Pregame Panthers-Ravens weather update

Baltimore seems to be trying to showcase all the summertime weather a city can have in a two-hour span.

When I walked into the stadium just before 6 p.m., there was some sideways lightning, hard rain and -- in some parts of Baltimore -- a tornado warning.

But the rain stopped, the warnings were lifted and now it's sunny with an hour left before kickoff. The only reminder of all the rain Baltimore has had today (it also poured this morning) are the very wet seats. Every fan who has a jacket is sitting on top of it.

The game officially kicks off at 8:05 p.m. The Panthers will be without some of their stars like Steve Smith, Jeff Otah and Jonathan Stewart, but it still will be the closest thing we've seen to the real thing for the Panthers in the past eight months. QB Matt Moore will start but I'll be surprised if he and RB DeAngelo Williams play more than two offensive series.

The Panthers are wearing all white tonight, while the Ravens are in purple jerseys.

Shaky weather in Baltimore

It's two hours before Panthers-Ravens kickoff at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium, and the artificial-turf field is very wet. It has been raining fairly hard for the past 30 minutes or so but now has lightened up a little.

Still, it won't be an easy night to watch this one in person. The seats are all very wet, and although this band of rain is expected to be gone by 6:30 p.m., there's a 30-50 percent chance of rain during the game (which is expected to run from 8-11 p.m.)

Panther linebacker Jon Beason is one of about a half-dozen Panther players on the field right now, jogging back and forth across the field with headphones on.

6 interesting Panthers-Ravens game notes

I’ve watched a couple of Carolina practices in Spartanburg this week and am going to Baltimore for Thursday night’s Panthers-Ravens nationally-televised preseason game (8 p.m. kickoff). Here are a few things I find interesting on the eve of an exhibition that should be more interesting than usual:

1) Baltimore has 17 former Pro Bowlers on its current roster, which is a pretty staggering number. The Ravens acquired several of them in the offseason, including WR Anquan Boldin, backup QB Marc Bulger and K Shayne Graham. Carolina, by comparison, has a modest six former Pro Bowlers on its current roster. Can you name them all? (Answer is below).

2) John Fox and Baltimore coach John Harbaugh once coached on the same staff as Panthers – the 1987 Pittsburgh Panthers, to be exact. Fox was defensive coordinator; Harbaugh coached tight ends. “I know his whole family really well,” Fox said of Harbaugh.

3) Expect a lot of pounding of the ball Thursday night. Carolina was third in the NFL in rushing last season; Baltimore has Ray Rice, who had 1,339 rushing yards last season and made the Pro Bowl. Fox said the Panthers hope to play all four of their quarterbacks. The Panther starters will play in the first quarter but not much beyond, if any.

4) The Ravens have beaten every team in the NFL except Carolina and New England when it counts – the Panthers are 3-0 against Baltimore in the regular season. The two teams play again Nov. 21st in Charlotte. Baltimore is 3-1 against Carolina in preseason play, however.

5) Panther WR Armanti Edwards and Baltimore starting QB Joe Flacco will be on opposite sidelines Thursday night and were once before in 2007. In that one, Edwards quarterbacked Appalachian State to a 49-21 win over Flacco’s Fighting Blue Hens in the Division I-AA championship.

6) Answer to the Pro Bowl question: the six Pro Bowlers on Carolina’s current roster are Jordan Gross, John Kasay, Steve Smith, Ryan Kalil, Jon Beason and DeAngelo Williams.

"That's not relevant"?! Oh really?

Carolina Panthers guard Duke Robinson talked to the media for the first time today since the beginning of training camp July 29. Normally this would not be a big deal -- an offensive guard who may or may not start talking to the media -- but it passes for one today because Robinson has been singled out by the Panthers for being overweight.

The team didn't let him practice full-go for the first several days of practice. He's in there now, though, and looks pretty good (and pretty big). Robinson is listed at 6-foot-5 and 330 pounds, although he obviously weighs more than that. He doesn't look as big as Kris Jenkins or Maake Kemoeatu, but he's not that terribly far off, I don't believe.

In Robinson's press conference with about 6-8 reporters, I asked him how much he weighed right now, which led to this exchange:

“That’s not relevant,” Robinson said.
“It’s not?” I asked. “It seems relevant.”
“I mean, it is,” said Robinson, smiling with a “You’re-not-getting-that-number-out-of-me” look. “Right now, though, I’m just working. I’m in the process of getting to the goal where I want to get.”

My column for Saturday's newspaper (and online) gets more into Robinson's weight situation and what his upside could be for Carolina if he can control it. In the meantime, I'm going to try out the "That's not relevant" answer in my own life whenever I'm asked a difficult question.

