Tony

Pike

The Bengals haven’t been good at much in recent years, but helping out hometown stars has always been a strength. A former UC Bearcat, Pike’s tryout could be on a “favor” only basis, to try to get his name back on the NFL’s radar. Pike was not picked up after being waived by Carolina last August.

Gantt also noted that Hunter Cantwell, a practice squadder last year, showed the biggest arm. Late-round pick Tony Pike appeared “very raw.” Matt Moore’s experience and salary still give him a decisive edge in the competition.

Gilyard could help immediately as a second-round returner and situational receiver. Pike, more likely to go in the third round, could be groomed as a long-term solution at quarterback.

He’s gained 11 pounds since weighing 212 at last month’s Senior Bowl. Pike will likely continue to add weight before the draft, and should probably be targeting at least 230 pounds. He was highly injury prone in college.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati’s Tony Pike struggled “quite a bit” on vertical throws after showing well on passes inside the numbers, as expected. Snead was “accurate on every level” and excelled on the deep ball. Snead was not accurate at Ole Miss, never topping 56.3% completions in a college season.

Pike led UC to an undefeated regular season last year, but played in Brian Kelly’s spread offense, is awfully brittle, and needs to put on quite a bit of weight. He was up to 6'6/223 at the Combine a couple of months back. Carolina isn’t a great landing spot for Pike, who will compete with Hunter Cantwell to be third string behind youngsters Matt Moore and Jimmy Clausen.

Clausen has shown zero signs of life as an NFL starting quarterback. He was even yanked from Sunday’s loss to the Saints in favor of unheralded project and new backup Tony Pike. In three starts this year, Clausen has thrown for just 395 total yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. His insertion into the starting lineup is terrible news for all the Panthers.

Pike, a sixth-round pick out of Cincinnati, completed 6-of-12 passes for 47 yards in his debut. Considering that he started the day as the emergency third quarterback, Pike performed decently. However, if Matt Moore (shoulder) can’t go next week, we’d expect Clausen to get another chance.

Perhaps the opponent weighed into the decision, with Fox opting not to throw a rookie to the dogs against the Ravens defense. Regardless, it speaks ill of Pike’s showing in practice Wednesday. St. Pierre has only been with Carolina for a week, so there’s no way he has the playbook down. Poor Steve Smith has had to salvage seasons with David Carr, Chris Weinke, Vinny Testaverde pulled off his couch, and now a 30-year-old practice squad QB. Bench all Panthers in Week 11.