yesh

Fast track left Panthers running on empty|

By Rick Gosselin
The Dallas Morning News

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — NFL football, Muhsin Muhammad decided, was going to be a blast.
Muhammad was a second-round draft pick by a second-year expansion team in 1996. But neither he nor his Carolina Panthers played to the level of their inexperience. Muhammad caught 25 passes as a part-time starter, and the Panthers shocked the NFL by reaching the NFC title game.
Carolina toppled the 49ers in the NFC West, then whipped the Cowboys in the first playoff game in franchise history, eliminating the defending Super Bowl champions. That season ended, though, with a 30-13 loss at Green Bay in that title game.
In a mere 24 months, the Panthers had become the NFL’s model franchise. Dom Capers was Coach of the Year and Bill Polian Executive of the Year. No one had ever built that formidable a team that quickly.
‘‘I couldn’t wait for 1997,’’ Muhammad said. ‘‘I thought we were going to be good forever.’’
Muhammad thought wrong. The Panthers have not gone to the playoffs since. They have not even had a winning season. Carolina has fired two head coaches since that trip to Green Bay and turned over almost the entire roster.
Only three players remain from 1996: Muhammad, kicker John Kasay and kick returner Michael
Bates. But Kasay has missed almost two full seasons, spending all of 2000 and 14 games of 2002 on injured reserve. Bates left for a year, signing with the Washington Redskins in free agency in 2001, before coming back in 2002.
So only Muhammad has been there every wretched step of the way since 1996.
‘‘I’ve been chopping wood,’’ Muhammad mused.
How does a team go from such heights to such depths in such a short period of time?
Go back to the summer of 1997, when the Panthers reported to training camp fresh off that glorious second season. But linebacker Kevin Greene didn’t join them.
Greene was the team’s best player, capturing NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1996 with his league-leading 14 sacks. He wanted to be rewarded for his Pro Bowl season with a renegotiated contract, so he held out. The Panthers refused and released Greene in August.
Carolina lost two other starters in free agency that offseason, wide receiver Willie Green and fullback Howard Griffith.
Four other starters left in free agency by 2000. Eight more starters became off-season salary-cap casualties. Two more became in-season cuts —defensive end Gerald Williams in October 1997 and quarterback Kerry Collins in October 1998 when an alcohol problem became public.
Three more starters on defense — tackle Greg Kragen and linebackers Sam Mills and Carlton Bailey — retired after the 1998 season, and another (cornerback Tyrone Poole) was traded in 1999. Halfback Anthony Johnson, the only 1,000-yard rusher in franchise history, was released in training camp of 2000.
When veteran Pro Bowl tight end Wesley Walls became a salary-cap casualty this off-season, the turnover was complete — all 22 starters were gone from the 1996 NFC West champions.
The drafts were dreadful. The Panthers had six first-round draft picks from 1995-98. Those players should have become the backbone of a contending franchise — the seven-, eight- and nine-year veterans on the 2003 Panthers. But not a one remains with Carolina.
There were flat tires in free agency, too. The Panthers signed franchise defensive tackle Sean Gilbert away from the Redskins in 1998, surrendering two first-round draft picks in the process.
Gilbert never went to a Pro Bowl for the Panthers, nor did he play to the level of his money. Neither did linebacker Michael Barrow (1997) or cornerback Doug Evans (1998), a couple of other multimillion dollar free-agent signees. All three are gone.
Wide receiver Patrick Jeffers, a bargain-bin find in free agency, exploded for 1,082 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns in his first season at Carolina in 1999. But Jeffers blew out a knee the following training camp and never made it back to the starting lineup. Now, he’s gone.
The Panthers went 19-13 in their first two seasons — but only 34-62 in the six years since.
‘‘It’s kind of hard to believe,’’ said Muhammad, one of the team’s few bright lights throughout the losing with an NFL receiving championship in 2000.
‘‘But when you have immediate success like that, you get fooled about how hard it is to be successful in the NFL.’’
There is hope in 2003 for the Panthers. They are coming off a 7-9 season and field the NFL’s second-ranked defense. The Panthers will one day win again — and there will be a greater appreciation for that success when they do.

 

whenever a topic leads in like that, I fear that yet another Panther season-ending injury has occured.