Last week, Carolina Panthers great Jake Delhomme gave his two cents on the team’s upcoming quarterback competition. That pair of pennies landed beside Sam Darnold, who Delhomme said will have a considerable advantage in familiarity over Baker Mayfield.
Well, another former Panthers passer joined the conversation—NFL Network analyst David Carr. And while Delhomme’s one-time teammate did catch his drift, he believes the timing of Mayfield’s acquisition says a lot about Carolina’s faith (or lack thereof) in Darnold.
“Jake is absolutely right,” Carr said. “It’s gonna be very difficult for Baker to come in—right before training camp—learn the guys, get a feel for this. But what has happened is—they’ve gone through OTAs, they’ve gone through minicamps with Sam Darnold and they’ve said, ‘It’s not enough. We gotta go get somebody.’ So, that for me is a big warning sign if I’m Sam Darnold. Like, they went out and got another quarterback because of what you guys looked like as an offense in the spring. For me, that says Baker Mayfield is the quarterback.”
Despite garnering some good reviews out of OTAs and minicamp, Darnold just watched his team trade for Mayfield. So as Carr pointed out, how good was he really if general manager Scott Fitterer and head coach Matt Rhule went out of their way to add another quarterback to the mix?
In short, you might want to order your No. 6 jerseys now for that fun Week 1 opener against the Cleveland Browns.
