Kudos to Carolina

   I don't know how much the Panthers have improved -- perhaps considerably. But they've become much more interesting.

   They drafted a big-time quarterback prospect in Jimmy Clausen, a 6-2 receiver out of Lousiana State named Brandon LaFell who is more steady than explosive, and the legendary Armanti Edwards out of Appalachian State.

   Anybody who watched Edwards at ASU ought to be thrilled. The Panthers didn't draft him as a quarterback. But next time they run the Wildcat, it's going to be a whole lot more interesting. By the end of the 2009 season, the formation felt used up, covered with dust. But Edwards, and Tim Tebow in Denver, could give it life.

   The Panthers, as is their recent custom, traded a high draft pick next season to New England to bring Edwards to Charlotte. They took him with the 25th pick in the third round. But who can complain?

   Edwards is a blast. He is tough and poised and, man, can he move. He'll likely return kicks and punts or kicks and punts, run routes and make the Panthers more entertaining.

   Nobody has ever won a game in April. But the Panthers might have put themselves into position to.

   A comatose fan base ought to enjoy watching them try.

Comments

[shutup]

shut up Tom

[vandy]

omg.... i finally care about the panthers again

[Z.Weeks]

mark my words....Purrfit Season-Z.Weeks 2010

[u stink]

He'll likely return kicks and punts or kicks and punts, run routes and make the Panthers more entertaining. You are the worst writer on the staff.

[Nick P]

Yes, it was a good first, 3 picks, even for us comatose fans

[Marvin]

wow i wonder how mundane your life would be to read an article by a writer you obviously dont like and then bash them...i envy you

[section309]

I agree with Tom. These 3 picks helps this charter PSL owner feel much better than I did a week ago when I wrote the check for my season tickets.

[raydaz]

o.k, i can see clausen and lafell,but you give the pats a #2, a precious#2 pick for a tweener who they could of got in the 4th.curious.

[John Gruden]

I love this pick. I think it was great. I think the panthers stretched on it and he is going to be a bust. Wait, what was I saying, Steve young just interrupted me. No, I'm not making a face, I always look like this!
I hope Fox sucks this year so I can get the Panthers job, wait, did I say that out loud? Shoot, there goes the ESPN gig.
I want a real job, wah-a-wah, where's my doll.

[jdpanther77]

He'll likely return kicks and punts or kicks and punts, run routes and make the Panthers more entertaining. You are the worst writer on the staff. Man you need a new freaking job cause it shows you're not good at this!!! Are you serious!! lol

[usc88]

I'm imaging Edwards as a Wes Welker type. If they can get the ball out to him quick, he can make things happen.

[Michael Procton]

Yes, it will CERTAINLY be exciting to watch him struggle to do anything in the league, given his complete lack of any NFL-caliber positional ability.

[h a lewis]

some morons think they know what makes a great player. experience at position, height, weight, etc.

These fools actually think that the people who have millions of dollars invested in the future of the Panthers could know less than they do about talent - even talent thay have never seen on display.

Edwards (like Smith) has something they won't understand even when they see it.

It is soooo easy to be a critic.

[Mariana]

Yes, I'm aware of Manders' technique. I tughoh hard about doing all those computations on the GPU myself, but there is a big difference between our samples.He only has lines for which to draw shadows, while I have polygons with arbitrary number of edges. For a line, no matter of the light's position relative to it, the shadow always has the same shape. This is not so for a polygon, and depends both on the shape of the polygon and on the position of the light. One way to do this would be to draw the shadow volumes for each edge of the polygon, in the same way as Manders draws shadows for his lines, but depending on the level of detail of that polygon, this could result in a great number of Draw calls (order of tens), as opposed to a single Draw call for the whole object's shadow, as it happens now. These add up, and may actually hurt performance more than benefit it.This is one area where DirectX10 geometry shaders would come in handy, as they could be used to generate the shadow's geometry on the GPU, for any convex shape imaginable. But since XNA is DX9 only, for now I'll have to stick to doing all this on the CPU.One other idea would be to move these computations on another thread, and use multi-threading, but this is dangerous territory as well.