Observer????

[Ipimpcrazydave]

Peete deserves praise, pink slip from Panthers

Weinke, Rutherford should stay

TOM SORENSEN


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Rodney Peete was an accessory for the Oakland Raiders in 2001. He participated in only one play all season, a handoff. The season before he had not participated in any. His career, which began with Detroit in 1989, appeared to have ended.

But the Carolina Panthers needed a veteran to work with second-year quarterback Chris Weinke. So they plucked Peete from life after football and asked him to spew learned and sage advice while backing up Weinke.

Weinke, however, so frustrated the coaches during the 2002 preseason that Peete was installed as starter. Last season Peete was Jake Delhomme's top back up.

Panther fans ought to remember Peete fondly. And the Panthers ought to cut him before Sunday's 4 p.m. roster reduction deadline.

Peete, 38, is not without value. If Delhomme gets hurt against Green Bay, say, and somebody has to come in for a series, Peete probably is the man to whom the Panthers would prefer to entrust their offense.

But if the Panthers need a quarterback for more than a few minutes, Weinke is, or should be, their choice. He has a better arm than Peete and is more mobile. You are more mobile than Peete. You are more mobile than Peete if you are wearing sandals, boots or heels.

Weinke has had two straight superior preseasons. If he and rookie Keary Colbert aren't Montana and Rice, they are the exhibition game version of Delhomme and Steve Smith.

Weinke has the best arm on the Panthers. If you get to a game early, watch him warm up. Watch the touch he puts on his deep passes. What's held him back has never been his arm.

John Fox's first signature move as head coach was to replace Weinke with Peete. Peete was so rusty at the time that, when he walked off the field, you'd see not sweat but dust. The Panthers, however, didn't want to risk having their offense undoing their defense's good work. Weinke's inability to read a defense cost him his job.

If he has learned to beat a zone while backing up Peete and Delhomme, he deserves to be the top reserve.

Backing up the back up should be Rod Rutherford, the rookie from Pittsburgh. You see his 57-yard pass to Eugene Baker in Thursday's exhibition against Pittsburgh? If Rutherford and Baker are not Delhomme and Steve Smith, they are the fourth-quarter exhibition version of Weinke and Colbert.

Rutherford, 6-foot-2 and 223 pounds, can move and throw, and he was impressive in camp and in practice games. Although he wasn't drafted (there's another Panthers quarterback who wasn't drafted, but I can't remember -- oh yeah, Delhomme) he started three seasons for the Panthers of Pittsburgh.

If Carolina tries to stick Rutherford on the practice squad, it first has to cut him, which means exposing him to 31 other teams. Why risk it? Rutherford is a project, but he's a worthy project.

If the Panthers let Peete go, they shouldn't ask him to bring his playbook. They should bring things to him. I envision heartfelt praise, sincere appreciation and a rocking chair.

 

[buck nasty]

isn't he the one who wrote the article about dumping moose last year around mid-season? or was it the other dumbass, fowler. this is another of many classic articles to come out of the obs.

 

[y2b]

Henning already said Peete came to camp in better shape than he was last year, he's looked better in preseason than he did last year too.

You know Peete came in ready to be a back-up, with very little playing time of recent, then he played all year. Wore is his ass out. The following year, he gets in shape, gets his body going again so he can withstand the demands of an NFL QB, then he sits all year. Well, now he's in better shape and not taking any pounding, another offseason of preparing like he should, I bet he is in great shape.

The Panthers have a pretty good shot at another run this year, to say the least. If Jake goes down (God forbid, knock on wood) I for one would rather have Peete & Weinke, I don't care who's 1 or 2. I like our depth at QB. I'm not sure those two would start anywhere else, but no team in the league can go three deep like we can at QB.

The altenative, setting ourselves up for one play away from starting a rookie in the middle of the play-offs? I don't think so.

 

[buck nasty]

you're probably right about that y2, i just like the way the ball comes off rr's hand. its like a rocket. maybe no one will grab him up.

 

[magnus]

Peete did put in his one average performance in a preseason game this year. He still struggled getting the ball out to certain parts of the field, looked inaccurate as he did in Jax, and in the first preseason game, but in the end, he did good driving his team down the field and even put up a nice lob TD. I don't see him going anymore than I do Weinke. Honestly, if either of these guys would be more efficient, we could cut the other and add RR.

OTOH, I'm not terribly convinced that Rutherford's all that - liked him coming out, liked him before that in college. He's got a hell of an arm, but he's had consistency problems. At any rate, the big strong mobile QB with the cannon arm, it looks great on paper and as much as I enjoy watching, I don't know if I see a future in it. He's a hell of a guy to keep back there, though.

 

[rake]

Does anyone see any chance of keeping 4 QBs? We would have to toss a 9th DB DL or OL or maybe a 6th WR . .. like Shaw, Jordan, Kadela or Baker? Which of those four positons can we do without an extra man?

Hell, I'm glad I don't have to make these final cuts :scared2:

 

[magnus]

Does anyone see any chance of keeping 4 QBs? We would have to toss a 9th DB DL or OL or maybe a 6th WR . .. like Shaw, Jordan, Kadela or Baker? Which of those four positons can we do without an extra man?

Hell, I'm glad I don't have to make these final cuts :scared2:

We won't need a 9th DL, IMO. We will possibly need the 9th DB, if only because we won't want to choose between Wesley and Tillman.

We could keep the 4th QB. I don't think we will but we could.

 

[lde]

isn't he the one who wrote the article about dumping moose last year around mid-season? or was it the other dumbass, fowler. this is another of many classic articles to come out of the obs.

Fowler is the dumb one. Sorenson is a humor colmunist. He writes alot of great columns, but they're either humor or just human life type things. If you take what he says as just from a fan, it seems like a different light. If someone writes a column I really really like, I tend to forgive them for others. He wrote about competing when you have no chance when Kerry Collins led a give up game in 97, comparing the effort he give in a hopeless pickup basketball game against his teenage son. He wrote an unbeleivable things column, citing all the dumb Spurrier rumors, the fact that Seifert left his staff without saying goodbye, etc. He earned enough stars with those, and others, for me.

The point of his column was they need to keep Rutherford as the future backup, and that Peete doesnt have much left. I think many here agree with that. Whether Weinke has played well or not is in dispute. In the press too. Gantt and Menzer things he's played poorly.