For the past couple days, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why in the world the Panthers would stick with Jake Delhomme at quarterback.

To say that Delhomme has struggled this year would be a gross understatement. He is 2-4 as a starter, is leading the league in interceptions and has somehow found a way to make explosive receiver Steve Smith non-existent. So why stick with him instead of giving A.J. Feeley or Matt Moore an opportunity?

One reason is because the Panthers have so much money invested in Delhomme after they signed him to a five-year, $42.5 million extension in April. They thought Delhomme would shake off his brutal performance in last year’s playoffs and at the very least, be able to turn around and hand the ball off to DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart.

But Delhomme has been a disaster thus far and head coach John Fox is taking a huge risk in sticking with him. If Delhomme continues to struggle and Fox doesn’t make a move, then he’s basically saying to upper management that he can’t evaluate his own players Neither Feeley nor Moore would come in and light the world on fire, but as long as they didn’t turn the ball over they’d be more efficient than Delhomme.

Fox better hope Delhomme turns things around or else they both could be gone at the end of the year. The Panthers have been a model organization for inconsistency under Fox and I highly doubt management would stick with a head coach that can’t make a change when one is needed. Fox is essentially putting all his eggs in the Jake Delhomme basket and that’s a risky endeavor to say the least.

In the offseason, the Carolina Panthers thought that it wasn’t wise to start developing a young quarterback under Jake Delhomme, even after the veteran turned the ball over 586 times during the playoffs last year. Instead, the Panthers signed Delhomme to a five-year, $42.5 million contract extension through 2014.

We’re not even halfway through the 2009 season and Delhomme has been as bad this year as he was on that fateful night in Charlotte last January. Right now, he’s on pace to throw a whopping 35 interceptions and ranks dead last in the league in passer rating.

After his brutal effort in a loss to the Bills yesterday, head coach John Fox wouldn’t commit to Delhomme being the team’s starter in Week 8. The problem Fox has is that Matt Moore and A.J. Feeley are listed behind Delhomme on the depth chart, so it’s not like he has a viable option even if he wanted to replace Horrendous Jake.

The Panthers absolutely dominated the Bills 425 to 167 in total net yards, yet because of Delhomme’s three interceptions they couldn’t beat a below average Buffalo team. Save for his injury-plagued 2007 season, the sad part is that Delhomme hasn’t been consistently good in four years. The running game bailed him out last year or else the Panthers wouldn’t have made the playoffs.

Fox and his coaching staff should have realized that Delhomme’s better days were behind him and should have done something about it in one of the past two drafts (if not one of the last three drafts). Now they’re left with either Moore or Feeley if they want to replace him, which means the Panthers can kiss the rest of the season goodbye.

Giving Delhomme an extension in the offseason was foolish. Not having the foresight to develop another quarterback behind him is flat out inexcusable.

I think Carolina Panthers receiver Steve Smith is one hell of a receiver. He’s a threat to take it to the house every time he gets the ball in his hands and he still finds ways to make plays when he’s double-covered. I’ve written several times in the past about how he is the Panthers’ offense.

That said, the guy needs a small reality check.

Following Carolina’s win over Tampa Bay in Week 6, Smith had this to say about his role in the Panthers’ offense:

“It’s bittersweet. We get the win, but I have a limited role. So, obviously, I see this game as showing I’m no longer an asset to this team. That’s all I got. My name’s Steve Smith and I stand by that.”

He’s no longer an asset to this team? Give me a break. Jake Delhomme has looked Smith’s way so many times throughout his career that I’m surprised the quarterback doesn’t have No. 89 tattooed on his retinas. Now all of a sudden Smith doesn’t feel like he’s an asset to his team?

Recently, Smith admitted that he was worried that Carolina was going to trade him at the deadline.

From Carolina Growl.com:

Steve Smith said he received several text messages from friends around the country about the possibility of him being traded to another team, one of those being the Miami Dolphins, prior to Tuesday’s trade deadline.

In fact, Smith received so many that he went as far as to contact his agent to see if there was any truth to them.

“I heard multiple teams I was going to,” Smith said during the team’s open locker session on Wednesday. “You hear the stories about waking up and being traded. You never want to be a guy who wakes up Carolina and hears there is a flight for you going somewhere else, so when you hear that you ask people. I asked my agent if there was anything going on. I got a few texts from different people in different states, so I had to make sure and investigate it.”

