For the last few weeks I think most have assumed that Jon Beason will miss the season opener. However, he just posted the following Tweet:

I practiced yesterday for the 1st time this yr. It was modified obviously, but I'm looking forward to playing Sunday. JonBeason

This is really good news if true. Although player optimism doesn't always match coaches reality but this is definitely a good sign. We will have to wait for the injury report to find out how likely this is to come true.

Omar Gaither was signed by the Carolina Panthers as an URFA with obvious ties to Sean McDermott. He is a 6' 2" 256 lbs linebacker, was drafted in the 5th round by the  Philadelphia Eagles in 2006. In his first year he played mostly the WLB spot, but due to injuries from other players in 2007 he moved to MLB when he was a full time starter. Since then he was moved back to the weak-side linebacker position in a backup role. Was injured for most of the 2009 season and again played backup and special team for the Eagles in 2010. During training camp this week, when both Beason and Connor have been held out of practice, Omar has been filling the MLB role.

During 2007 as a full time starter at MLB, he was the team leader in tackles and QB pressures with 102 tackles and 14 pressures. He also had 8 passes defended, 1 interception, and 1 forced fumble. In his other 51 games he totaled 187 tackles, 5 sacks, 10 passes defended, 1 additional interception, and 1 forced fumble.

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Unfortunately last night was a wash (literally) when the storm came through. The Panthers practice for today was moved to 10:30 this morning, so I'll head down for my last practice shortly. 

I'm heading down the my next to last camp for this year. As usual I'll post updates and of course feel free to use this post to discuss all things training camp for the evening.

You know the drill. I'll post my observations as they practice. 

A few additional notes:

Despite what Derek Anderson said about coming in to compete, it quite evident he's not going to get that chance. He didn't take a snap yesterday and one would think if he would compete he would have taken some on his first day of eligible practice.

Jimmy Clausen still love the dump off pass, seemingly wanting to avoid mistakes in making him look better. I would say Clausen plays not to lose, Cam is playing to win. 

Although DeAngelo Williams only has one practice this season under this belt, all three of our running backs have played well. It's exciting to see them all performing at this level, however, one has to question is our offensive live and running back that good or is our defense just that bad (or rather that far behind).

I'm heading back down to training camp this evening. I should be able to provide a little more commentary this evening. Tonight is the first night everyone can practice and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where we are when everyone is on the field.

i am back at this year at training camp, and will post updates as i can throughout the evening. I'm writing this from my phone so I apologize for how this appears. Also I have my son with me so I might not be that frequent with my updates.

Here's some of tonight's highlights from Little King:

i havent been to that many evening pratices

But there are definately more people out here. Although it could be the cam affect

clausen to shocley across middle

But now no o or d lines

More after the jump...

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The teams that went on a spending spree the last few years, and specifically last year with an uncapped year, and are now over  the new salary cap, have been given a slight reprieve on keeping their current players. 

From CBSSports.com

Transition rules

• All teams will have about $3.5 million to fund veteran player salaries in 2011. That money comes from what would otherwise be performance-based pay. 
• In 2011, each team can borrow up to $3 million in cap room from a future year, which would then be used for the veteran player costs. In 2012, that figure drops to $1.5 million, which can be borrowed. 

We have speculated on some bigger names that could be cap casualties as the results of a new CBA, however teams such as Dallas, Denver, Green Bay, NY Jets and Giants have more room to keep their veterans with these terms. If I understand it correctly, it appears teams will have $6.5 million to effectively raise their cap space. Obviously the 3 million comes at a cost from next year's cap space. With the 2009 salary cap at $128 million and now drops to around $120, some teams face the tough decision of releasing players or take from next years funds. 

This will of course limit the Panthers (and other team) access to some players, but I don't  feel it can be viewed negatively as we don't know which players would have been released and thus couldn't pursue them anyway. We can just be happy that once again the Panthers are in good shape as we have plenty of space. 

We all know about the pay-for-play scandal that Cam Newton's father, Cecil Newton, attempted to arrange for his son. In an interview with the Charlotte Observer Cecil said he doesn't want that event to define him:

What was in print didn't totally define who I am as a person or as a father. And I'm confident over time that will be revealed through our (charitable) foundation and through a lot of our efforts.

