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A league source tells us that the Carolina Panthers have reached an agreement with linebacker Dan Connor.
Connor, an insider linebacker from Penn State, was a third-round pick in the 2008 draft.
It’s a four-year deal, with a $789,000 signing bonus and minimum base salaries. The fourth-year salary increases to $1.2 million or the low restricted free agency tender, whichever is greater, based on a minimum playing-time trigger.
At Penn State, Connor set the career tackling record with 419, shattering the prior record of 372, which had been owned for a year by Paul Posluszny.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I still have no clue how he slipped all the way to the 4th round. I’ve watched him in high school and college and he’s the real deal. Look for him to be a solid contributor as people run all over the Panthers…
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Rating: 2.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Yeah I’d like to know why he fell
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July 17th, 2008 at 10:55 am
The Carolina Panthers are going to be a great team this year. They finally got Jake Delhomme some weapons in Muhsin Muhammad and D.J. Hackett and they will take a lot of the pressure off of Steve Smith. They drafted Jonathan Stewart and with DeAngelo Williams they will create a really good 1-2 RB punch. Has anyone even looked at their LB corps I mean Dan Connor is not even going to be a starter for their defense unless someone gets hurt. Jon Beason is one of the best young LB’s in the NFL today and he is a total BEAST! Look for the Panthers to bite quite a few teams in the a$$ when they think they’re playing an easy team. GO PANTHERS!!!!!
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Rating: 3.35 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Didn’t he die in the final season of Rosanne?
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Rating: 4.2 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Good luck, Dan. He graduated from my high school a mere 10 years after yours truly. I’ve talked to a few people that know him and he sounds like a good kid.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I believe the knock on him is that he’s slow and not that athletic. Therefore, he’s projected to be an average middle linebacker. That said, he certainly has outstanding football instincts and knows how to wrap up the ball carrier, which has been an issue for some NFL teams in the past couple of years. I hope he does well and proves the prognosticators (who love upside over production) wrong.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I was shocked that he lasted past the begining of the 2nd round. I thought the 49ers would take him late in the 1st (btw they’d have sick lbs if they did)
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
The reason he slipped was the NFL bases you strictly on 40 yard dash time & bench press rather than actual performance. He ran very slow for a LB at the NFL combine, but I also think he is the real deal.
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July 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
A few side notes…
I met Dan when he first go to Penn State as a pre-frosh (he graduated Strath Haven early in order to enroll in PSU and start working out.) Very nice guy, but he told me that the university made him take Anger Management courses. They weren’t worried about his mean streak, they just wanted to make sure it stayed on the field.
He ran into a little trouble during his sting @ PSU. He was unexpectedly suspended for a few games in the beginning of the season 2 years ago. Word came out that him and some other players were prank calling an ex-coach in the middle of the night placing food orders. No big deal, right? Wrong…the ex-coach had dementia so he claims of people pranking him went unnoticed for quite some time. I still find it quite comical, esp. when you hear about other football players raping women, assaulting people at bars and driving drunk.
Connor comes from a football family and will be a solid contributor in any capacity
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
step69, you are wrong because Dan Connor was sick and left the combine without doing any of the drills which might have lead to his fall in the draft. He isn’t the fastest LB in the world but he is a smart football player and will eventually be a great LB for the Carolina Panthers in a few years.
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July 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
step, Connor did not run the 40 at the combine. He did that at Penn State and his measurables were actually quite decent. Just as good and better in some instances than Beason’s.
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July 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I liked this pick at the time by the Panthers and I still like it. Connor can be an asset at MLB and on special teams for them.
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July 17th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
cheapnfltickets, Connor will not be playing MLB for the Panthers as long as Jon Beason is here. I live in North Carolina and read all the local sports news sites and John Fox is having him learn the WLB position. Thomas Davis is finally starting to shine at SLB and Beason is a natural born leader and very smart and it is a known fact by Panther fans that MLB is his spot. In a few years you might see Connor take over at WLB but as of right now its going to be Landon Johnson who the Panthers signed in free agency who was the leading tackler for the Bengals the past 3 seasons. GO PANTHERS!!!!!
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July 17th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
With that kind of scratch he might be able to feed Rosanne for uh about a week
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July 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
If this is the right system for him, because this always is important, I think this will go down as one of the great steals of this draft. The kid has too much natural football instincts and too much production to show for it to miss as a LB.
Kids like that can miss if they play WR, QB, etc…but as a linebacker, instincts count huge… I thought he was one of the top 5 sure things in the draft, with all the players. You know what you’re getting, and it may not be a Patty Willis, but it’s gonna be freakin solid. Time will tell, but I’d bet the farm on it.
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