When contacted about the rumors, Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said they were completely false.

“We had no conversations with anybody about trading Steve Smith,” Hurney said.

Not that I’m Adam Schefter, but I didn’t read/hear any trade rumors involving Smith. Not one; not even from Profootballtalk.com, which makes up rumors on a daily basis around the deadline.

Maybe he wasn’t worried that he was going to be traded, but hoping that he would. Either way, the reality is that he is under performing, has a huge salary and is liable to punch one of his teammates during practice. Why would any team trade for him?

Again, I think Steve Smith 1.0 is a fantastic player outside of his slow start this year. But for some reason, his name doesn’t get mentioned enough when people criticize the other prima donnas in the league.

“It’s bittersweet. We get the win, but I have a limited role. So, obviously, I see this game as showing I’m no longer an asset to this team. That’s all I got. My name’s Steve Smith and I stand by that.”

– Steve Smith on Carolina’s win over the Buccaneers (Herald Online)

For those who couldn’t tune into Monday night’s game between the Cowboys and the Panthers, you didn’t miss much.

The Cowboys were sloppy, the Panthers were sloppier and thus Dallas won the ultimate snooze fest 21-7. Victories are hard to come by in the NFL, but if I were Wade Phillips or Jerry Jones, I wouldn’t be breaking out the party favors and bubbly after this one.

The Panthers are bad – real bad. And it’s not fair to pin all of their problems on Jake Delhomme, who threw two more interceptions tonight to run his season total to 407. Delhomme has been bad, but he’s hardly the only reason why Carolina is 0-3 right now and has little to no chance of repeating as NFC South champions.

The Panthers might as well cheat and set up speed bumps on every play, because their run defense is horrible. The Cowboys rushed for 212 yards tonight on 32 carries (6.6 YPC) without Marion Barber as Carolina made Felix Jones and Tashard Choice look like Bo Jackson and Marcus Allen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Ryan might as well change his birthday from May 17 to April 23, because that’s the day Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff traded a 2010 second round pick to Kansas City in exchange for future Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez.

After hauling in five passes for 73 yards and a touchdown in Atlanta’s 19-7 win over Miami in Week 1, Gonzo followed up that performance with a seven-catch, 71-yard effort in the Falcons’ 28-20 victory over the Panthers on Sunday. He also caught his second touchdown pass of the year after Ryan found him on a 24-yard completion late in the first quarter to give Atlanta a 7-3 lead.

It’s still early, but Gonzalez is turning out to be one of he best offseason acquisitions of the year. He’s such a mismatch on safeties and linebackers that it’s almost unfair that the Falcons can use him in the red zone. And when he’s not catching passes, he frees up Roddy White (6 receptions, 53 yards, 1 TD) and other receivers to make plays in the passing game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former Steelers running back and current SI.com writer Jerome Bettis says that somebody needs to be fired in Carolina after quarterback Jake Delhomme followed his atrocious outing in last year’s playoffs with an equally brutal performance Sunday in a loss to the Eagles.

Fox saw that playoff game last year firsthand. He had an entire offseason to evaluate his passers. And he didn’t take the necessary steps to ensure the franchise’s success down the line. Whether it was a free agent — Matt Cassell, Sage Rosenfels, Michael Vick — or even a rookie in the draft, he didn’t demand a quarterback to challenge Delhomme.

Instead, the Panthers gave Delhomme a five-year contract extension, and now they don’t have anyone else who can compete for the position. Fox went through the whole darn depth chart yesterday and didn’t see a positive thing from anyone.

To me, that all goes on the coach. Coaches live and die by their quarterbacks, and Fox is riding Jake Delhomme to his grave. If he wants to save his job, he ought to be looking for options, whether it be a veteran who got released in the preseason or someone in a trade. Maybe it’s time to call Minnesota about one of its backups.

While I don’t know what “To me, that all goes on the coach” means, I agree with Bettis. Regular readers know that I have ripped the Panthers in the past for not planning for their future at the quarterback position and now they’re stuck with Delhomme, the underwhelming Matt Moore or the recently signed A.J. Feeley.