If that's the case then what else has he said or done that would give us insight into who he is as a person. After the break I have two examples that give me pause.

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With many of us looking forward to watching the Orange Bowl this evening, I thought it appropriate to post this video. While Youtube doesn't list a description I believe it's every offensive play by Stanford when they played USC in 2009.

On a side note, if you have access to ESPN3.com you can currently watch about 5 past Stanford games. Also, ESPN3 will be showing the game tonight online if you don't have access to ESPN (which I currently don't). 

After the two Monday night games, our strength of schedule is at 0.591 while the Bengals sit at 0.587 a difference of 0.005, extremely close. As a recap for my earlier post, if two teams finish with the same record the tie breaker for draft position is by strength of schedule and only strength of schedule. If the SOS is tied, the pick position is determined by a coin toss. Of course all of this is only valid if we win at least one game and end the season with the same record as the Bengals. 

The point of this post is while I want the 1st overall draft pick I also want the Panthers to win. So by looking at the overall SOS between the two teams, I can still hope the Panthers win and we can maintain the number one draft pick. 

One other goal I have is keeping this realistic in regards to teams we want to win vs versus which teams are likely to win.

Let's start the examination.

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The claim to the first overall draft pick currently falls to the Panthers with the worst record in the league. But what happens if we win this week and are tied with the Bengals for worst record in the league and finish the season with the same record? As has been posted in comments many times, and if you follow any of the beat writers on twitter, you would know that it is determined by strength of schedule. Actually it should be called weakness of schedule as the tie breaker goes to the team who's season opponents have the lowest winning percentage. The thought is that if your team sucked so bad to lose to another bunch of losers then you really deserve the highest draft pick. 

With that in mind I decided to break down each week's upcoming schedules for both the Panthers and the Bengals in case we happen to win and have we both end the season at 2-14. Currently the Bangles win the tie breaker as their opponents have only won 58.3% of their games (120 of 206) while the Panthers opponents have won 58.7% (121 of 206); a difference of 0.005. 

I wanted to do this because there has been lots of talk about is it okay to want the Panthers to lose so we can get the 1st pick of the draft. I admit, I've had a hard time staying in the lets win category but by doing this I can still hope we win and with the right combination of other wins and losses we can still keep the overall pick of the draft.

After the break are tonight two games as a simple example.

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There were three things I knew about the Rams before I started researching for this post; they have Steven Jackson (who apparently overcomes injuries like wolverine), are starting the #1 overall pick QB Sam Bradford, and Na'il Diggs is their starting SLB.

The Rams have a 3-4 record with wins against Washington, Seattle and San Diego; and losses to Arizona, Oakland, Detroit, and Tampa Bay.. The Rams haven't been afraid to put the pall in the air this season with 260 attempts, 4^th most in the NFL, which I find surprising given they are staring a rookie quarterback. Bradford been decent during his short career (he's outplayed either of our QB, at least before this past week) with a QB rating of 71.4, a completion percentage of 56.2, thrown 9 TD against 8 interceptions, and has been sacked 15 times this season; about average for team total sacks in the NFL. He's throwing for an average of 198.3 yard/game (21^st) gaining with an average of 5.7 yard/throw (31^st).

Bradford had developed an excellent rapport with WR Mark Clayton before he had a season ending knee injury. In his place the leading receiver is now Danny Amendola with 39 catches with 351 yards for a 9.0 yrd/rec average; second on the list is Steven Jackson with 16 receptions. After Clayton when down the in week 4, rookie WR Danario Alexander put up great stats two week later with 4 receptions for 72 yards and 1 TD and many thought he might take Clayton's place as a go to target. However, he disappeared the next week, losing snaps to Mardy Gilyard.

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John Fox, through a short press statement, name Matt Moore the starter this past Monday. Whether we like it or not, this is the direction we are heading. We can debate if this is the right decision until pigs fly, but on game day, we will all be pulling for the Panthers, our Panthers. If they win or lose, it will be as a team. It takes a lot more than the QB for a team to win.

At this point in the season what do we know, here are the facts that are undisputable.

