It's not too often that your favorite pro team uses a high draft pick on one of your favorite players from your favorite college team. It's something that I wasn't sure I'd ever see. Other than a brief, albeit successful, flirtation with Rocket Ismail in the latter stages of his NFL career, my team had never had a notable Notre Dame player on roster. I didn't expect that to change last weekend during the NFL draft. Every indication was that Carolina was going to select either a possession wideout or a defensive player with their first pick in the 2010 draft, neither of which portended an Irish player.Watching the draft, I was much more concerned with where two of my all-time favorite college players, Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate, were headed than I was with Carolina's pick. I'm rarely enthralled with the Panthers' early picks - DeAngelo Williams in 2006 excepted - although often I turn out to be wrong.
The most shining examples of this wrongness came in 2005 and 2008, when I wanted different players at the same position as the Panthers drafted in round 1. In '05, I was smitten with Derrick Johnson and was thoroughly bummed when Carolina selected fellow linebacker Thomas Davis one pick before Johnson. In '08, I wanted Rashard Mendenhall instead of our pick, Jonathan Stewart. As of now, Davis is a Pro Bowler and Stewart is part of one of only four double-1,100 yard rush tandems in NFL history, while Johnson has been virtually nonexistent and Mendenhall has been good, but not as good as Stewart. Since then I've generally trusted the front office's judgment.
Anyway, it didn't even occur to me, even when Clausen slipped out of the first round mostly due to the fact that he wore a gold helmet in college, that the two rooting interests would intersect. I had good reason not to suspect this.
For one thing, entering this year, Carolina had not selected a quarterback before the FOURTH round of the draft since their first-ever draft pick of Kerry Collins back in 1995. (Impossible for me to believe, but true.)
For another, coach John Fox and general manager Marty Hurney are in the last years of their contract, and both would probably have been fired three months ago if not for the looming lockout, and our owner's reluctance to potentially be paying two different coaches and GMs during it. With that factor in play, selecting a rookie quarterback, pretty much the only position where the media will freak out on you if you dare to play a rookie, seemed impossible.
I could write a whole article about how asinine it was that Jimmy Clausen, the most accurate quarterback I've ever witnessed play (that's college OR pro, and yes, I'm going there) was still available at 48 when Sam "My Throwing Shoulder Is Held Together by Spellotape" Bradford is going to get $50 million guaranteed and the Denver Broncos traded half their draft to select Tim "I've Never Used My Current Throwing Motion in a Game" Tebow. But luckily for me, I don't have to, because the very, very fine folks at WalterFootball.com wrote one for me. It was written pre-draft, but it's still a very enlightening read.
Back on topic. I was so certain that Clausen would not be taken when pick 48 rolled around and he was still there that I posted a Facebook comment on a friend's "Carolina will get a QB" status stating, basically, that I'd love to be wrong, but I didn't see any way we were going to do it.
About a minute later, I received a Tweet on my feed that I will never forget. It came from ESPN's Chris Mortensen, who had been among the handful of people occasionally Tweeting draft picks, or at least predictions, before they were made. The Tweet read simply, "Clausen to panthers #nfldraft".
I had to read it like 3 times before I registered it. This could not be true. Clausen, the guy who I vehemently defended for the last 3 years? Clausen, who both Mel Kiper Jr. and myself had both basically stated that if Clausen couldn't succeed in the pros, no quarterback could? Clausen, a QUARTERBACK?
Sure enough, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell emerged a couple of minutes later and read the pick. It was Jimmy Clausen. My team, for the first time since Collins, had a legitimate franchise quarterback.
I'm pretty sure I blacked out. When we picked Williams in 2006, I ran around my dorm room pumping my fist. When we picked Clausen, I'm not quite sure what I did. I think I got up and did a little dance. I'm not even sure. I do know that I sent my mom, a die-hard ND fan whom I was updating on the proceedings, an all-caps text with the news. I then fielded at least 4 Facebook wall posts congratulating me, as well as a call from my best friend, Mark, congratulating me as well.
Let me tell you what this means. This is a game-changer for the Panthers' franchise. Up until now, I wasn't sure where Carolina was headed. They had spent the off-season slashing costs by cutting highly-compensated veterans. Our entire QB corps has a total of 8 starts (all by Matt Moore) among them. We had some building blocks - a good offensive line and secondary, and of course Williams and Stewart - but nothing indicated that this was going to get put together this year.
Well, it still probably isn't getting put together this year. After all, I'm the biggest Jimmy Clausen fan without a blood relationship on the planet, but even Peyton Manning was pretty bad his rookie year. (Then again, Manning didn't have the benefit of said offensive line and running backs.) But the future of this franchise is set. And Jimmy Clausen is the man to guide it. Coach Fox was quick to inform Clausen that Carolina's offense is all but a carbon copy of the offense he ran under Charlie Weis at Notre Dame - no surprise, since Jeff Davidson, the offensive coordinator, is a Weis disciple.
So by the end of 2010, expect the Jimmy Clausen era to begin at Carolina.
I still have to pinch myself that I get to write that sentence.
Go Irish. Go Panthers. Go Clausen.