I always hear about how good of a coach Fox is and how he gets the most out of his players. That may be, but he seriously screwed the pooch in evaluating Delhomme this summer, because it’s apparent that the QB has lost a ton of arm strength. Not only that, but his decision-making and awareness have been terrible and he’s prone to throwing into tight coverage.

Delhomme isn’t the quarterback he once was and as soon as Feeley learns Jeff Davidson’s offense, Fox will probably make a switch. Either that, or Fox will probably go down in flames with Delhomme, just as Bettis suggests.

Some NFL players are just electrifying to watch when they return kicks. Some are even more electrifying when they are on your fantasy team, or if your D/ST gives you six points for a kick return score. Here is a list of the top five (or so) active players in this very department:

1. Dante Hall, St. Louis Rams (12)—He’s lost a step or two, but between 2002 and 2004 while with Kansas City, this guy was positively money on returns. You just couldn’t kick the ball to him without that nagging fear of a big return. In 2003, Hall had 4 TDs, including a 100-yard kick return and a 93 yard punt return. Just sick.

2. Devin Hester, Chicago Bears (11)—Those 11 returns were in just TWO seasons, 2006 and 2007, as Hester’s focus in 2008 was more as a receiver. But 11 TDs in two seasons is amazing, and consider that he also returned the opening kickoff of Super Bowl 41 all the way.

3. Allen Rossum, San Francisco 49ers (8)—He’s played for five different teams, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous to defend.

4. Antwaan Randle El, Washington Redskins (6)—He only has one return TD in the last three years while with the Redskins, but still very dangerous as a return man and a receiver in the open field.

4 (tie). Steve Smith, Carolina Panthers (6)—He doesn’t return kicks anymore, but why should one of the game’s perennial Top 5 receivers be relegated to kickoff duty anymore?

4 (tie). Joshua Cribbs, Cleveland Browns (6)—Only 26 years old this season, Cribbs has been one of the lone bright spots on a struggling Browns’ team his first three seasons.

Source: Pro Football Reference

Mike Lombardi of the National Football Post is reporting that free agent quarterback Michael Vick will likely sign with a team east of the Mississippi.

Back to Vick. By the way, did you see him working out with those kids on the high school field? He looked good, throwing the ball around softly. In fact, I mentioned on the air that we should send him some new NFL footballs. Quarterbacks cannot be properly evaluated unless they have the right footballs. So where does this leave Vick? I put my thinking cap on (yes, Raiders fans, I have one) and, based on the east of the Mississippi clue, my best guess is Carolina. I still feel Jacksonville is in play, especially because they went after Andrew Walter and failed to land him, despite the fact their offensive coordinator, Dirk Koetter, coached Walter in college. Carolina badly needs a backup quarterback and has seen firsthand how Vick can create problems with his running skills. It makes sense, but it’s still a guess. I’ll keep working on the clues.

One thought being floated around the web is that Vick will wind up in a southern state because dog fighting is more widely accepted in the south. But that kind of seems like a ridiculous, fabricated notion and I think any team that signs Vick will do so knowing that PETA will be on their front lawn as soon as he reports to their facilities.

The Panthers are an interesting team that never crossed my mind in terms of who Vick could potentially sign with. Jake Delhomme just signed a new contract, but there’s nothing guaranteed about his play (see last year’s divisional round playoff loss to the Cardinals) and Vick could give Carolina better depth at the quarterback position.

But again, it all comes down to which team is willing to take the risk of signing him. Financially he’s probably worth it, seeing as how he’s probably going to have to take the first offer presented to him. But any team that signs him risks alienating their fan base and turning their facilities into a daily media circus.

According to a report by the Charlotte Observer, the Carolina Panthers and defensive end Julius Peppers are setting themselves up for dilemma in 2010 similar to the one they just went through this offseason.

The deadline for a team to sign a franchise player to a long-term contract ends today and apparently the Panthers and Peppers remain far apart on a deal. After he signed his one-year tender on June 24, the hope was that the two sides could come together on a long-term deal but so far, no such luck.

That means that the Panthers will face a similar problem next offseason when they’ll have to decide to either try and re-sign Peppers to a long-term deal, franchise him, or let him walk via free agency. Any one of the three options has its positives and negatives.

If Peppers wants to play elsewhere, then forcing Carolina to make another tough decision next offseason is smart. But if he wants to cash in on a massive contract before his playing days are over, the window to do so is closing considering he turns 30 next January.