Boss: When are you going to get that overdue story into us?
Me: That's not relevant.

Gruden doing TV right way

I wrote my column today about what Jon Gruden -- the former Tampa Bay coach and current TV analyst -- thinks about the Carolina Panthers. Here's the link to that.

What was cool about talking to Gruden was that he actually knew something about Carolina. As strange as this seems, a lot of TV analysts really don't. I've talked to them a number of times before games -- or listened to them during games -- and they mostly parrot whatever has been in the newspapers or online blogs that week. They might throw in a nugget or two from the interviews that they do with the players and coaches on both teams on either Friday or Saturday before the game, but that's about it. You know what I'm talking about.

Gruden is different. A workaholic who used to famously get up at 3:17 a.m. each day while a coach, he still studies the teams he's going to analyze like the coach he was (and will someday undoubtedly be again).

I gave him no advance warning I would ask him about the Panthers -- the phone interview was originally set up for him to talk to me about Jimmy Clausen for my long story on Clausen this past week.

But once we got through that and he still seemed to be enjoying talking football, I asked him off-the-cuff about the Panthers, and he quickly ran through much of their lineup and what he thought about them. It was enlightening, and made me think more of his preparation skills. Gruden will be part of the broadcast team that does Carolina's exhibition game at Baltimore Aug.12th.

My Monday Panther thoughts

I'm here in Spartanburg on a relatively cool, misty day -- a break for all those watching and participating in the Panthers' practices.

A few random notes:

-- My column in today's newspaper was on second-year defensive end Everette Brown, who sounds committed to being better than he was as a rookie in 2009.

-- My column Tuesday will be based on a conversation I had with Jon Gruden, the former Tampa Bay coach and current ESPN analyst. Gruden was a longtime rival of the Panthers and still studies the team closely in his current job (he will be in the booth for the Panthers' exhibition opener at Baltimore Aug.12). He had some interesting things to say about them.

-- Armanti Edwards was very open Monday about how much he feels like he's been struggling as he changes positions to wide receiver. According to Edwards, playing quarterback in college has barely helped him at all. Plus, he has to run more. "I thought I was in shape until the first practice," he said. Plus, he has so many plays to learn. This is one experiment that's going to take awhile before we see whether it pans out.

-- Kenny Moore impressed me Monday with a couple of nice catches in traffic.

Notre Dame QBs: hit and miss

I wrote a long, in-depth profile of Jimmy Clausen in today's Charlotte Observer. But one thing I found interesting in my research but did not get into fully was how difficult it has been for Notre Dame quarterbacks to succeed in the NFL over the past 20 years.

The last Notre Dame quarterback to make the Pro Bowl in the NFL was... wait for it... Steve Beuerlein, when he had that one fantastic, 36-TD year in coach George Seifert's offense with Carolina in 1999.

But think about all the disappointments before and after Beuerlein. Rick Mirer was the overall No.2 pick in the draft. He flopped. Ron Powlus wasn't regarded that highly, but many thought he'd be a good NFL QB. He flopped. In fact, he was Clausen's position coach at Notre Dame, until Charlie Weis and the whole staff got fired. Powlus is now the quarterback coach for the Akron Zips.

Brady Quinn? I guess the jury is still out, but he sure didn't light it up in Cleveland once given the opportunity and got traded to Denver to help pave the way for Jake Delhomme to start in Cleveland this season.

Before Beuerlein, of course, there were some gems coming out of the Golden Dome. Joe Montana was the most notable -- he was arguably the best NFL QB of all time -- and Joe Theismann was also a Super Bowl winner.

A couple of other notes: It's interesting to me the heavy pro- and anti-Clausen sentiment out there. Simply writing about him brings out the Clausen haters in force (check the comments below the story). I'm neither a hater or lover of Clausen -- I just felt we owed our readers a thorough look at the first quarterback the Panthers have used a top-3 draft choice on since Kerry Collins in 1995.

As for the occasional commenters who have complained we don't write enough about Matt Moore, I will point this out again -- Moore was the main story (with a big picture) the first day of camp, and we have thoroughly covered his rise to the No.1 spot (which I believe he will hold all year unless injured) with long stories like this one.

And, if you've forgotten, I will lastly point out that I was one of the first people to call for Delhomme's benching in 2009, when the Panthers started 0-3 and I wrote a much-discussed column about why Carolina should turn to Moore. (It took John Fox eight more games to do so, however, and even then only because of Jake's finger injury). So this Clausen story isn't about trying to stir up an anti-Moore force. Moore is the best QB the Panthers have right now.