Should i drop sidney rice

I'll give you 5 reasons why I don't think the Panthers will take the plunge After the jump 1. There are bigger fish to fry Here I'm essentially applying the same argument the Carolina Panthers did when selecting Cam Newton with the 1 overall pick.

Risk v. Reward There's little doubt that Rice will command serious money in free agency, but he's also coming off a season ending hip injury. The Panthers don't sign big name WRs The counterpoint to this is simple: "Before this year Hurney didn't take a 1st round QB either" The Panthers are operating differently than they have in the past, however, it seems highly doubtful this would extend to throwing large amounts of money at Sidney Rice.

New coaches don't make moves like this In the 1st year of a new coach's tenure they typically don't tell their GM they need a top name FA immediately, especially with as much young talent as a Panthers have at the position.

New coaches normally do one of two things: 1 Stay pat and use their first season to evaluate the team's players 2 Bring in a player who is known to the coaching staff from a past team We have a lot of young players as mentioned in point two, so this condition is satisfied.

Loading comments It is time to stop counting on Rice and move on. He is still worth a roster spot, but isn't someone that you can rely on. If you're in a league with limited bench spots feel free to drop Rice. Even if he returns, he will likely struggle to be effective. Rice utilizes his size and strength to box out defenders and make plays on the ball. Any injury will impact Rice's ability to be physical.

With Rice, it's just a matter of him staying healthy and getting into a rhythm on the field with his quarterback. At least with him we aren't wondering what he's capable of—he demonstrated what he can do in and a few times in If he is found guilty, it'll be his third run-in with the law since joining the NFL in , and he'll certainly receive a lengthy suspension from commissioner Roger Goodell.

With Lynch potentially out of the lineup, the Seahawks will have to lean on their passing game much more than they ever did in No offense to Tarvaris Jackson, who played admirably for the Seahawks in , but the competition provided by Russell Wilson and Matt Flynn will likely result in a much more efficient and dangerous starting quarterback in Seattle this season.

You've no doubt heard whispers about his hip being arthritic or him having some other degenerative hip condition. The only source I've seen for these oft-cited rumors is the Star-Tribune columnist Sid Hartman reporting close friends of Rice told him the surgery didn't fully resolve the problem and Rice is dealing with arthritis.

Take it with a grain of salt. So, what do we actually know? He didn't get surgery until the next season was about to start, and I kind of understand his misgivings about getting surgery done.

As Pelissero mentions in the article, microfracture surgery on the hip has only become widely used in the past five to ten years, and its results are unpredictable. Like knee microfracture, it has a pretty long recovery period, and Rice may have come back a bit too soon, shoved off PUP as he was, last year.

This is worth highlighting because deviating from the set rehabilitation procedure for microfracture is a really, really bad idea. Read the rehabilitation guidelines here or theorizing on success rate of recovery here if you're curious. I'm no doctor, but yes, the hip worries me. In he strained his PCL which made him miss three mid-season games and he was utilized as little more than a redzone threat afterwards, as he was hobbled the rest of the year.

The pro is they're all unique injuries so he doesn't seem have a recurring problem. The con is, well, that's a lot of injuries. Outside of and we'll get to that later , Rice started all of 12 games over three seasons, averaging less than yards a year.

Man that's unimpressive, and I see people bang that drum a lot. That's just kind of weird. Admittedly, there are WRs that hit the ground running in the NFL and have few problems contributing immediately, but I thought the "2-year buffer" rule still applied for the average WR.

It's been a truism of the position for a long time that many if not most take two years to get used to the NFL. Sidney Rice fits the mold perfectly, as do many other WRs; Roddy White , Steve Smith either one , even a guy like Reggie Wayne didn't hit the ground running, Golden Tate will likely one day be an example of it. Rice's numbers are still on the low side for that, but injury accounts for most of that, as it does for and his possibly premature return.