Number on the roster: 4

Probable starter: Jeff King

At the beginning of the offseason, Carolina started looking for that second receiver to help take some of the pressure off Steve Smith, and surprisingly Head Coach John Fox and General Manager Marty Hurney did initially turn to the TE position, specifically looking at picking up then free agent Alge Crumpler. In the end they decided that either Crumpler was asking for too much or was just too old (he’s 30) and decided to go with resigning Moose instead (and personally I feel this was defiantly the right decision). Really from then on the tight end position was barely mentioned until the Panthers picked up Gary Barnidge in the fifth round of April’s Draft.

So lets begin by first looking at the rookie that I mentioned above: TE Gary Barnidge out of Louisville. Obviously Barnidge has some problems since he was drafted in the fifth round, but there are some promising bright spots as well. The major issue with Barnidge is that he is not a great blocker. He is 6′ 5”, but only weighs 243, which means strong defenders can easily push him around. This however can be improved on; he just needs to bulk up a little with Jerry Simmons (Carolina’s strength and conditioning coach). His positives are that he is a very good receiver and does an excellent job of catching the ball in traffic. Meaning that Fox and Hurney are looking at him primarily as a receiving tight end. This also says a lot about Fox and Hurney’s view of the team. They clearly feel that the offensive line is pretty close to where they want it, so they are moving in the direction of simply obtaining more threats on offense, which is never a bad thing.

Now moving on to the probable starter, Jeff King. King, a then second year man out of Virginia Tech in the 2006 draft, blossomed last year, improving wonders on his 2006 season catching 46 passes for 406 yards (he only had one reception in 2006) though much of the difference was due to the new wrinkles put in for the TE position by Offensive Coordinator Jeff Davidson. For the first time since Wesley Walls retired Carolina has a real multi-faceted tight end that can both block and catch. You may say that his 406 receiving yards isn’t much compared to the league leader Tony Gonzalez’s 1,172 yards, but King still had 200 yards more that the average tight end in the league. King does have a lot of potential, and if he can improve on last season, he will be another valuable weapon on the offense next season, along with a reliable blocker.

The guy that I am most excited about out of all the TE ’s is last year’s rookie Dante Rosario. Although he did not do much in the beginning of the season, he really came around in the last five games of last season, and I want to highlight one specific catch he had in last year’s week 15 game against Seattle. Matt Moore hit Rosario for a 15 yard completion, then Rosario continued to fly down the field, pulling off a good looking stiff arm on one of Seattle’s defenders for a 54 yards gain (shown above). In the last five games of the season Rosario had six receptions for 108 yards, and showed that rare playmaking ability that Carolina has not had at the TE position since Walls. Look for Rosario to share some time with King next season, and hopefully he will have some more 54-yard receptions.

Overall Position Grade: C+

Tags: carolina panthers, Position Analysis, tight end