Here at Cat Scratch Reader we have counted down the final 100 days leading up to the Carolina Panthers season opener by for at least the past ten years. We’ve always done this by highlighting the current player on the roster whose jersey number matches the day on the countdown. This year, we decided to change that up a bit by counting down our own list of the Top 100 Panthers of all time. This does not correspond to jersey number, does not need to be somebody who wore a jersey, and will in no way be controversial.
#60. Tim Biakabatuka
There are few names that are more fun to throw out from days of Panthers past than Tshimanga Biakabutuka. He was one of the earliest draft picks of the Panthers, and I imagine he was a pretty popular jersey back in the day. I know I had one as a kid.
Biakabutuka got a late start in football, not playing until his junior year of high school. Still, he established himself as an elite talent very quickly and earned himself a scholarship to Michigan. He didn’t get an opportunity as a full time starter until his junior season, but he made the most of it. He rushed for 1,818 yards and 12 touchdowns. That included a 313 yard performance against Ohio State in what would be his last regular season game.
That body of work (or maybe that one game) led the Carolina Panthers to make Biakabutuka the eighth overall selection in the 1996 NFL Draft. Unfortunately, Biakbutuka would struggled to live up to that billing. He played in just 12 total games over his first two seasons. He tore his ACL just four games into his rookie season and battled a rib injury throughout his second. His third was plagued by lingering issues in the knee that ended his first.
Finally, in his fourth season in Carolina, Biakabutuka found some extended playing time without getting bit by the injury bug. Weeks 3 and 4 of the 1999 season were one of the better two game stretches a running back has ever had on a per touch basis. He carried the ball 20 times in those two games for 274 yards and five touchdowns. In the first game, against Cincinnati, he ran for two 60+ yard touchdowns in a dominant Panthers win. In the second, against Washington, he scored two 45+ yard touchdowns and three total touchdowns in the first nine minutes of the game. Despite the hot start, Biakabutuka would carry the ball just seven times the rest of the games as the Panthers squandered their dominant start and lost to Washington.
Biakabutuka would go on to play a couple more years in short bursts as he continued to battle a variety of ailments. His career would come to an end in 2001 against Washington, when his foot was twisted up in a pile, requiring emergency surgery just to save his foot. At the time of the injury, he had rushed for 121 yards and a touchdown.
Biakabutuka’s career will always be a giant what-if. The two games in 1999 showcased the explosiveness the Panthers thought they were getting when they drafted him in the first round. But injuries never let Biakabutuka establish any rhythm and confidence, so we’ll never really know what he was truly capable of. Still, he managed to tally 2,530 yards and 14 touchdowns during his time Carolina, both good for seventh in franchise history. For that, he lands at number 60 in the top 100 Panthers of all time.
