 in Paradise, Nev., outside Las Vegas. If the Panthers don’t take a quarterback in the first round, they can still get a good one in the second.
If they do, that will leave them Newton (if healthy and here), Allen, Grier and the new guy. Collect the whole set.
By then, they’ll know more about Grier. Does he have the talent to start? Unless he fooled Carolina’s general manager and scouts, isn’t that the reason Carolina drafted him?
Ups and downs with my picks
I was proud of some of my picks last week. I picked Chicago to beat Dallas in Chicago, San Francisco to beat New Orleans in New Orleans, and Kansas City to beat New England in New England.
However, I also picked Buffalo to upset Baltimore, Jacksonville to beat the Los Angeles Chargers and Oakland to beat Tennessee.
I did pick Atlanta to beat Carolina by 16, and the Falcons won by 20. The line was Atlanta -3. So there.
Last week: 11-5
Season: 134-65-1
Lock of the Week: San Francisco (+2) over New Orleans. The 49ers won by 2.
Season Locks: 8-6.
This week’s picks, with the home team in CAPS:
Thursday
BALTIMORE 13 over New York Jets
Sunday
New England 6 over CINCINNATI
Tampa Bay 2 over DETROIT
GREEN BAY 3 over Chicago
TENNESSEE 2 over Houston
KANSAS CITY 8 over Denver
NEW YORK GIANTS 3 over Miami
Philadelphia 2 over WASHINGTON
OAKLAND 1 over Jacksonville
Cleveland 2 over ARIZONA
Minnesota 4 over LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
Los Angeles Rams 3 over DALLAS
SAN FRANCISCO 9 over Atlanta
PITTSBURGH 1 over Buffalo
Monday
NEW ORLEANS 9 over Indianapolis
Lock of the Week: Seattle (-6) 11 over CAROLINA
Patriots at it -- again
The New England Patriots are accustomed to leading the league in victories, playoff appearances and Super Bowl rings. They now lead the league in yet another category. The Patriots lead the NFL in coincidences.
A three-person film crew working for the Patriots happened to be in the FirstEnergy Stadium press box Sunday at the Cleveland Browns-Cincinnati Bengals game. The crew was, according to the Patriots, working on a feature for Patriots.com, this week about advance scouts. This was the seventh feature in a series entitled “Do Your Job.”
The job apparently was to film the Bengals’ sideline. Filming Cincinnati’s signals from the bench, and coordinating those signals with the plays Cincinnati runs, makes a defensive coordinator smile.
The Bengals have the worst record in the NFL. They’ve won one game. Based on their work this season, and most seasons, sideline signals mean: get tackled; drop a pass; fumble; miss a block; throw an interception; fall down for no reason; get a penalty; lose. On two…
Why would the Patriots waste time filming the Cincinnati sideline? They play the Bengals Sunday.
Even if you wanted to give the Evil Empire a break, it would be tough. In 2007, New England was caught videotaping signals from the New York Jets’ bench. The Patriots were caught. New England forfeited a first-round draft pick and coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, which was the most the league could fine him.
The Jets would finish 4-12. Are we to believe that the Patriots film only bad teams?
Belichick said he didn’t know that filming coaches was against the rules. I wonder how many coaches know the rule book better than he does.
Twelve seasons later, the Patriots film the Bengals, who had no idea they were being filmed. They should have. The game was in Cleveland, and the home team issues credentials. Belichick said the crew did not know that filming coaches was against the rules. He also said he hasn’t seen the film the crew collected which was confiscated by the league.
New England was also fined, and quarterback Tom Brady suspended, after the 2015 AFC championship. New England was accused of deflating footballs to make them easier for quarterback Tom Brady to grip on a bad weather day. After a league investigation, the team forfeited a first and fourth round pick, was fined $1 million, and Brady was suspended for four games.
To me, that offense is not nearly as egregious as New England’s pictures at 11 film escapades.
Belichick is the best coach in football, professional or college. But his Patriots have looked ordinary in losing in losing three of their last five games. Despite this, they’re a 10-point favorite Sunday at Cincinnati.
If by some coincidence Belichick and his staff should glance at the Do Your Job film, the line ought to jump to 13.
Hornets continue to provide surprises
All I ask from the Charlotte Hornets, in this the season of the Great Rebuild, (which differs from the previous seasons of the Great Rebuild), is an occasional surprise.
We got one Wednesday. On the road against the Brooklyn Nets, the Hornets, who beat the Washington Wizards at home Tuesday, came out flat and tired. Shots that normally fall failed to, and the Nets sprinted to a 52-32 lead.