Fact 1: Panthers are 0-5

Fact 2: Matt Moore stats have been terrible this year

Fact 3: Jimmy Clausen stats have been terrible this year

When discussing how we exactly arrived at this point and how we should proceed becomes a bit gray. There was the offseason purge that we have theories as to why it happened, offensive line issues, WR injuries, bad play calling, and bad execution. Trying to pin the sole reason we are at 0-5 on the QB's is a big mistake. On Monday we had an extremely long debate about this going around and around but during the discussion BigDavis provided a good summary of the arguments for and against which QB should be starting. These questions are really the starting point on why each person believes a particular QB should start.

Which QB past performance has been better?

Does past performance include 2009 for Moore, and/or college, for Clausen?

Is latest game performance more important than past performance?

Which of the two stands the best chance of becoming a/our franchise QB?

How much can the 0-5 start be directly attributable to the two QBs in question and how much of the situation was caused by: Management decisions; Play calling; Poor blocking; Poor receiving; Poor coaching in general

So how do you answer these questions? My take after the jump...

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How's this for a headline? Jay Cutler does not scare me this week. In fact the way our defense has been playing, I feel fairly optimistic this week that our defense will continue to give our team a chance to win.

Team Stats - Game Averages

In many ways the Bears offensive performance has been very similar to the Panthers this season, with one very notable exception: a team record of 3-1. However, the Bear have offensive line questions (check), they have a history of a strong running game but are struggling at 31^st in rush yards per game (check), and their wide receivers are average at best (triple check).  For comparison on how the Bears' offense has been performing here are both teams offensive stats from NFL.com.

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This week we have a familiar foe with the New Orleans Saints. At 0-3 my outlook on the season is quite different than it was three weeks ago. Instead of the full out optimism with playoff potential, the Panthers are a team looking for their first win and have no idea when it will come. Is it too early to already be looking forward to the offseason.

With the high probability of a down season I'll do my best to keep a positive outlook each week. My goal each week is to stay away from the easy pick and look at who I believe will either be a breakout player or will be key in pulling out a victory. In fantasy football terms my sleeper pick each week. Of course my other goal will be to give everyone a general overview of our opponent, what type of team we are facing and if we were to exploit any weakness what it might be.

As a division rival the Saints are all too familiar. There is little we don't know about the Saints. Currently the Saints are tied for the division lead at 2-1 with the Falcons, however, if not for an errant kicker this past weekend they would have won their game and would be 3-0. Their strength is in their high powered offense by averaging over 28 points in their last 11 games dating back to last season (why 11, I don't know just picked a number. Also, before that was when they were really on fire putting up over 40 each game). While not as high scoring as they were last season they have an average of 21 points this year and only rank 14^th, in the middle of the road. In addition they have 331 total yards (13^th) and 273.7 passing yards (6^th). They have a 42% third down completion ratio (11^th) and only 12 offensive penalties (4^th least) for only 112 yards. Their offense has held the ball an average of 31:13 each game (14^th) and have only 3 lost TO (1 fumble, 2 interceptions). Brees has a QB rating of 107.6 this season, thrown for 856 yards with a 75.9% completion ratio and 6 TD. Their offensive line has allowed 5 sacks (tied 9^th with seven other teams) and 9 QB hits (ranked 7^th least with one other team). Finally their Coach, Sean Payton, while he has been called many things, conservative is not one of them. Many of these numbers are average but the Saints have serious offensive weapons and are not afraid to use them.

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It's hard to determine which teams are good and which teams are not based on only a week's worth of data. So for what it's worth, after week one the Bucs defense is ranked 20^th overall: 21^st in pass yds/game and 17^th in rush yds/game. Or offense on the other hand the Panthers offense is ranked 28^th overall: 26^th in pass yards and 20^th in rush yards.

Last week we gained a mere 89 rushing yard, and with Double Trouble in the backfield that's hard to imagine. I can't find stats on how many total plays both Stewart and Goodson had, but I could find that overall Goodson and Stewart had the same number of opportunities. Goodson was thrown to 5 times (3 rec) and Stewart had 5 carries. I know we got behind in the second half but those numbers are hard to believe. I would expect a more balanced approach this week.

Last year we torched Tampa with our running game. To counter this Tampa drafted defensive tackles Gerold McCoy and Brian Price with their first two picks. At least the fans are high on their DT potential but the same can't be said about the DE. The offensive will need our running game to improve this week as the biggest factor getting the win.

