Dallas paper says Johnson signed

On a less relevant but interesting sidebar, I once read that Jackie Miles, the Panthers equipment manager, doesn't give out the number 19. I'm sure he will yield in this situation, but it would be funny as hell if he tried to put up a fight about it.

 

Seattle fans not real happy

They don't seem to be real happy about losing out on signing Keyshawn. Some of those guys over there sounded scared of us for this coming season. Here's a link to the board and their posts. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/forum/boards/viewtopic.asp?topicid=83170

 

I think Smitty is like the rest of us. No one really knows what the hell to think.

 

I thought it were the numbers 1 and 51. The number 1 because nobody is #1 on the team (as in "We're #1! We're #1!") and the number 51 because of the great achievements Sam had and now that it's retired.

 

I think the bigger threat to our long term success is our poor drafts in recent years. We have picked a lot of guys on the first day who have not contributed much. We would not have signed Keyshawn if Colbert had been better. We would not have signed Kemoeatu if Ellison had been any good. We might not have re-signed Foster if Shelton had been strong. We would not have signed Hartwig if Nelson had panned out. RMJ's weakness meant we had to sign Lucas. Siedman has not helped much either. I know you are not going to get a good player every time you draft a guy on the first day but our drafts have dropped off a good bit compared to the ones we had a few years ago. The drafts we had in 2001 and 2002 really put us where we are today. That and getting lucky by landing a QB like Jake the way we did.

 

The only one I think we really paid too much for was Foster. He's the one we paid hoping for performance - everyone else is a known commodity, and none of the deals besides Foster were really blown over what the market was bearing.

The difference between now and '97-'00 is pretty big -

Blowing a pick on Rae Rae
Blowing 2 picks on Giblet and big $$
Blowing picks and $$ on Lewis
Jason Peter.
Collins Bailing
Morabito ( mammaries )
Who was the slow white MLB we paid big?
Doug Evans
Chuck Smith - finished, huge contract.
Reggie White - we didn't just sign Jerry Rice
Eric Swann - cheap but more of the same
Jimmy Hitchcock
Wiliam Floyd
Rashard

Lots going on. Tough to compare.

Hell - I think we overpaid more for Wahle / Lucas than for Kemo / Hartig. Lewis is a low risk, and even Key is low risk b/c we know what we got. Key is a better signing than any of the '00 signings.

It is alot for a #2 wideout. I think what surprises me more than sigining Key is Foster's deal (more than key's) and the fact that we have no RB depth.

 

The NFC will be something. All four teams from both the NFC South and NFC East, Seattle, Chicago, Minnesota, St. Louis, and Arizona have all improved. I'm glad that we're being aggressive this offseason.

 

If it makes you feel better, we overpaid in 2004 for crap players and didn't reap any rewards from any of them.

 

Yeah, but I heard that he also has a thing against 19. Why? I have no idea. But even if he didn't, I can't think of one Panther who has worn that number.

 

you might've read that the league wouldn't give out QB/K/P numbers for WRs, and that Key was "grandfathered in", though I don't rememeber how - I don't think he was, actually.
Since then, it changed, partially because PS and IR players had those numbers in 80-89 and so did TEs; new signees had nowhere else to go.


Reports that Smitty had called and gave it a blessing are untrue. I don't expect that Smitty would be consulted about this, no. I don't expect him to be happy about this, just understanding. Keyshawn shouldn't be taking that much of his targets, just making more of his own than Colbert did.