Charlotte cut the lead to 11 at the half. But simple shots, easy shots, shots that Charlotte coach James Borrego wants his players to take, continued to bounce off the rim.
The Hornets, meanwhile, went to a zone that confused Brooklyn. While Brooklyn was failing to figure out how to negotiate the zone, all those shots Charlotte was missing began to go in.
In the fourth quarter, the Hornets ran a simple play: Give Devonte Graham The Ball. Graham scored 27 points in the second half. He hit 3-pointers off the fast break, hit them when he was open and when he was not. Graham hit 3-pointers with Joe Harris, who at 6-6 is four inches taller, practically attached.
Graham ensured the 113-108 victory with late high-arcing 3s, each prettier and more difficult than the one that preceded it. A second-year player, he finished with a career-high 40 points on 21 field goal attempts, and hit seven of 12 3-pointers.
The victory was unexpected, and so much fun to watch. Last season, Graham was a second-round pick who divided his time between the Greensboro Swarm and the Hornets. This season, he is Kemba Walker Lite.
That’s a great thing to be.
Also, let’s give it up for Charlotte veteran Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. MKG played 20 minutes, scored 11 points and grabbed seven rebounds. When there was a scrum beneath the basket, MKG was in it. He played his typically superior defense, fought for rebounds and fed teammates. As good as Graham was, without MKG the Hornets don’t win.
Charlotte, MLS a good fit
I’m not a fan of soccer. I’m a fan of Charlotte. And Major League Soccer is good for Charlotte.
You can tell the city is moving close to getting a franchise because team names already have been filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office. FC Charlotte Monarchs? Charlotte Athletic FC? Charlotte Fortune FC? Charlotte Crown FC? Carolina Gliders FC? All Carolina FC?
No, no, no, no, no and no. But thanks for asking. Charlotte Town FC is the best on the list.
I don’t know soccer. I admit it. But I have a team. Arsenal is my team because the very good British author, Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy), wrote a book about his love for Arsenal.
But it’s not about me and it’s not about, We want Major League Baseball not Major League Soccer.
Major League Baseball, in recent years a testament to tanking teams and empty seats, isn’t close to coming our way. Soccer is.
Think of our city. Think of all the people who move here seemingly every hour. Think of the apartment buildings that look like giant boxes, and how will people ever fill them, and they do. Think of the breweries, which soon will outnumber churches. The thousands of people who move to Charlotte fill the apartments and breweries. We’ve become so popular that if you’ve lived here since 2018, you cease to be a newcomer.
But beer and boxes aren’t sufficiently fulfilling. People are looking for a reason to cheer. The Carolina Panthers haven’t given them one this season, and the Charlotte Hornets do only on special occasions.
Also, the NFL and NBA, like Major League Baseball, are entrenched. Many fans cheer for the teams with which they grew up. How many of us grew up with an MLS team?
Move to a new city and, unless you’re a miserable human being who wants everything the way it was your old city, you look for restaurants, bars and coffee shops to make yours.
Charlotte Town FC, by far the least worst of the trademarked names, will be a team newcomers make theirs. I know many contemporaries who in the last decade have become fans of the sport. They began to play fantasy soccer, and now follow the Premier League. Younger people grew up with soccer. Many played.
Atlanta did everything beautifully with Atlanta United FC. Why not Atlanta Gliders FC or Atlanta Fortune FC? I suspect because Atlanta wanted to succeed.
And it has. Created in 2017, the team has become a cause. We stayed in the cool, cool, Virginia Highland neighborhood last year, and houses were almost as likely to have an Atlanta United flag hanging near the front door as they were to have a front door. Atlanta United averages 52,510 fans.
I don’t want Charlotte to mimic Atlanta. But Atlanta created a young, flashy and exciting team that plays at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the Atlanta Falcons play.
MLS wants a 30th team, and it should be in Charlotte. Yes, not all the financial figures have been worked out. But more than $100 million from the city’s hospitality fund will be put away to make Bank of America Stadium soccer friendly and to help build a practice facility likely on what once was Eastland Mall. Charlotte has been promising to work with the east side for years. Perhaps it finally will.
If an MLS team comes our way, I envision wild tailgating and (more) soccer bars and home games becoming an event.
I read about billionaire David Tepper so frequently that billionaire sounds as if its part of his name. As in: Billionaire David Tepper said…
Tepper will buy the team. Charlotte will help with the facilities.
If you’re angry that Charlotte will assist a billionaire, I get it. I also get that MLS is an investment.
I already can envision one payoff: When Charlotte Town FC plays a home game, seats at the brewery will be easier to come by.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 4:50 PM.