DAYUMN

anybody read the gant article on moose yet?

Muhsin deserves a big thanks

By Darin Gantt The Herald
(Published November 16? 2005)

CHARLOTTE -- At some point this week, the Carolina Panthers should reach out and thank Chicago Bears wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad.

Thank him for his years of meritorious service.

Thank him for his role in grooming Steve Smith into one of the NFL's best receivers.

Thank him mostly for chasing every last dollar out the door, thus preventing them from making a dreadful and expensive mistake last offseason.

Had he not so vigorously sought out more money and -- perhaps more importantly -- more glory, the Panthers might not be the team they are today.

With the money they saved when Muhammad spurned them for the Bears, the Panthers signed cornerback Ken Lucas, who has quickly become the heart of their defense, or at least their secondary. They signed guard Mike Wahle, who's usually laying on top of a defender near the end of any Stephen Davis run of more than two yards.

It's possible the Panthers get one of the above, but definitely not both, if they brought Muhammad back.

There's no arguing they're better now than before, and it's largely because of the contributions of Lucas and Wahle. Both are proud men of great accomplishments, but even when Chris Gamble had the team interception lead or when they weren't running behind Wahle much, neither showed up for practice with "D-Coy" stitched on his back.

That's the greatest hidden benefit of Muhammad's departure. Had he stayed, they'd have spent more money on counseling than the salary cap, massaging his considerable ego and making sure he still felt important even though he'd be getting the Keary Colbert portion of the offense.

Still, they tried to bring him back, before ultimately finding out he wasn't prepared to come back.

The Panthers made a good faith effort to re-sign their (for now) all-time leading receiver. Those with knowledge of the numbers insist the gulf between the Bears offer and the Panthers' last one was not nearly as much as you might think.

That brings you back to the question of why they offered so much, and frankly, we're still trying to figure out the answer to that one.

They wanted to keep him, but to do so would have meant overspending. To stay, they'd have had to throw enough money at him so he'd have known he was still the most important receiver on the team, and that doesn't jive with reality.

Truth is, and he'll never say it, but Muhammad didn't really want to return. Doing so would have meant accepting a subordinate role to Smith.

The two are friends, and it's much easier for them to stay that way with Muhammad in Chicago and Smith here. That way, they can both be No. 1 receivers.

For all his success, there was always an insecurity about Muhammad. He needed to feel needed, and in his world that was measured in the currency of passes and dollars thrown his way.

There wouldn't have been enough of either here.

He wanted to remain the man, and that option was no longer available to him.

The Panthers made the effort to bring him back because he had been such a good soldier, not because it was the right thing to do or because it fit with their organizational profile.

It was neither.

Spending big free agent money on 32-year-olds -- who have more good football behind than in front of them -- simply doesn't make sense in the current landscape of the league. For a team so careful in how they put together their roster and salary cap, spending on a second receiver, any second receiver, would have been foolish, plain and simple.

So when they see Muhammad Sunday, they should thank him heartily.

They couldn't have gotten here without him -- or at least without him leaving.

 

Very interesting article and I happen to agree with it, even though I wanted Moose to stay. I think I wanted him to stay more for what we knew than anything. We knew exactly what he was and what we were getting. Without Moose there was uncertanty about what we would have going forward. I also like the idea of rewarding years of service and having a player play his whole career here and all that. Of course now looking back, I think it's hard to argue that it wasnt the best for both the player and the team that he went to the Bears. Loyalty be damned in today's corporate market place. Our secondary is as good as it has been and even though at times it hasnt seemed that great, our defense is ranked 5th overall I think. Whale....well it's still too much money for a guard and we still arent running the ball as well as anyone expected, so, I can't get that excited about him just yet. I guess the best way to sum up the Whale signing is by saying, how bad would the line be without that signing, and you always hate to have to spin it in a negative light.

 

I thought it was a little mean spirited, but still correct. Bottom line is he may be worth it for a year or two but after that we'd have been unhappy, IMO.

Lucas and Wahle are both a lot younger and will likely be paying dividends when Moose is washed up.

 

I was a lot nicer when I wrote it

 

I don't buy it.
Muhammed was the primary receiver before the emergance of Steve Smith.
Steve Smith came thru and became the primary receiver and Muhammed acknowledged that fact and became a subordinate receiver.
Smith goes down, Muhammed steps up to unbelievable stats.
Talent is talent. Even though the talent was still there Moose did'nt make waves thru the media with disgruntled feelings to my knowledge.
But, when the chips were down (literally with Smith's injury) who stepped up?

 

Don't forget another reason we pursued Moose as long as we did was because there was still, at that time I'm pretty sure, some uncertainty about Smitty's recovery from his injury. We were trying to cover our asses. thankfully 89 is better than he's ever been.

 

Here's a Chicago Moose piece:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/bears/cst-spt-bearin16.html

There's some more but it's mostly Bears' notes from the 49'er game.

 

I thinnk a lot of press you read here about Moose is going to have at least a negative undertone to it. Won't say who, but a press person made comments (to me) that implied Moose was not well liked by the press around here. Didn't elaborate on why and I didn't really ask. They were surprised somewhat when I relayed my meeting with Moose shortly before the last game he played as a Panther. He was very pleasant and really flattered/surprised by all the Save the Moose stuff - appreciated it greatly. The press person's response to my saying Moose made himself very available to all the fans there that day was met with the response that "it was nice to know that there was another side to Moose".

 

yeah, you could tell that some of the media didn't dig on Moose too much. It was interesting seeing Fox defend him so hard over the years, and draw attention to his hustle and his blocking, because most people didn't see it. Before that, it seemed that he wasn't painted in a good light at all, being looked at as selfish and me-first. The hamstring thing was a hard one to live past, too, because it wasn't publicised much that he played through a lot of pain.

He didn't help himself with comments like the Oakland 00 game, though.

 

i just thought the article was mean spirited also, with a good bit of bs thrown in. never seen him write an article like that and it really shocked me.