Key 1: Our running game to return to dominance.

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Something I've never really considered regarding the roster is who will not be active on game day. Sure I've thought about it around right before kickoff but mostly for fantasy football reason. With that in mind I decided to put some thought into who I would deactivate. There are 53 players on the roster but only 45 can be active on game day meaning 8 have to be deactivated.

The easiest to predict is the 3^rd string QB, Tony Pike. As with any team carrying three quarterbacks the 3^rd in line is always deactivated. The rules state that a deactivated 3^rd string QB can be activated and play during the game, however, once he plays the other QB's cannot reenter the game.

This leaves us with 7 other players to deactivate. As easy as it's to predict Pike being deactivated it also is easy to predict several who will active, the starters on both sides of the ball and therefore we'll throw them out of the equation (22 starters, based on the depth chart at Panthers.com). Other easy names are several backup players such as Jonathan Stewart, Brandon LaFell, Jimmy Clausen, Captain Munnerlyn, Everette Brown, and Greg Hardy. In addition the special team players that will be active, John Kasay, J.J. Jansen, Jason Baker, and Todd Carter (10 backups).

53 roster - 22 Starters - 10 Backups and Special teams - 3^rd String QB = 20 remaining to determine their game day status, 12 active and 7 inactive. After the break see who's left.

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We now have our 53 man roster for the 2010 season. Overall I don't think there were many surprises; lets take a little closer look at who will start the season, position by position starting with QB.

QB: Matt Moore, Jimmy Clausen, Tony Pike

Matt Moore and Jimmy Clausen were not in danger of being cut. Moore is going to get his chance to prove himself not just to the Panthers but to the rest of the league. With Clausen behind him it's hard to see the Panthers keeping Moore past this season, giving Moore the chance to audition for another team in 2011. The wildcard in all of this is the future of the head coaching position. If Fox leaves, how would the next coach would see the QB lineup?

Regarding Tony Pike versus Hunter Cantwell, the way I see it is that Cantwell's ability is well known within the organization and his ceiling is quite low.  Pike on the other hand has a higher ceiling at this point; well actually I should say many believe he has a higher ceiling. There is no denying that Pike is a project, but looking forward it does make since to keep him and see how he develops this year. If Moore ends up leaving next year I like the idea of another QB on the roster with more potential than Cantwell behind Clausen.

Of course we also have the question of trying to move him to the practice squad but in the end there is a high chance he wouldn't have made it that far. Sure we could have tried to use Edwards as the third QB but that's a decision Furney had to make and they chose the former option.

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While unlikely, the thought of the Panthers signing T.J. Houshmandzadeh is at least intriguing. To be honest I don't know much about his career other than he played with the Bengals and was Chad Ochocinco's teammate. So I went to Pro-Football-Reference.com and decided to compare his career to Steve Smith's just for kicks.

Both were drafted in 2001, although TJ is two years older. Steve Smith was draft in anticipation of returning punts and while I don't know exactly why TJ was drafted he did return punts his first few years in the league. He had a total of 12 punt returns and 10 kickoff returns in his first year and did have a better average (13.6 vs 10.7) in punt returns that year over Smith but over the next two active years Smith kept his average the same while TJ's dropped dramatically.

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Previously I covered the Panthers Defense, this time I want to look at who we have trying to make the roster on the offensive side. Lets start the special teams players.

*Injured during presesaon with Packers and placed on IR for his first season.

Both Jason Baker and John Kasay are a given to make the roster. Todd Carter is trying to make the team in place of Rhys Lloyd as our kickoff specialist. So far I'm not sure if we will keep him. Then we have J.J. Jenson the long snapper. The Panthers have dedicated a roster spot to a long snapper for several years. Last year bringing in Jenson and releasing reliable Jason Kyle was a risk but in the end I think it work out fine. I personally saw Jeff King attempting long snapping during training camp and I've heard reports of other doing so. While I personally believe Jenson will be back, I'm sure the team could benefit from having a backup active instead of a dedicated long snapper. 

Onto the offense after the jump...

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I'm not sure if anybody is at camp this morning, but figured we would keep the training camp coverage going in one place as usual. As of 8:30 this morning it's only 3 days, 11 hours, and 30 minutes until game time Thursday night.