Fascinating. All it took was a direct question from The Gaston Gazette’s Steve Reed and boom — Panthers Coach John Fox admits that dumping Chris Harris and his 60-odd starts for a LB with three career starts is about saving money.
“We’ve got a budget,” Fox told Reed, along with a roomful of more timid reporters. “And that had something to do with it.”
Fox’s admission is still reverberating around the league, where everyone knows Jerry Richardson does not like his business aired in public and Richardson’s role as chief enforcer of NFL owner “unity” is understood. Fox pulled the layers back a bit in confirming that Carolina is dumping salary in advance of a possible lock-out year.
So what, you say, what is done is done. I’m not so sure that the Harris fallout is over. Remember starting CB Richard Marshall was a no-show for mini-camp, unhappy with the low-ball contract the Panthers locked him into. Considering that the working plan is to replace Harris with a much rangier safety combo of Charles Godfrey and Sherrod Martin — both with CB experience — it would not shock me to see the Panthers hand Marshall’s starting slot to Captain Munnerlyn and ship the rights to Marshall elsewhere — possibly for a 2nd rounder next year.
As with Harris, dumping Marshall would be the Big Cat signaling to his fellow owners that they must be tough and be willing to dump talent that costs too much or complains too much.
