The class is headlined by Luke Kuechly, who was a line-backer at Boston College who led the FBS in tackles his last two years there. In short, he is a tackling machine.

The Panthers have also signed Guard Amini Silatolu(second round), defensive end Frank Alexander(fourth round), cornerback Josh Norman(fifth round), punter Brad Norman(sixth round), and safety D.J. Campbell(seventh round).

The Panthers did not have a 3rd round Draft pick, because they traded it for Greg Olsen to the Chicago Bears.

“We are thrilled to have our entire draft class under contract,” Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said. “We look forward to watching these young men come in and compete starting this weekend.”

I’m looking forward to seeing Amini Silatolu in particular on the field, because he is out a Division II college, but the coaching staff have sung nothing but praises about the film that they saw on Silatolu. This off-season is very different from the compressed off-season last year where they were coming out of the lock-out.

This extended preparation time along with many of the players who were injured last year returning has the coaching staff thinking big things for this Carolina Panthers team.

Cam Newton, meanwhile, has said that his improvement from last year is off the charts, and where that puts him statistically next year remains to be seen. But the prospects are quite tantallizing.

“My dad’s one of the best DBs I’ve gone against,” Green said. “He’s very intense.”

When asked what his father was up to lately, Jared responded, “right now he’s launching something called WalkFitHealth Nation to help the fight against obesity and people out of shape. But besides that, his main thing is me,” Green said. “He’s always checking me out. Every time I get an opportunity to get on the phone, I’m talking to him.”

Jared ran a 4.33 40-yard dash at the scouting combine, and hopes that his speed and his know-how on the field will help him make the Carolina Panthers roster. Jared is one of 12 undrafted free-agents taking part in mini-camp.

Darrell has also been helping his son out with the mental and physical aspects of the game as well.

“It could be in the yard, or it could be in the kitchen with little stuff. There’s always a teaching point if we’re talking or walking,” Green said. “His biggest thing is showing me what it’s going to look like. He doesn’t want me in any way, shape or form to be surprised out there.

“The training that we’ve done leading up to this point, that’s been huge. That’s the physical aspect.”

Jared fell in love with the Panthers before the draft, and thinks it would be an ideal landing spot for him.

“I basically fell in love with them way before, when I had worked out for them and had different conversations with them over the past few months,” Green said. “So when other teams called, my heart was already leaning toward Charlotte.

“The environment around here is something I’ve never seen in my life. It’s very friendly. Everybody is goal-oriented, and the leadership is amazing – and I haven’t even met the vets yet. The leadership from the coaches and the way they’ve developed relationships with us in basically one day is amazing to me.”

As a life-long Washington Redskins fan, I watched Darrell Green with admiration for most of his career, and I hope that his son can fare as well with the Carolina Panthers. It will be a tough act to follow, but let’s hope that he has the skills and work ethic to make the team first.

“He’s exactly what we thought he is. He’s an athletic, big guy that runs well, a very smart football player, very sharp. He handled things very well for us, and I’m pretty excited about what we got from him today. He’s going to learn and grow within our defense, and we feel very confident about his abilities,” Ron Rivera said.

“He looked good. We put a little bit of pressure on him, stressed him a little bit having to learn both positions (weakside and middle linebacker). But we think he’s that kind of football player, that kind of athlete – a very sharp, heady guy but very athletic and physical. So we’re pretty excited about what he can do.”

Kuechly led college football in tackles the last two seasons, and will help out a defense that was woefully outperformed by the Panthers offense last year.

When asked what position Kuechly will be starting the year at, Rivera responded, “We’ll start him on the outside and then we’ll rotate him inside. But he’ll start on the outside, and Jon (Beason) will be in the inside. I’ve talked with Jon about him playing inside and outside as well. It’s going to be an interesting experiment as we go through this, because we want to make sure we put the best unit on the football field and the best combination of players.”

It will be a different ball-game when the rookies join the veterans, and that will be when Kuechly has to prove himself the most, against veteran, stronger, smarter competition.

Newton, on the other hand, just had the best rookie season of any quarterback in NFL history. He amassed more passing yards than any rookie signal-caller, and had more rushing touchdowns in a season than any quarterback ever. It was an impressive rookie season, and one that will be difficult for Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III to follow

Newton will join the rookies, who just had their rookie mini-camp, at OTAs next week, and it should be a start to an exciting year. Opposing coaches have not been shy about praising Newton’s ability this off-season; Lovie Smith said that “we don’t play many teams who get off the bus and their quarterback looks like Julius Peppers”. Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll called Newton “an extraordinarily rare athlete”. Here’s hoping Newton has an excellent birthday, and we all look forward to seeing what he can do on the field this year.

