News » Coach Ron Rivera received a text

CHARLOTTE Julius Peppers Jersey , N.C. (AP) Coach Ron Rivera received a text from Cam Newton immediately after the Carolina Panthers selected Maryland wide receiver D.J. Moore in the first round of the NFL draft that read: ”Thank you!”The Panthers gave Newton more help on offense Thursday night by selecting Moore 24th overall in hopes of upgrading a passing game that finished 28th in the league last season.Moore was the first wide receiver taken in the draft.Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said Moore’s best quality is his ability to make plays after the catch.”When he has the ball in his hands he turns into a running back,” Hurney said. ”He breaks tackles and makes big plays. And still he has the speed to stretch the defense and go deep. He runs good routes and has a lot of strengths.”Newton apparently took notice.”Cam stays up on all of this stuff and he came right to us with all of the offensive guys,” Rivera said. ”He pays attention to it.”Newton isn’t the only one high on Moore.Steve Smith Sr., the Panthers all-time leader in most receiving categories, said he likes the toughness with which Moore approaches the game and thinks he can be a big time player.”To be truthful, they have never been able to replace me” said Smith, now an analyst for the NFL Network.Smith thinks Moore might finally be the receiver that can.”You get that guy and you’ve got instant grits all day long,” Smith said.”For Steve to say that is high praise,” Rivera said. ”I’m pretty fired up. I believe D.J. is a guy who can come in and play all three of our wide receiver positions.”Moore is the latest skill position player selected early by the Panthers in the hopes of giving Newton more to work with on offense. Last year Carolina selected running back Christian McCaffrey in the first round and wide receiver Curtis Samuel in the second to take some of the pressure off Newton after he had a down season statistically in 2016.”It was nice to know that whatever I did in college did not go unnoticed,” Moore said.Moore joins what is becoming a crowded wide receivers room in Carolina.The Panthers traded with the Eagles for Torrey Smith and signed free agent Jarius Wright from the Vikings earlier this offseason. Devin Funchess returns as Carolina’s No. 1 receiver after a breakout season in 2017 and Samuel hopes to battle back following an injury-plagued rookie season.Moore said he had a good idea the Panthers were going to select him.”It was a sigh of a relief when I saw North Carolina (area code) come up on my phone,” Moore said. ”I was like, `OK, this my pick.’ They told me when I was on my draft visit they were going to (draft me), so they kept their promise.”Moore was the 2017 Big Ten Receiver of the Year and first-team all-conference selection. He had a school-record 80 receptions for 1,033 yards and eight touchdowns in 12 games last season for the Terrapins. He also led Maryland in receiving as a sophomore with 41 receptions for 637 yards and six touchdowns.Rivera said Moore could also contribute right away as a returner in addition to playing wide receiver.The 6-foot DJ Moore Color Rush Jersey , 210-pound Moore said he feels like he can be a week one starter at wide receiver ”if I put the work in.”Moore is the first draft pick chosen by Hurney’s since 2012. Hurney was fired by the Panthers that year after conducting 11 drafts as GM, but returned to the team on an interim basis last summer and was hired full time in February.Hurney said he didn’t think Moore would drop to No. 24.He said Moore reminds him a little of Smith.”He has that play strength and that ability to break tackles and make yards after the catch,” Hurney said. ”That is a pretty high bar to set (comparing him to Smith) but there are a lot of things we liked about him.The Panthers have made the playoffs in four of the past five seasons, but were knocked out in the first round last season by division foe New Orleans. The Saints swept all three games from Carolina, which made finding ways to match up better with them an offseason priority.Carolina’s offense stalled most of the season in 2017 and it was often the defense that had to bail them out.The move comes on the same day the Panthers gave three-time Pro Bowl tight end Greg Olsen a two-year contract extension.— PITTSBURGH (AP) — The silence coming from the back of the bus offered Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi all the proof he needed that his maddeningly inconsistent team remains fully engaged.For now, that’s all Narduzzi can ask for. Well, that and the hope the small mistakes that piled up into a messy loss at North Carolina last Saturday will soon be erased. Or at least minimized.“I’ve been on a lot of team buses through the years where … you come out of the locker room, you jump on the bus and you’re hearing some talk in the back of the bus, and you’re kind of like as a head coach or a defensive coordinator, you’re kind of like, ‘Shut up back there,'” Narduzzi said Monday. “But you know what? I was on the offensive bus, I’m talking the entire time, just silent (elsewhere). So it hurts. And I think when it hurts, that’s when you know your guys care.”Caring is one thing. Winning is another James Color Rush Bradberry Jersey , something that’s proven elusive all six times the Panthers have faced the Tar Heels since Pitt entered the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2013. This one may have been the most painful. The Panthers led at halftime against a team that had won just one of its previous 13 games against Power Five conference opponents.And then it all went away. A penalty here. A fumble there. A 38-35 loss that dropped Pitt to 2-2 heading into its most difficult stretch of the season. Three of the Panthers’ next four games are against Top 25 teams. Pitt visits No. 13 Central Florida on Saturday, then hosts surprising Syracuse followed by a visit to No. 8 Notre Dame and a meeting with No. 22 Duke.The Panthers likely need a split to have a legitimate shot at reaching a bowl game after missing out in 2017. Not that Narduzzi wants to talk about it. It’s still September.“Things happen during a game,” Narduzzi said. “It is moving fast out there, and you’ve got to think fast, you’ve got to be locked in. And again, I think our kids are locked in, but you’re going to have mistakes. I’ve never been in a game where you’re not going to have mistakes. But again, one less mistake and we win the football game.”The Golden Knights and the Orange play at a high tempo, turning every game into a bit of a track meet. That’s not exactly great news for the Panthers, who allowed North Carolina’s sputtering offense to roll up 486 yards.The shaky performance came a week after Pitt kept Georgia Tech in check during a 24-19 victory. The Panthers tackled well and never really let the Yellow Jackets back in the game after going up 21-0 at the break. Facing a starkly different test by the Tar Heels, Pitt regressed on a side of the ball that was supposed to be a strength with nine starters returning and Narduzzi — a standout defensive coordinator at Michigan State before joining the Panthers — in his fourth season.Four weeks in, the Panthers rank in the bottom half of the ACC in total defense, scoring defense, pass efficiency defense and sacks.The offense has problems of its own. While senior running backs Qadree Ollison and Darrin Hall have been dynamic at times, the Panthers have developed little rhythm in the passing game. Sophomore quarterback Kenny Pickett is enduring some growing pains in his first year as the starter Ian Thomas Jersey , but an inability for his receivers to get separation is also a problem. The Panthers are 118th in the country in yards per completion.“The room sometimes goes lopsided, and the offense plays good enough and the defense doesn’t,” Narduzzi said. “And then all of a sudden the offense doesn’t play good enough, the defense plays their tails off.”It’s part of a frustrating pattern that has repeated itself at Pitt for years. The ACC Coastal Division appears to be wide open. The Panthers believe they should be part of the mix — Narduzzi all but guaranteed a spot in the ACC title game during a kickoff luncheon in August — but to do so, they need to stop the one-step-forward, one-step-backward treadmill.“Coaches want perfection,” Narduzzi said. “You’re never going to get it, but, you know, you need to be excited after wins and after losses you should be having some disappointment. If not, there’s something wrong with your heart.”