Carolina Panthers: Looks like Drafting Leonard Fournette
The Carolina Panthers may not have an obvious answer for their glaring need in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft.
The Carolina Panthers will have a halfway decent draft position unless Riverboat Ron defies the odds and the team sneaks into the NFC South crown. So before turning to the biggest issue the team faces, let’s look backward at the running back situation.
The Panthers will need a running back. A sure thing is better than nothing at all. The question is how much do we want a running back?
In 2008, the Panthers took Jonathan Stewart despite having DeAngelo Williams on the roster. In the 2012 draft, the Panthers selected Luke Kuechly at a time when no one really believed linebacker was a position of need. That has worked wonders. In 2016, the Panthers drafted defensive tackle Vernon Butler and it is harder to assess at this point whether that pick could have been better spent elsewhere.
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In the upcoming draft teams may not be looking very hard at running back at the top. Teams like the Browns and the Bears could dabble in quarterbacks. The very attractive defensive end Myles Garrett will also claim a top 5 pick. Unfortunately he would be a perfect fit for the Panthers. So the top running back in the draft will likely still be around.
That top running back is Leonard Fournette. Fournette seems like a can’t miss kind of guy. He does have some injury history back there, but he is built like a running back with both size and speed. He could definitely do the kind of running the Panthers would need. He would also ease Stewart out of the starting lineup sooner rather than later.
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In Fournette’s favor are guys like Adrian Peterson and Walter Payton. While neither looks like Fournette, both have dealt with mediocre or damaged offensive lines during parts of their careers. That is not ideally what you want to do. People have ahhed over Ezekiel Elliott in Dallas, but they forget he gets the best offensive line in the league. Take that from him and what does he look like?
That would be the biggest problem with Fournette. The Panthers have a monster need to address on the offensive line. They need a line that can road grind and also protect Newton. Can we afford to miss on a first round level tackle again this year? The 2017 tackle class isn’t great, but the Panthers could pick up value with a trade down.
In the end, Fournette is probably the best option. The Panthers don’t need receivers or cornerbacks and the upper part of the draft is littered with those guys. There is no Tony Boselli or Jonathan Ogden in this draft as of right now. The best defensive piece will be gone before the Panthers draft. The question may end up being whether Dave Gettleman can hustle together another line for next year.