When asked what he was going to do to prepare for the next season, Newton replied, “One of the things I wanted to focus on this offseason and what Gatorade is going to be a big contributor of is putting the right things in my body. I’m trying to lose a couple pounds because a lot of times this year I felt kind of sluggish because I put on so much weight from the time that I was at Auburn to my time at Carolina. So I’m trying to get back down to that weight I feel very comfortable at and do damage at.”

Gatorade has worked with NFL teams since 1969; they have also been an official partner with the NFL since 1983. Gatorade also entered a new partnership program that will ensure Gatorade remains on the sidelines for every NFL game through 2022.

“Gatorade is focused on elevating the importance of proper athletic fueling, so it’s important for us to partner with athletes who believe sports nutrition improves performance,” said Sarah Robb O’Hagan, president of North America and global CMO, Gatorade. “Gatorade has been an essential piece of Cam’s football equipment since an early age which makes this partnership a natural fit.”

According to O’Hagan, “Cam has proven himself as a naturally gifted athlete with a promising NFL career. We look forward to helping him achieve his football goals by providing him with customized testing and research and a fueling plan to help him elevate his game.”

It will be exciting to see how high the Carolina Panther team can reach this year, and if Cam Newton’s off-season nutrition regimen can add to his performance on the year, then we could be in for another record-setting year by Cam Newton.

“He’ll drive a guy into a pile and just keep driving, and all of a sudden that pile will start to go forward. That’s a nasty finisher,” Panthers head coach Ron Rivera said of Silatolu. “He dominated the guy he lined up against. That makes you think it’s going to be a fairly easy transition to our level – not easy, but fairly easy.”

Silatolu could even make noise in the starting rotation at right

Silatolu played left tackle at Midwestern State, but could potentially be the Panthers’ starting left guard this season.

The Panthers even considering trading down their second round pick, but liked Silatolu enough they didn’t want to risk him being off the board.

“We weren’t going to move back if he was there. I think we could have had some opportunities (to trade down), but we just felt strong enough about him to stay and make that pick,” Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said.

“When you’re trying to evaluate a player that’s playing on the Division II level, you look for him to dominate his competition. That’s exactly what he does. When you put on tape of the guy, you see it.”

The Panthers appeared to have really hit it out of the park with their first two picks in the draft, and they drafted players that not only fit positional needs, but were also very high on the talent and effort level. Luke Kuechly is a guy who led college football in tackles the last two years, and Silatolu is a guy with a similar motor and work ethic to Kuechly.

“Every game and every practice I’ve ever competed in, I’ve always played my heart out, played full speed,” Silatolu said. “That’s my fun – I like to have fun that way.”

Ron Rivera continues to rebuild the winning culture in Carolina, and it should be an exciting year watching how these rookies are able to contribute to a possible run to the Playoffs this year.

Spaziani says Luke Kuechly “looks like Clark Kent and plays like Superman.”

The Carolina Panthers already have Superman-Cam, who is coming off one of the best rookie year performances in NFL history, but the Panthers shrewdly took the best player available as opposed to moving down in the draft and getting a lower quality player. Either the Panthers did not get a trade-down offer that they liked, or they simply fell in love with Kuechly. Or it could be a little of both.

Ron Rivera called picking Keuchly a “no-brainer” when he was still on the draft board at number 9.

The Panthers injury-devastated defense gave up 26.8 points per game last season and ranked 28th overall in the NFL. Kuechly, led college football in tackles the last two seasons, and will attempt to be part of rebuilding the Panthers defense to match its offensive production last year.

Keuchly averaged almost 16 tackles a game his senior year, and 14 a game for his entire collegiate career. Pretty impressive from a guy who looks more like an office-geek in his horn-rimmed glasses.

“I think football is a team game, and I think personal records are only that,” Kuechly said Friday afternoon. “And don’t think anyone goes into a game with the mind-set of ‘I want to set a record.’ You want to set a record, set how about team?”

When asked about the possibility of Jon Beason moving to outside linebacker to ease his transition Keuchly gave the correctly diplomatic answer.

“You have to come in, you have to be humble because you’re starting new, starting over again and you can’t come in with an overly big head because you haven’t done anything yet,” he said. “You might have done alright in college, but moving forward it’s a different game at a different level.”

