Been catching some buzz on Tweets and local papers that Greg Hardy looks like the goods in Panther camp.
http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/i...na-camp-buzzing
I spent much of Thursday morning writing our Camp Confidential segment on the Carolina Panthers. It will pop up on the NFC South blog a bit later this afternoon.
This feature will involve a mention of rookie defensive end Greg Hardy. But he deserves more than a quick mention because he was creating quite a buzz around camp when I visited Wofford College earlier this week.
A sixth-round pick out of Mississippi, Hardy isn’t playing like a sixth-round pick. Coaches, players and the front office are noticing. In fact, when I sat down with linebacker Jon Beason for an interview for Camp Confidential and some other stuff for down the road, he brought up Hardy without any prompting at all.
Beason was talking in general terms about how he’s seeing some promise from young players on Carolina’s defensive line. All of the sudden, Beason paused and got very specific.
“Hardy, for instance,’’ Beason said. “He’s a guy who can do everything. He’s strong at the point of attack. Great against the run and great against the pass. He’s got a motor and he’s very fast. I’ve talked to him and said, “Look, I don’t care what happened at Ole Miss or anything in the past. Forget about it, because you can write your own ticket right now’’ and I’m challenging him to get out there and get better because he’s got a chance to be a special player.’’
All right, let’s put some context on this. Beason is a guy I know fairly well and he’s the clear leader of Carolina’s defense, maybe even of the entire franchise. I respect his football knowledge tremendously. But I should tell you Beason is an optimist and I tried to keep his thoughts on Hardy in perspective until I talked to someone else.
That’s when I turned to John Fox. Anyone that’s followed the Panthers for most of the last decade knows that Fox, although almost always cordial, isn’t the greatest quote in the world. It’s rare for him to really heap praise on players, he’s never going to publicly criticize them and, actually, it isn’t all that often that Fox says much of anything.
That’s why his answer surprised me so much when I asked him about Hardy.
“I’ve liked everything I’ve seen,’’ Fox said. “He’s got the size. He’s got first-round ability. It’s still early, but everything I’ve seen has been impressive from his work ethic to his effort to his skill set.’’
It didn’t stop there. Without any further prompting, Fox went on and mentioned Hardy in a comparison, of sorts, to former Carolina end Julius Peppers.
“I don’t like over-praising people, but I really like what I’ve seen,’’ Fox said. “He’s probably more Pep-like than anybody else we’ve got. Time will tell.’’
Now, before Fox reads this, starts thinking he gave the rest of the league a competitive edge with his early report on Hardy and never again utters a decent quote, let’s add a little more context. By no means was Fox saying Hardy is ready to be the second coming of Peppers. He simply was saying Hardy has the most pure athletic ability of any of Carolina’s defensive ends. It remains to be seen if that will translate into success on the field.
Also, I thought Fox had another strong quote when he was talking about how the Panthers will have to use a collection of players to make up for the loss of Peppers.
“Julius Peppers, love him or hate him, you ain’t replacing him,’’ Fox said. “He was the second player taken in the draft and he signed a huge contract to go to the Bears. That doesn’t happen to bad football players. We’re not going to replace him as an individual talent.’’
The Draft Dominator is a complicated tool and one Bruce works very hard to maintain. This offseason, he's also been tasked with learning an entirely new platform (coding for an iPhone app) and is trying to adapt all the DD code for release as a Mac application.Please don't take that as an excuse or an indication that your suggestion has and will continue to be ignored.As much as I/we hate to admit it, IDP fantasy leagues are not big business -- yet. David and Joe, to their credit, still put lots of effort and capital into making FBGs the best outlet for IDP content and discussion anywhere. We carry a huge staff, are asked to incorporate multiple full sets of projections preseason and regular season into the tools, have a weekly IDP podcast and are encouraged to produce as much IDP specific content that we can.So, while it may seem like some IDP suggestions are pushed to the backburner at times, know that we're working hard to provide every possible advantage and tool we can for the IDP crowd.We'll continue to advocate for the DT/CB split in the DD (although I honestly have no idea how much that entails with Bruce) and we'll continue to push for the addition of IDPs in the Rate-My-Team function. Please don't be too discouraged by the delays in executing some of this. The continued success of FBG through the mobile apps, social media and putting out lots of written content is key in allowing us to devote so much time to IDP content.My apologies for the unlikelihood that the DT/CB split or Rate-My-Team support will happen before September. We'll keep pressing the issues and I'd expect that both will be added to our extensive offerings soon.:endhijack:It's camp time, baby. 
The Draft Dominator is a complicated tool and one Bruce works very hard to maintain. This offseason, he's also been tasked with learning an entirely new platform (coding for an iPhone app) and is trying to adapt all the DD code for release as a Mac application.Please don't take that as an excuse or an indication that your suggestion has and will continue to be ignored.As much as I/we hate to admit it, IDP fantasy leagues are not big business -- yet. David and Joe, to their credit, still put lots of effort and capital into making FBGs the best outlet for IDP content and discussion anywhere. We carry a huge staff, are asked to incorporate multiple full sets of projections preseason and regular season into the tools, have a weekly IDP podcast and are encouraged to produce as much IDP specific content that we can.So, while it may seem like some IDP suggestions are pushed to the backburner at times, know that we're working hard to provide every possible advantage and tool we can for the IDP crowd.We'll continue to advocate for the DT/CB split in the DD (although I honestly have no idea how much that entails with Bruce) and we'll continue to push for the addition of IDPs in the Rate-My-Team function. Please don't be too discouraged by the delays in executing some of this. The continued success of FBG through the mobile apps, social media and putting out lots of written content is key in allowing us to devote so much time to IDP content.My apologies for the unlikelihood that the DT/CB split or Rate-My-Team support will happen before September. We'll keep pressing the issues and I'd expect that both will be added to our extensive offerings soon.:endhijack:It's camp time, baby. 
I just got him as my LB1 in a dynasty start up and was sweatin' a little when I saw you post that......
