ESPN cannot say the Panthers did not have a good draft they cannot say they wouldn't have made similar picks because there's an article on espn.com right now that has their top 100 picks so they went through all 250 some odd picks and and picked the best values their the the best picks of the draft Panthers showed well local players showed well players with ties local colleges showed well but uh but the Panthers showed well and that should inherently prevent this coaching staff in this front office from some bad press it should I don't know if it will because let's be real uh you know logic doesn't always win in these cases but it should prevent them from some some negative press and and here's what I I mean by that um you know the example I kind of used uh off today was no one really crushes the Blazers for taking Greg Odin over Kevin Durant there are uh picks namely the Sam buy pick that they do get crushed for because a lot of people were kind of divided on that but no one faults the Blazers for taking Greg Odin over Kevin Durant because if you go back to that point in time everybody kind of agreed with it everybody understood why you would do it everybody was was on the same page so you can't go back and say oh you're so dumb for doing it when you would have done the same thing ESPN is basically saying they would have made many of the same picks that the Panthers did four of the seven picks the Panthers made are in the top 52 picks according to ESPN that is 50% of the Panthers draft is in the top 20% of best picks we did the math so you can trust us it's like 20 point something Jonathan Brooks their second round pick their their uh running back went with pick number 46 to Carolina was the 38th best pick in the draft according to ESPN Xavier liette round one pick 32 to Carolina 44th best pick in the draft Michael Barrett round seven final round picked 240 overall to Carolina was the 46th best pick in the draft according to ESPN the number one best seventh round pick in the entire draft nailed it jatavian Sanders which was my favorite pick for the Panthers uh round four pick 101 was the 52nd best pick in the draft according to ESPN this if you get four starters from a draft that's a great draft if you get one Legend and and three starters or or or if you get one Legend and probably two other starters it's it's a great draft if you have four great picks in a draft that is a great draft for your team especially one in which you had seven picks because then you're batting over 50% which is unheard of it's what the Panthers have to do to make up ground on their opponents we've talked about they have to smash the the early rounds and they also need to hit on a couple in the later rounds well guess what if ESP ESPN right now is predicting right based on this they hit in the first round they hit in the second round they hit in the fourth round which would be satisfying the requirement of you need to smash the early ones when you have the chance ironically all offensive players and then they have the best pick in the the seventh round also on their roster Michael Barrett out of Michigan who if you go you go read the the article it's on espn.com the the little caption that they had for Michael Barrett was essentially this how in the world did someone this good and productive end up in the seventh round I'm paraphrasing but only a little bit that right there everything I just told you if if espn.com comes out three years from now and goes oh what a terrible draft how did they not see it coming oh gosh Dan Morgan had no clue what he was doing it would be complete hypocrisy because after evaluating all the picks they're saying actually Panthers did well now they didn't have the number one best pick in the draft so you know let's let's not get crazy but that mean not let not act like they had the most draft capital in the world to work with either number one and number two pick in like their best ranked picks were Roma dun number one and Caleb Williams number two so just the Chicago Bears in the first round which does mean maybe if the Panthers kept their pick and didn't trade it they would have had one of the top never mind we don't have to go back to last year if ESPN wants to criticize the trade from last year go ahead but this year the Dan Morgan Dave Canales era has started off with with with a positive response from the public matter of fact and I was saying this to Dennis earlier um there like I didn't absolutely love all of their picks I liked the execution I don't like taking a running back in the second round uh I I think they could have waited back at pick 30 three and not traded up into number one or into the first round and gotten a similar wide receiver if not the exact same wide receiver I I I just had like small gripes I think I've been the the most negative person I've seen about the Panthers draft class from from a media person and fans in the comment section are reminding you of that by the way they disagree I'm fine with it we'll see but but I bet you those fans will be the same ones if if Jonathan Brooks doesn't end up being a stud because it's hard to be a star running back without everything else around you they're going to be acting like it's a bad pick without acknowledging that they got on me just for saying like I would have wish they could have got him six picks later right they they had whatever it was the 52nd pick they traded up to 46 I would have liked to get him at 52 yeah but Dallas was lurking there and Dallas really wanted him maybe Dallas doesn't have a running back at all they exactly they're bringing Zeke back gosh they had a backup plan you see Zeke's not wearing 21 that's a side note he's not he's wearing 15 the number he wore in college I feel like you got just out of respect for the fans that still have your 21 Jersey Cowboys you you gota you gotta go back to 21 sell new merch yeah see that's that that's I'm sure what he's doing uh but but you need more money that's what you need you're getting $9 million this year good on him I'm not yeah but but respect the fans there's some some kids out there that are like sweet I get to wear my Z Jersey again they still can got to buy a new one they still can