Not that it would take all that much, but the Carolina Panthers might have the second-best coaching staff in town.
Which unit would be first? Yeah that would belong to, er, a middle school.
Charlotte Christian Middle School is apparently not your normal middle school. I also went to a religious middle school and we didn't even have a football team. These days, however, Charlotte Christian has access to some truly great players from the NFL level and a star-studded coaching staff that would make some colleges jealous.
Greg Olsen, 3x Pro Bowler
— Joe Person (@josephperson) October 31, 2024
Luke Kuechly, 7x All-Pro
Jonathan Stewart, Panthers' career rushing leader
Todd Blackledge, nat'l title-winning QB at PSU
Meet Charlotte Christian's middle school coaching staff:https://t.co/8ofPvSghZg
Yeah, that's a middle school with more than one potential Hall of Fame player coaching on the sidelines. Luke Kuechly was the single greatest tackler in a generation, the sort of old-school linebacker that's impossible to find in today's NFL filled with specialists and sub packages. Olsen, of course, is a top 10 tight end of all time.
It's interesting to see Todd Blackledge coaching alongside these talents as well. Most football fans would know Blackledge from his prolific broadcasting career at the college and professional levels. For Kansas City Chiefs fans, Blackledge's name carries a different weight—one that comes with some real baggage.
For newer Chiefs fans, you should know that Todd Alan Blackledge was the the last first-round quarterback taken by the team before Patrick Mahomes. And if that sounds like it was a long time ago because Blackledge isn't familiar to you as a player, you would be correct.
Blackledge was the second quarterback taken in the 1983 NFL Draft—a full 34 years before Mahomes—behind John Elway and before Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Ken O'Brien, and more. The seventh overall selection would last only four seasons in K.C. and would never wrest away the starting QB role from Bill Kenney in a very forgettable decade of Chiefs football.
From that moment forward, having invested in such a major bust, the Chiefs would choose the risk averse approach of bringing in one veteran option after another to hold down the starting quarterback role until Mahomes' name was written on a draft card in 2017.
While Blackledge didn't work out on the field, he's still plenty knowledgeable on the subject to be a great addition to a coaching staff. And it sounds like he's joined America's most star-studded middle school coaching staff of all.