Moore out in Carolina, Clausen in!

Coach John Fox of the Carolina Panthers' announced today that rookie QB Jimmy Clausen would get his first NFL start this coming Sunday, 9/27/10 against Carson Palmer and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Starting QB Matt Moore was benched late in Sunday's game against the Tampa Bay Bucs after struggling to complete 20 of 49 passes in his first 2 games.  He suffered a concussion late in the first game of the season and has been sacked 8 times.  Moore has a QB rating of 41.8% throwing for 307 yards with 2 touchdowns versus 4 interceptions (3 of which were in the end zone in game 1).

The buzz around these parts about Jimmy Clausen starting is mixed, however a lot of fans seem excited about the change.  Many are also wondering if Jimmy will be our QB of the future.  As many know the QB play in Carolina is been lacking for the past handful of years.  Jake Delhomme did take the Panthers to the Super Bowl in 2004, but ever since then the Panthers have struggled to make post season play.

Before Sunday's horrible performance against the Bucs the family and I stopped into Target before heading to my mom's to watch the game.  Like always I visited the card aisle and had my 11 month old daughter pick a few packs for me.  She grabbed one 2010 Topps football pack among a few others and inside said pack was a 1952 Bowman RC of Clausen.  Nice!  I seriously need to let her pick more packs for me.  I'm excited about the QB change and eager to see what the Panthers do on offense this week.  I'm not expecting the team to do any better than 8 and 8 (and that may be a stretch), but watching Clausen grow as a NFL QB before our eyes ought to be interesting.

It's also nice to see a Carolina Panthers QB getting some attention in the hobby.  Not since Kerry Collins was drafted by the Panthers in 1995 have we had much hobby attention at that position.  The prices people are paying for a lot of Clausen's auto and game used or high end cards seems to be a bit ridiculous to me at this time, but I know a lot of fans & collectors like to speculate with rookies, esp. QB rookies.  I only have 2 Clausen RCs and that is fine.  I'm sure as time passes on that will change.  I'm just hoping the Panthers records continues to change (for the better) as that time passes.