Carolina at the NFL Combine: No Quarterbacks Worthy Enough for No. 1

It's make or break time for those players who want to be Carolina's top choice in the draft. The NFL Combine will get underway this week with the glare on quarterbacks, as usual. Here are some players the Panthers are not going to pick: Missouri's Blaine Gabbert, Washington's Jake Locker and Auburn's Cam Newton.

They are not No. 1 material.

Gabbert was a spread quarterback at Missouri and Carolina just looks like a team with a pro-set attitude with its new coach, Ron Rivera. He wants to hunt a big-time tight end and a quarterback who gets under center.

Locker was too erratic at Washington. He is a wonderful athlete, fast as heck, tough, and with a big arm. But when I kept watching him in the bowl game with Nebraska he just couldn't fit a pass in there. Locker was 5 of 16 for 56 yards.

How do you even justify picking a guy in the first three rounds with a performance like that? You can say all you want about the players around Locker, but at some point you are supposed to show some extraordinary talent.

As for Cam Newton, my objections are long and shared by many around the NFL. There were texts circulating through the NFL the night of Auburn's win over Oregon with messages such as, "Is this a guy I want leading my team" or "I don't project him into our league."

Carolina will step up with the first pick and take LSU's Patrick Peterson, Alabama's Marcell Dareus, Clemson's Da'Quan Bowers or Auburn's Nick Fairley.

The Panthers' choice at quarterback is going to spend another year at Stanford. Who knows, Andrew Luck might be there for them again next spring.