What to Do without Brad Hoover?

The Carolina Panthers watched in disbelief last week as one of their toughest players was carted off the field with what’s likely to be a high-ankle sprain. The player was fullback Brad Hoover, and the Panthers now have their work cut out for them in scrambling to replace him for this weekend’s big game against the undefeated New Orleans Saints. Hoover, expected to be out at least another week, would normally be followed by rookie Tony Fiammetta on the second string, but with Fiammetta out with a concussion, the Panthers will have to come up with another plan on where to pluck a replacement from.

Most likely, John Fox’s Panthers will opt to move a tight end (with Dante Rosario out, the Panthers’ available tight ends are Jeff King, Gary Barnidge and practice squader Jason Pociask) into the fullback spot for Sunday’s game, and backup running backs could be used here, as well. While this poses a problem of a certain degree to the already struggling Panthers, Fox played down the situation to the press yesterday, saying, “We’ve got guys and we’ve got plans. These guys (the Saints) played the Atlanta game with a fullback that had been in their offense for about three days, so you make do… I thought we got through today pretty well. I think we have some plans in place.” We’ll see what these plans are on Sunday as the Panthers travel to New Orleans to try to hand the Saints their first loss of the season.

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