Carolina Panthers Lock Up No. 1 Pick in 2011 NFL Draft

It was about time the Carolina Panthers and their fans got Luck-y. Get it? No? Okay, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t that good.

Either way, the Panthers have officially wrapped up the No. 1 overall pick in the draft and are now on the clock. Their season was over long ago, but they worried the fanbase by actually winning a couple games. But, thanks to wins by the Denver Broncos and Cincinnati Bengals, the Panthers cannot be overtaken as the worst team in the league.

So, let the speculation begin. Who do the Panthers take and, absent a new CBA, give nearly $55 million guaranteed?

Right now, the most likely selection is Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck. (Do you get the joke from earlier?) However, Luck is a junior and has not said one way or another whether or not he plans to leave school early.

But really, why wouldn’t he? He should see what happened to Jake Locker and think better of actually staying in school. Had Locker come out last year, there’s a good chance he, and not Sam Bradford, would have been the No. 1 pick. He’d be sitting pretty with $50 million in guaranteed money and not a lot to worry about.

Instead, he’s probably going to fall to the middle or tail-end of the first round, if not all the way to the second.

Not only that, but this could be the very last draft that doesn’t include a rookie wage scale. If Luck decides to enter the draft in 2012, it’s likely he’ll be stuck with whatever the CBA says the No. 1 overall pick gets and not the ridiculous number it’s at right now.

If those two things don’t get Luck to come out, I’m not sure he’s even smart enough to play in the NFL. He can always go back and finish school, but he can’t guarantee himself over $50 million next season.

The Panthers did go ahead and draft two quarterbacks last season, but with John Fox on his way out of town and a whole new group coming in to run the show, it’s likely that Jimmy Clausen and Tony Pike will be completely forgotten about. Neither has shown a ton of potential and any new coach is going to look at what Jon Harbaugh did in drafting Joe Flacco and what Mike Smith did in drafting Matt Ryan — every coach wants a quarterback to groom.

Hitting on a franchise quarterback can turn a franchise around quickly — just ask the potentially playoff-bound St. Louis Rams — but missing on a franchise quarterback can set a franchise back by a few years — just ask the San Francisco 49ers about Alex Smith. The Panthers must be absolutely certain Luck is the guy, and have from now until mid-April to figure it out definitively.