It’s a mixed bag for Charlotte sports teams right now. Charlotte FC is playing a must-win match Friday against Orlando at Bank of America Stadium. It’s the team's first-ever home playoff match.
Johnson C. Smith University is still undefeated at 8 and 0. The Golden Bulls take on 3 and 4 Fayetteville State Saturday afternoon. The Charlotte Hornets are 2 and 2, but they face NBA Champions the Boston Celtics Friday and Saturday — stay tuned. And the Carolina Panthers continue to struggle mightily ... only winning one game so far this season. Charlotte Observer veteran sportswriter Langston Wertz, Jr. talks about some of this with WFAE’s Gwendolyn Glenn, starting with the Panthers. He predicts no changes in their near future.
Langston Wertz, Jr.: There's just so many injuries going on and there's so many things that have gone wrong. It's almost like, you know, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I mean, the first game, you lose your best defensive player, Derrick Brown. Shortly thereafter, you lose maybe your second-best defensive player in linebacker Shaq Thompson; your star center, Austin Corbett, goes down; Adam Thielen, your top wide receiver goes down; the defense fell apart. They gave up, you know, 30 or more points like for every game for a month. And then last week against the Broncos, they didn't give up 30 but they certainly lost 28 to 14. You know, I think it's time to start looking at the draft board and where you're going to land right now. The Panthers had the worst record in football, they are 1 and 7. The Titans are 1 and 6, just a little bit behind them. So, there's a real chance the Panthers are going to have a top 3 or 4 pick and you have to kind of see where it goes from there.
Gwendolyn Glenn: Well, the big news this week was the trade of Diontae Johnson to the Baltimore to the Ravens. What were your thoughts when you heard about the trade?
Wertz: I wasn't surprised because he gets them some more draft capital moving forward. The team just needs more talent.
Glenn: A lot of people are saying that they didn't get much for the trade to go from a sixth pick to a fifth-round pick. What are your thoughts on that?
Wertz: Obviously, you want to get the most you can get with any pick room, but sometimes we see quarterbacks going for fourth-round picks and you know there'll be some good players in the fifth round and maybe that's only the beginning of what they're trying to do and they're trying to maybe put together some picks to try to move up. So, I didn't think that was a horrible move that they made. I mean, we've tried the quick-fix quarterback route. It didn't work out. You find a quarterback, either in house. Maybe it is Bryce Young. They keep saying they have a plan for Bryce Young.
Glenn: I was going to ask you about Bryce Young's future. He hasn't done well this season, and even after that five weeks of being off, and they had Andy Dalton in there (as quarterback) and he (Dalton) has a sprained thumb. But Bryce still hasn't seemed to perform. Is it still the same issues in terms of the quarterback not having protection that we've seen in past years or is it something else?
Wertz: I think it's a combination. Bryce Young was that guy in college, you know, he was the top two draft pick on most people's draft boards. You know David Tepper was talking about Super Bowls. But I think that nowadays quarterbacks in the NFL are often tossed in too quickly. I mean, some of them do well but it would have been better for Bryce Young coming into this situation to have sat behind Dalton, maybe half of the season last year and started slower because, I mean, the Panthers were, you know, I hate to say, but they were dumpster fire last year and they are turning into that this year and his protection has not been good and, you know, his receivers aren't all out there. They traded away one and his other best one is hurt. You got to give the guy a chance and see what he can do when he has a full suite of weapons. And I think they have to get him a full suite of weapons.
Glenn: Well, let's go to the Hornets. What are your thoughts on coach Charles Lee and the team overall?
Wertz: Certainly LaMelo Ball has gotten off to a big start. I mean, he looks like a guy who's going to be an All-Star player, but I think it's maybe a little too early to kind of judge the Hornets yet, but I think they're playing better. They seem to be more competitive, better defensively. We just have to give it a little more time to see if they can turn some of these close losses into wins.
Glenn: What about injuries? Do you think LaMelo is going to stay healthy? He had another slight injury already correct?
Wertz: Yeah, you know the Hornets Gwen, it's weird. They've been bitten by the injury bug so hard in the past few years, and they brought in the new owners, brought in a new ten-person health staff to kind of help them stay on the floor. And your center, Mark Williams, already has a foot injury. LaMelo had his thing. Somebody finally got LaMelo to wear ankle braces, which is a big first step.
Glenn: But he had a tailbone contusion, right?
Wertz: Yeah.
Glenn: So the Hornets have Boston coming up. Your thoughts on how they're going to do against Boston?
Wertz: You got to play the champs twice in a row Friday and Saturday. That's going to be tough. Then they play the Timberwolves. They're playing, you know, two of the best, I don’t know, 7 of 8 teams in the league. I mean that's going to be a tough one, but then they get the Pistons and then they get the Pacers. So that's a chance for them to get a couple of wins after that (Boston).
Glenn: Now, what about the rookie Tidjane Salaün?
Wertz: I haven't seen a lot of him enough of him to really kind of say, you know, he's that guy. I can tell you what the team is saying and some writers. They're saying this guy's going to be really good. They really feel like they found somebody in this kid.
Glenn: So, what about high school sports? What’s the big news there?
Wertz: Football is getting to the playoffs and the state association added an extra week to the season to accommodate the western North Carolina teams that were affected by Hurricane Helene. Fields were completely destroyed. Water was up at the top of the stands on some of the fields and equipment rooms, cleats, balls, everything was destroyed. So, playoffs are starting in a couple of weeks. Basketball is about to start, and there's lots of really, really good teams in Charlotte. It should be fun in basketball and football.
Glenn: Who are you watching?
Wertz: In football, I think Hough is going to be really, really special. They got a chance to win their first state championship. They didn't have a really good offense before, so now they have an offense and quarterback named Trey Blakeney and I think they're going to make a run. Weddington is the state defending champions. They're really good and of the private schools, Providence Day is really good. They got to face a nationally ranked Rabun Gap team. Then you flip it over, in basketball, Chambers has two young kids that are going to be two of the best players in the country — Tarris Bouie and Marcus Kerr. They're both 6'5" wing players. They're already top 50 players nationally, so they're going have a chance to be really special.
Glenn: Well, Langston, thanks for talking with us and catching us up on local sports!
Wertz: Absolutely!
Langston Wertz, Jr. is a long-time sportswriter for the Charlotte Observer.
