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The Carolina Panthers finished the 2007 regular season at 7-9. The Panthers faced quarterback injuries as first string Jack Delhomme missed 13 games and David Carr was ineffective. Vinny Testaverde was summoned to start for the Panthers coming out of retirement to lead the team to a 2-4 record in his starts. After going 15-17 over the past two seasons the pressure is on head coach Jon Fox to turn things around. Oddsmakers have set the Carolina Panthers 2008 regular season projected win total at 7 ½ wins.

Schedule:

The Panthers play in the NFC South and that means two games with Tampa Bay, Atlanta and New Orleans. The NFC South plays the NFC North and AFC West and that means tough road games at San Diego, Minnesota and Green Bay. As a second place team in the NFC South they must play the other two-second place teams from the NFC and brings a road game at the NY Giants and a home game against Arizona.

Offense:

The Panthers will improve on the ground with running backs Jonathon Stewart and DeAngelo Williams split in the backfield. Stewart was the teams first round pick in this years draft out of Oregon. Quarterback Jake Delhomme hasn’t shown any ill effects from his elbow operation from last season. Delhomme has strong targets to throw too in Steve Smith, Muhsin Muhammad and D.J. Hackett. Smith is suspended for the first two games of the season after his fight with Ken Lucas. He will miss the game at San Diego and the home game against Chicago. They would have gone 1-1 with or without Smith in the lineup in their first two games anyway. Muhammad is back with the team after spending the last 3 with Chicago and gives veteran leadership for the young receivers out of USC. The other USC guy Dwayne Jarrett at 6’ 4” has size but needs to understand the playbook.

Defense:

Julius Peppers needs to improve on his 2.5 sacks from a year ago and will be teamed with new teammates on the line. The team is plugging that position with less talented players and their pass rush may be a huge issue in 2008. Jon Beason played well at middle linebacker registering 140 tackles last season. Veteran Thomas Davis is fast and a big hitter at strong side linebacker. Dan Connor was drafted out of Penn St to give the Panthers depth at linebacker. Strong safety Chris Harris is the leader of the secondary. Chris Godfrey, Richard Marshall and Ken Lucas give the Panthers a strong trio at corner. Carolina is experiencing great turnover in their defense but it might rejuvenate John Fox and we may see that old Carolina enthusiasm back on D.

And now to my Selection:

In John Fox’ 6 seasons with the Panthers they finished with two losing seasons. His teams responded back with regular season records of 11-5. The offense is loaded with weapons and the ground attack will eat clock in the 4th quarter. The clear weakness in this team is their defensive line that will have trouble getting to the quarterback leaving them vulnerable to big plays. I expect plenty of high scoring shootouts early in Panther games. But John Fox has the ability to tweak things mid season and will discover a pass rush after getting familiar with his new talent. It may be rough early for his defense but things will improve later in the year as John Fox finds his formula.

Play the Carolina Panthers over 7 ½ wins for the 2008 season.