Time for the Panthers to part ways with Peppers

The Carolina Panthers simply have to trade Julius Peppers. At the very least, they've got to make every effort.

A failure to get something -- a second-round draft pick, a second-string quarterback, a 1958 Topps Jimmy Brown card -- would equate to a self-imposed household tax on his $16 million-plus salary this season.

In the context that all professional sports teams gamble big and lose big on bad contracts, keeping Peppers for 2009 after signing him to a one-year, $16 million contract is understandable to a degree. Even the smartest, slickest franchises sometimes throw away money on personnel.

But taking into account the team's 1-3 record and imposing November-December schedule, a failure to trade Peppers would be like under-cooking one chicken leg because you over-cooked the other. One misstep can be rationalized. The other can't.

That the Panthers made a bonehead move concerning Peppers is no longer pertinent. It's not even a matter of determining if he's the big problem on the field or in the locker room. Unless Peppers has undergone something close to a 180-degree personality shift since his days as a football and basketball star at UNC, he is not a bad guy. He doesn't much like sports writers, but that doesn't make him a bad person. The same can be said about many athletes.

Nor is it totally clear that Peppers dislikes Charlotte, per se. He doesn't want to play for the Panthers, but that could be the result of any number of things. Maybe he's just tired of wearing blue uniforms. Maybe he had a run-in with a banker. Maybe he likes open-cockpit racing more than stock cars. Maybe the Bobcats' decision to draft a Duke guy got on his nerves.

What is clear that Peppers is finished as Panther and is not up -- mentally, physically or both -- to providing the team with a decent performance return on a multi-million investment.

The truth is that where it really matters, Peppers is already gone. So what if he had a good game against the Washington Redskins last week and will probably do OK against Tampa Bay? There'll always be false echoes in sports. He was gone in July. He may have been gone the second that playoff game against Arizona ended last season. He'll certainly sign with another team by next August.

The guess here is Peppers wants a championship ring more than tons of more money at this point in his life and is convinced the Panthers aren't championship material. Somewhere out there is an NFL contender in need of a defensive end with enough remaining star potential to justify parting with something of value in exchange.

Something beats nothing, and nothing is all the Panthers will get if they ride it out with Peppers.

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