The last time the Carolina Panthers had the first overall pick in the draft, it was 2011, and the team took Auburn quarterback Cam Newton.
That worked out pretty well.
Now, the Panthers once again have the first overall pick after a bombshell trade with the Chicago Bears. Carolina gets that top slot, and the Bears get Carolina’s ninth and 64th picks in 2023, Carolina’s first-round pick in 2024, Carolina’s second-round pick in 2025, and receiver DJ Moore, who seemed surprised by the transaction.
😱😱
— DJ Moore💫 (@idjmoore) March 10, 2023
Clearly, the Panthers are trading up, and trading this much capital, so they don’t have to wait around to see whether they can avail themselves of a top quarterback in this class. They went 7-10 last season with Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and P.J. Walker as their quarterbacks, so the internal feeling must be that they’re only a quarterback away from contention.
And the way the NFC South stacks up right now, they may be right.
So, with this scenario played out, the Panthers are most likely looking at either Alabama’s Bryce Young or Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud as their next franchise quarterback. What will the Panthers do, and what should they do, with that royal first selection?
What Frank Reich said at the scouting combine.
The Panthers were in on Derek Carr’s round-robin set of interviews at last week’s scouting combine in Indianapolis that ended with Carr signing with the Saints, so the team had made its interests in a franchise quarterback quite clear.
“Good meeting with Derek,” new head coach Frank Reich said from the podium last Wednesday. “Really have a lot of respect for him and what he’s accomplished in his career. The kind of player he is, the kind of person he is. You know, just see, what Is this the right fit? Is this an answer? And I think, you know, part of that is, yeah, this is a good option. But we have to look it through. We’re looking at all options. This is a time of year that we do that. We were excited about that meeting and it was a good meeting. And, you know, we’ll take it day by day.”
From there, Reich talked a bit about this particular quarterback class.
“It looks great. I mean, we’ve met with several of them today. A bunch of them today are very talented, I would say very smart. You know, just having a chance to talk with these guys, guys who are very accomplished, guys who all seem to process very quickly. Yeah, it’s a good it’s a good group.”
Reich also spoke about balancing the more “old-school” aspects of quarterback play with the need for mobility — both in and out of the pocket.
“Yeah, that’s why that’s why this is both an art and a science. So, you know, I like to say if there’s ten things to evaluate, how much it really the question in this differs from club to club person to person, even within the club, how much weight do you put on if there’s ten categories, how how do you weight category one? How do you think it’s a sliding scale? You have to be careful not to put too much weight on one category, but you have to decide as an evaluator what are the heaviest weighted categories and how does that fit with what you want to do schematically and philosophically as an offense?
So, that that’s a fun part of it. And a lot of that is done collaborator in a collaborative effort, you know, with Scott Fitterer, our GM. [Panthers owner] Mr. [David] Tepper, you know, talking through those dynamics, I find that when you collaborate on it, it’s like a good checks and balance system to make sure we’re all thinking the same thing on the long term.”
And Reich was asked specifically about Bryce Young.
“You know, highly intelligent, very fast processor, very poised, accurate passer… you know, [a] playmaker. He checks a lot of boxes. I mean, no moments too big for him. Very, very, very good player Seems like a great young man; very impressive.”
Reich did not seem worried about Young’s relatively slight frame.
“It is a concern. But look at Drew Brees, right? I mean, look at Russell Wilson. So are there very many quarterbacks with his [Young’s] size that are, you know, high, high picks? No, they’re not. But there are exceptions to that. And there’s good reasons that the exception to that and most of everything I’ve seen, every positive thing that’s been said about Bryce Young, he’s earned and seems warranted. And I think the discussion of where he’s at and how everyone is viewing him right now is very warranted. He’s earned that. He’s earned that right by how he’s played, how he’s handled all the success that he’s had. And he’s an impressive young man.”
Reich was not asked specifically about C.J. Stroud, but the subject of moving up in the draft did come up.
“Every option is on the table at this point. Every option, you know, moving up, moving back, to signing a free agent. Every option is on the table. I mean, it has to be — you have to you know, this is a huge decision. And it would be malpractice not to vet through every one of those decisions. What’s the impact? What are the unintended consequences? You have to think through all that. And that’s where we’re at right now, really evaluation.”
As we are now past evaluation, let’s see if we can get past the tea leaves and get a sense of what the Panthers might do.
Panthers QB coach Josh McCown has scouted both quarterbacks... publicly.
The primary reason things didn’t work out for Reich as the Colts’ head coach was that he had a rotating group of quarterbacks in the wake of Andrew Luck’s surprise retirement, and none of those quarterbacks were more than bridges at best. Clearly, Reich does not want to go through that again.
“I just think it’s better in every way,” Reich said of his new situation. “It’s better for, you know, you take the circumstances that you were dealt and the things that you did and that you were part of. And you learn from the good and the bad. And there was both of those in that. So but you learn from those, but then you get to every year, and every year is an independent year from the previous. You take that experience from it, and now into a different organization, and you obviously always want stability at quarterback. I think that’s a huge lesson learned for me for the first from the last time around, you know, what is our best answer for stability of quarterbacks in the near-term and long-term future?”
To ensure that stability, Reich hired veteran quarterback Josh McCown to be his quarterbacks coach.
“I think that was one of the things sitting down with Mr. Tepper early on that we just were committed to do. You know, we were going to commit to doing whatever it took to hire the best staff that we could. And, you know, he stood behind me on that and gave us the money we needed to sign some of the coaches that we needed to sign. Obviously getting the right quarterback coach. You know you get Josh McCown 17 years [in the NFL]… Josh and I’ve been talking about this for a little bit, so very excited to get him.”
We’re excited about it as well, because it’s highly unusual to have instances in which the quarterbacks coach with the team that has the first overall pick in the draft has scouted the two most obvious prospects in a public forum. But McCown has gone deep into the tape on both Young and Stroud in YouTube interviews with Josh Norris of Underdog Fantasy Football.
Here’s McCown’s-minute scouting take on Young…
…and here’s 36 minutes of McCown on Stroud.
Fascinating stuff at any time, but especially so now.
What does it all mean, man?
Based on my observations, I think McCown might like Stroud a hair more, though he was highly complimentary about both quarterbacks. And given Reich’s history with Carson Wentz (for better and for worse), it may be that he prefers Stroud’s ability to get things done in the pocket as a larger human being.
There’s also the fact that Philip Rivers played for Reich’s Colts in his final NFL season of 2020, and Matt Ryan did so in 2022 between the ill-fated Wentz experiment in 2021. Based purely on his ability to get things done in the pocket (ball placement, field-reading, anticipation with velocity), there are times when Stroud has reminded me of an embryonic Rivers. McCown was a pocket quarterback throughout his career, so while you don’t always go with what you know, stylistic familiarity plays a part in these types of evaluation.
In the end, while I think the Panthers would be perfectly happy with Young as their future at the position, they went all in not to get a guy, but to get THEIR guy. And based on all attendant evidence, I think THEIR guy is C.J. Stroud.
