He asked, “Was it that many?”

For the Julius Pepper, less front four, this month seems like a long time ago.

During the exhibition games, the group that lived in the backfields of opponents, generated almost no pass rush in a 31-18 loss to the New York Giants.

Last week, Carolina Panthers (0-2) stepped little forward in a 20-7 loss to Tampa Bay. The defensive front put pressure on Josh Freeman, quarterback of Buccaneers, but failed to wrestle the 6-fooot-6, 248-pounder to the ground.

Matt Moore, the starter of the Panthers on Sunday against Giants threw three interceptions and lost a fumble. It was four turnovers in his team’s 31-18 loss to New York.

Moreover, he ended up on the bench.

For the new starter, it is known that he had a decent preseason.

STATS LLC reports that the average age of Carolina Panthers squad is 25 years and 223 days based on the 53-man rosters on Wednesday.

Recently Carolina Panthers shed many veterans in the offseason. This is the main reason of the young team. It kept nine of 10 draft pics. The club undrafted Andre Neblett, the rookie defensive.

One of the fourteen players DeAngelo Williams said, “You can tell a little bit. I think that’s good and bad… We’ve got youthful legs, they don’t have as many miles as a lot of the teams have. But with that comes maybe mental mistakes.”

The second youngest team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Their average age is 26 years. Jacksonville Jaguars are in the third with average age of 26 years and 31 days followed by Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans.

We have seen that Danny Morrison joined the team as president at the begining of the 2009 season. This is his first training camp and in the winter he enlisted staffers to bring new life to the training camp this summer at Wofford College in Spartanburg. Here the team will be preparing for the upcoming season.

This, in fact seems to be a push why the fans to attend free practices at Wofford and it is to be treated as a football-themed movie nights with bands, T-shirt tosses and good access to the players.

Danny said that the emphasis is to give more to fans with better experience than increasing attendance.

Steve Hall, principal at Signature Sports Group Inc. said, “Danny has done some things to re-energize the fans… I think that’s good. He’s done things to make fans feel like they have a stake in the team.”

The gift of Panthers fulfilled the initial fundraising of the club.

This campaign of the Charlotte Touchdown club is designed for helping sports accessible for Charlotte-Mecklenburg middle school student-athletes. This initiative is in response to the budget cuts and adoption of a “pay to play” mandate.

Till date $55,000 donation has been raised that includes the $15,000 donation made by NFL Players Association.

Carolina Panthers director of community relations Riley Fields said, “The Carolina Panthers are pleased to participate in the Keep Sports in Middle School campaign. This will provide opportunities for disadvantaged middle-school students to play sports in the midst of budget cuts.”

He also added further, “The Keep Sports in Middle School scholarship fund is a good idea and matches perfectly with youth football and youth fitness programs that are important to the team. We are proud to support this effort.”

Since 2007 the 99.9 FM The Fan and Carolina Panthers have had a working relationship. This agreement, however, marks the first time the FM channel will be airing games in their entirety.

Operations manager of CBC sports radio properties Dave Shore said, “Adding the play-by-play and all the other elements in this partnership is a great opportunity for us, and we hope to further enhance the experience football fans get in hearing the Panthers in action.”

Well, the financial terms and conditions of this agreement were not disclosed by any of the party.

Capitol Broadcasting owns 99.9 FM along with few other local radio and television stations that also includes WRAL. Capital Broadcasting is a Raleigh-based company.

Reports hit the media that he has already alienated the Panthers players. He had prompted receiver Steve Smith for denying that he referred to him as a “punk.”

According to Clark Judge, columnist of CBSSports.com, its a different story after he he surveyed scouts from teams that passed on drafting Clausen.

One scout told Judge, “Most people you talk to think the kid is a jerk… With what I was listening to, I thought I was hearing Ryan Leaf all over again. He has a sense and a degree of entitlement that’s off the charts.”

Another scout said: “I heard horror stories about the guy off the field to the point where I wasn’t interested. If I have the choice, I don’t want him in my room.”

One head coach added further, “He has the talent, but more and more character is becoming an issue in the NFL, and he made us nervous. We weren’t interested.”

Carolina Panthers said that they did their due diligence and also they had liked what they heard.

Marty Hurney, general manager, said: “We never thought he would get past the first round… We made a lot of calls, and I talked to people up there ([at South Bend) I knew really well. And what they said about his character and personality were in direct conflict with what we were hearing.”

After beating Minnesota and advancing in the Super Bowl XLIV, Drew Brees, Saints quarterback said “I definitely believe in destiny,”

Like everybody I do search Google by typing New Orleans plus destiny and have seen 4,440,000 games and now it has incremented to 4,440,001.

Due to none existence of destiny the team of destiny may have some problems also.

Destiny can be well fitted to those who remarks others success on it or own lose blaming their fate. But it is not in our hand to win or to lose.

No one has ever thought that The Saints could win as they are the debutantes and from the city they have come is totally destroyed by Katrina and still recovering.

It was not their destiny to lose as there was no hard luck story behind for Indianapolis, if not taking in account Indianapolis Pacers or an average Indiana Hoosier basketball.

On the other hand Saints have great quarterback, good range of receivers and running backs, rock solid offence line, timeserving defensive backs, a coach with lots of creativity and huge supports from their fans.

It is really appreciable but not enough.

Carolina Panthers’ fans knows how difficult a wide receiver will be coming by.

However, Colts found Pierre Garcon. He caught 16 passes in 2 playoff games for 185 yards, in 6th round of 2008 draft, 24 picks after the Panthers took lineman Nick Hayden.

Austin Collie, wide receiver, caught eleven passes in 2 playoff games for 75 yards and 2 touchdowns. Colts found him in 4th round of the ’09 draft, 34 picks after the Panthers took lineman Corvey Irvin.

Carl Nicks, the gaurd said ” I’m not going to cry,” and “That guy’s a game-changer, man.” further he added.

The Saints have been playing Indianapolis Sunday at the Super Bowl XLIV. Both Teams’, Saints and Panthers are the members of NFC South. So, the Saints have to buckle up tightly, that they are facing Panthers two times in a season.

For the Saints, it will be great to see that the five times Pro Bowl Defensive end, Julius Peppers not there to block their way to get the divisional title. It will be a welcome challenge for them. The records said that Julius Peppers during his eight years career, have intercepted a pass, five sacks, four forcefull fumlbes against the Saints.

Carl Carey, the agent of Peppers, asserted that about March 5 his client should be a free agent with out any restriction and he is also expecting that the Panthers would not tag Peppers under their franchise.

The officials of Carolina Panthers will come up to a decision with in February 5 to 25 on Peppers future.

On the matter of fact this precariousness has made an agitation around the whole league as well as within the both teams also.

When “Sunday NFL Countdown” special will be held at 5:30 p.m , All-Decade team will be announced.

LBs Ray Lewis and DeMarcus Ware, CB Champ Bailey, S Brian Dawkins, TE Tony Gonzalez, OLs Alan Faneca, Steve Hutchinson and Kevin Mawae, K David Akers, P Shane Lechler and returner Josh Cribbs are the rest other Pro Bowlers in this team.

As Quarterback Peyton Manning, DE Dwight Freeney and S Darren Sharper will be in the Super Bowl the following week, they won’t play in Pro Bowl though they made the team.