tacoman_j
Waterboy
for those who wanted Jordan Gross in 03!!! Maybe played just as poorly as Seth Wand. LT's in this league is very hard to find. In addition, Gallery did not play whole year as LT. Hopefully he'll play LT this year.
Very quietly this week, the Carolina Panthers made an interesting switch on their offensive line, moving two-year veteran Jordan Gross back to the right tackle spot he played as a rookie in 2003. The shuffle means that second-year pro Travelle Wharton, who started 11 games at left guard as a rookie last season, moves outside to the critical left tackle spot. At least for now. The Panthers struggled considerably at right tackle in 2004 after the abrupt training-camp retirement by Adam Meadows. More surprising was how much Gross, arguably the top offensive rookie in the NFL in '03 when the Panthers advanced to Super Bowl XXXVIII, flopped at left tackle. When the Panthers selected Gross in the first round in 2003, most scouts felt his eventual (and best) position would be left tackle, but Carolina had veteran Todd Steussie playing there at the time. Last spring, in part for salary-cap reasons but just as much to accommodate the move of Gross over to the left side, Steussie was released. Gross never took well to the change, though, and played poorly on the left side. So for mini-camps, he will return to right tackle and the Carolina coaches will spend part of the spring determining if Wharton can handle the weighty chores on the left side. If he can't, the Panthers have some options, the first of which would be to move newly acquired left guard Mike Wahle outside to tackle. The former Green Bay star, who many teams rated as the top blocker in the unrestricted free-agent pool, has played some left tackle in the past. The Panthers also could use their first-round pick in the draft, the 14th choice overall, to select a left tackle. This much is certain: Carolina will do whatever it takes to assure it doesn't have to live again through the kind of offensive-line nightmare it experienced in 2004. The switch of Gross back to the right side is indicative of that.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=2021162&num=0
Very quietly this week, the Carolina Panthers made an interesting switch on their offensive line, moving two-year veteran Jordan Gross back to the right tackle spot he played as a rookie in 2003. The shuffle means that second-year pro Travelle Wharton, who started 11 games at left guard as a rookie last season, moves outside to the critical left tackle spot. At least for now. The Panthers struggled considerably at right tackle in 2004 after the abrupt training-camp retirement by Adam Meadows. More surprising was how much Gross, arguably the top offensive rookie in the NFL in '03 when the Panthers advanced to Super Bowl XXXVIII, flopped at left tackle. When the Panthers selected Gross in the first round in 2003, most scouts felt his eventual (and best) position would be left tackle, but Carolina had veteran Todd Steussie playing there at the time. Last spring, in part for salary-cap reasons but just as much to accommodate the move of Gross over to the left side, Steussie was released. Gross never took well to the change, though, and played poorly on the left side. So for mini-camps, he will return to right tackle and the Carolina coaches will spend part of the spring determining if Wharton can handle the weighty chores on the left side. If he can't, the Panthers have some options, the first of which would be to move newly acquired left guard Mike Wahle outside to tackle. The former Green Bay star, who many teams rated as the top blocker in the unrestricted free-agent pool, has played some left tackle in the past. The Panthers also could use their first-round pick in the draft, the 14th choice overall, to select a left tackle. This much is certain: Carolina will do whatever it takes to assure it doesn't have to live again through the kind of offensive-line nightmare it experienced in 2004. The switch of Gross back to the right side is indicative of that.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=2021162&num=0