I love this combination of high character, high production pick-up by the Panthers and it speaks to the new culture Ron Rivera has been instilling over the last few years. I think if the Panthers can continue to draft well, then they can start to compete for the NFC South title on a yearly basic. Perhaps as soon as this year?

Whittled down from a field of 64 players, with 20 million fans voting, Calvin “Megatron” Johnson will be on the cover of this year’s Madden ’13 game.

“I’m shocked,” Johnson said when the cover was revealed.

“I thought you guys loved me,” Newton pleaded to the crowd, shortly after congratulating Megatron for the victory. Detroit Lions fans will now hold their breath every time Megatron takes a hard hit this year, and here is hoping that no injury or statistical downfall happens to either Johnson or Newton. The Twin Cats as they were called by SportsNation announcers who made the announcement live from Times Square, eventually unveiled the cover showing Megatron making a catch and interviewed both athletes after the reveal.

Cam Newton last week made a youTube video challenging Megatron to battle in Madden and live webcast the game, and then delighted fans everywhere by issuing a challenge to his fans and showing his PS2 and XBoX gamer handle to the screen as well.

Newton and Johnson both had ProBowl years last year(amid recent news that there might not be a ProBowl next year), and they are both on teams that are looking to improve on decent showings last year by building on the draft this year. It should be an exciting year for both players, and an exciting year for all the gamers who get to see “Megatron” on the cover.

Cam Newton is then seen eating Gatorade energy chews, and leading his team onto the field to the cheers of fans.

Newton has done well for himself with advertising campaigns this off-season. His Under Armour ad-campaign had a thrilling drumming baseline underneath it, and he is the first athlete Under Armour has ever done an exclusive ad-campaign on.

Cam Newton is only the third NFL player(joining Peyton and Eli Manning) sponsored by Gatorade. He had these comments after becoming only the 3rd NFL player to join the Gatorade team.

“Working with Gatorade fulfills a childhood dream of mine, I have used Gatorade since I started playing football and Gatorade products have been an important part of my training and competition regimen for as long as I can remember. As I look to improve my game, what I put in my body is extremely important. Gatorade provides me the opportunity to work with the world’s leading scientists who can help me gain a competitive edge and play at my best.”

Newton has also apparently made nutrition an area of focus this off-season, and it will be interesting to see if it has an effect on the field. Newton said, “nutrition is something that I’ve been trying to focus on this off-season. Having better nutrition than I have had in years before. With the way I’m looking right now, I have been making progress.”

I always enjoy Gatorade spots, from the one where the athletes sweat is the same color as Gatorade, to their old spot which featured old Michael Jordan playing younger Michael Jordan in a pick-up basketball game. (“You reach, I teach”)

Newton probably helped his advertising worth last year when he threw for more yards than any rookie quarterback ever and more rushing touchdowns than any quarterback in NFL history. It will definitely be intriguing to see the types of commercials that feature him in the future, and hopefully they will all show him in as good a light as the Gatorade and Under Armor spots have.

“We’ve known who we’re going to play since the end of the season, but when the schedule comes out, the first thing everybody looks for is to see if you have national games,” Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said Tuesday on Panthers Pulse. “It means a lot. I think that’s why Mr. (Jerry) Richardson brought the organization to the Carolinas – because he wanted to generate the excitement that those games generate.”

A few things pop out here, their Monday Night Football game versus the Philadelphia Eagles is the Panthers first MNF game since 2009. Their first non-divisional opponent is the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, and all of their NFC East opponents will be tough outs.

CBSsports.com rated the Carolina Panthers schedule strength a 7 out of 10, and I cannot help but agree. They have quite a few tough games against NFC opponents, but then AFC games against the Chiefs, Raiders, and Seahawks should be a bit easier.

“We had a strong finish last year and hope to maintain that momentum for the 2012 season,” said Ron Rivera, whose Panthers won 4 out of their last 6 games. “We play in one of the best divisions in the NFL and play all three division teams plus the New York Giants in the first four games. It’s going to be a challenge, but one that excites us.”

It will be interesting to see how Cam Newton follows up his phenomenal rookie year campaign; it was reported last week that after Newton reviewed last year’s tape that he deems his improvement from last year is “through the roof”. Carolina Panther’s fans will be wanting to raise the roof if that is true, and this football fan cannot wait for next year to start.