Let me begin by saying that while I am an AE and App State fan, my uncle held the sack record at App State back in the early 90s, that I am a bigger Carolina fan. However, in my humble opinion AE has a unique skill set that is being criminally under used by the Panthers. I think his skill set, and Cam's special abilities could combine for a devastating one-two. (also yes I did use paint, and I'm not that great with it, so please don't bust my chops too bad lol)
Here you can see four formations that I have in mind using AE and Cam on the field together. Formation one is your basic Zone Read formation we use, a variation I would like to see would be either AE simply running it-as a way to protect Cam-or some combo of Cam running it and AE being the pitch man. With both of them involved it would allow us to build off the success that we've had faking the dive and passing over the top. Only now we could do a pitch out, and then the pitch man could have a run-pass option on the outside. Imagine a WR/TE running a drag route to the same side of the field as the option, and AE tossing the football to him as he is wide open behind the safety and linebackers that are crashing down to stop the pitch man. Formation two is your basic shotgun formation with AE in the slot, I have a trick play drawn up for this formation I will show below this paragraph. Formation three is a double TE shotgun formation with AE and Cam lined up in the back field together. Neither Cam nor AE are directly behind center allowing for either one to take the snap. From this formation you can imagine any number of screens, options, passes, and run plays being called. Finally, formation four is basically our Mountaineer package that has AE in the backfield and Cam in the slot. From this formation you could run basic shotgun plays or you could run: a double-pass to Cam, end around to Cam, WR screen to Cam, etc. Now for that trick play I can't believe hasn't already been ran:
This is a particular play I have in mind from the above formation two. In picture one you see the basic shotgun formation with AE in the slot. In picture two you see Cam motioning the FB/TE from the backfield to a TE position. In picture three Cam motions AE from the slot to the backfield and hikes the ball. In picture four Cam hands the ball off to AE in stride and then drifts over to the left side of the field. The FB/TE, LG, and C all pull out in front of Cam setting up a screen pass. The TE on the right side runs a deep corner route while the WR runs a deep post route. This means AE has four options: run, throw deep to the TE or WR, or turn around and throw the screen pass to Cam. Granted this play has a lot of moving parts and could easily get blown up, but all trick plays are high risk high reward types of plays. In conclusion if AE remains with the Panthers in 2013 I would like to see Chud, or possibly our new OC, be more creative with AE's abilities.