Josh Thomas...Carolina's Dark Horse Rising.

[TheMaulClaw]

      Everyone has been downing our secondary, but this guy's a player.  He's extremely physical and he's a great tackler.   It's only natural I suppose from our perspective to get a little worried when a big name player goes away. (Chris Gamble)   But Josh's statistical projections from last year are more impressive then Gamble's.  Josh Thomas did play in all 16 games last year but mainly as a light rotational player, so most of his year statistics comes from the 4 games he started at the end of the year.  Either way he's a CB that in his limited role last year had 35 tackles, 27 solo, with 7 passes defensed, and a fumble recovery.   To put that in perspective, in the 2011-12 season Chris Gamble played in 15 games those being starts and he was only able to finish with a total of 45 tackles with 8 assist, and only 3 picks. 

 

     Anyway if Josh Thomas is able to recreate his play throughout the course of the whole season he's destined to probably be our best secondary player, and more picks will come his way.

[Mage]

The Dark Horse Rises, a Josh Thomas story.

[Jaxel]

The fact that Gamble had only 45 tackles means no one threw his way... Which what you want with a cb.

[Captain Morgan]

Rise Josh Thomas!  Rise like a dark horse with gleaming teeth and sparking hoofs and

give us one secondary player who we can say is better than average!

 

and if you do, you will be rewarded with flashy hay and oats and everything that secondary dark horses

like to enjoy.  Fare thee well, young stallion.

[French Navy]

Rise Josh Thomas!  Rise like a dark horse with gleaming teeth and sparking hoofs and

give us one secondary player who we can say is better than average!

 

Panthers 2013: WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN BE AVERAGE! (in the secondary)

[TheMaulClaw]

The fact that Gamble had only 45 tackles means no one threw his way... Which what you want with a cb.

That's debatable.  There's no way to quantify (unless I went back and watched every play)  how many of those tackles came in run support or after the catch.  But he was our starter during our win streak at the end of year, and 7 passes defensed is a nice ratio paired with his tackle numbers.

[jamos14]

I think he has the physical talent and prototypical size to be a solid starter.  Hopefully he has improved over the overseason and will continue throughout TC.  With our pas rush, having guys ~6'0 tall make throwing the ball difficult.

[TheRumGone]

HE CAN FLY!

 

 

 

[rayzor]

the key to not being exposed in the secondary is stuff the run, force the other team to pass, use the front 3 or 4 to force the QB to get rid of the ball and throw into a field crowded with a couple LBs and 5-6 DBs. QB's going to have to throw perfectly every time for that to work in their favor and quite often the QB isn't going to have time enough to make a perfect throw so they'll either get sacked or be forced to throw the ball away.

 

that's about the only way that you can do alright with JAGs in the secondary.

[Stroupe-a-loop]

I hope he's great this season, but a four game sample doesn't mean anything in the NFL. Matt Moore's four games starting got us comfortable enough to give him the starting job. I mean, a four game sample might mean a guy litterally played well for two hours.

[1989]

I've been thinking this too.  Josh Thomas is going to surprise a lot of people this year.  He was tremendous last year.

[GPantherfan]

He has a great demeanor for the position, IF Norman can take the next step they could end up being a very duo. Nobody knew that Seattles guys were going to have the season they did. Hard work pays off.

[bleys]

I like that he's comfortable with bump and run..  and he's confident..  we'll see how all that translates..

[CRA]

Enjoyed this thread last year....when Nakamura was going to be our dark horse