SI's Peter King May Be Right About the Carolina Panthers

Sports Illustrated's Peter King recently put the 2009 Carolina Panthers 18th in his preseason NFL rankings, and if you can believe it that isn't a popular sentiment in Charlotte.

Personally, I hope he's wrong. I also won't be surprised if he isn't. A realistic hope for this year is another division title and a run at the Super Bowl. Equally realistic is a return to 8-8 land.

How can I say that? Carolina went 12-4 and won the South. The Panthers led the NFL with 30 rushing touchdowns and it wasn't close and ranked seventh in scoring offense. As of now, 21 of 22 starters are back to go with the addition of pass-rushing specialist Everette Brown, a defensive end whose 13.5 sacks last season at Florida State led the ACC.

So the question remains, how can I be afraid of an 8-8 season? Part of it is I'm a hopeless pessimist (I'm also a Virginia and Atlanta Braves fan), though sometimes pessimism and realism can walk the same road for a while.

To be sure, those are all good things up there and form the foundation of my hope that King is wrong. But there is an unfortunate fact to face about last year's team, as exciting as it was: It was good, but it wasn't that good. Deep inside we all knew it. That means the return of 21 of 22 starters maybe isn't as great as it's cracked up to be.

To wit:

Despite their record, the Panthers were an average defensive team that devolved into awful and had a weird proclivity for not just losing but getting annihilated. The Panthers won more than one game with mirrors (San Diego and Green Bay come to mind), and when they went down they went down in flames - usually when it counted most.

Against the Giants in Week 16 Carolina made Derrick Ward, who cracked 80 yards twice all year, look like Bo Jackson. And not the Bo Jackson who posterized Brian Bosworth; the Bo Jackson on Techmo Super Bowl who ran like he was riding a motorcycle.

In the second half and overtime, Ward appeared to be working against the scout team. A girls lacrosse scout team. A high school girls lacrosse scout team. In a state that doesn't recognize it as an official sport.

A Panthers linebacker appearing on the TV screen was akin to a bigfoot sighting by the second half as Ward piled up 215 yards in Carolina's most important game of the regular season. And it's not like the Panthers weren't an equal-opportunity screen door.

A week after the Giants ran for 301 against them, Drew Brees threw for 367. Larry Fitzgerald had 150 yards receiving IN THE FIRST HALF of the playoffs debacle; a number that could only be overshadowed if the other team's quarterback threw five interceptions. Which he did. Sigh.

Those lowlights only highlighted the year-long problems of a unit that wound up 18th in the league in yards per game (331.2) and 20th in rushing (4.4 yards per carry).

The pass rush was often non-existent, even with Julius Peppers and his 14.5 sacks, and the secondary was average at best. Worse, Panther defenders often seemed surprised at what the opposing offense was doing - a sign of unacceptably poor coaching at the NFL level.

The team has attempted to address those problems, of course. Defensive coordinator Mike Trgovac was replaced after the season by Ron Meeks, a respected disciple of the "Tampa Two."

Brown, a 6'2", 255-pounder, fits Meeks' mold of "undersized" ends who become dominant pass rushers (see Freeney, Dwight and Mathis, Robert). Sherrod Martin, another second-round pick, was brought in to give the secondary a boost in athleticism. At least, that's what the Panthers hope. Many thought the two were overdrafted. We'll see.

But we're still looking at basically the same team—with the same head coach—that often made things much harder than it seemed like they should have been and showed a willingness to lay down and take a beating in ways a real championship contender never would.

Jake Delhomme just signed a huge deal and is back under center. I'm a Jake guy, to a point, but at 34 is he ever going to become more than a home run hitter to Steve Smith when the other team is keyed to stop the run? No. Will he ever be a guy you can count on to be consistent for four quarters most weeks? No.

And the elephant in the room is Peppers, who refuses to sign his $16.7 million contract and continues to insist he won't play for the Panthers again. Even with him, it's hard to see how Carolina can hold off Atlanta in the division much less hope to compete in the playoffs. Without him?

Well, there's always a chance that a schedule that includes the Eagles and Dolphins at home and trips to Dallas, New England and New York for both the Jets and Giants isn't as tough as it looks. It could be Trgovac's schemes were the sole problem with the defense. Maybe Peppers isn't that critical to Carolina's fortunes.

I'm just not counting on it.