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CHARLOTTE — For quarterback Matt Moore, the future is now. For the Carolina Panthers, the future is moot.

The quarterback who will start for the Panthers next year is probably not even on the roster now. So, in a sense, this week's game against the New England Patriots, and the three games that will remain after that, are Moore's live auditions for next season. And a lot of teams around the NFL will be watching to see what he can do.

The team most desperate for a starting quarterback will not be among them. That would be the Panthers.

The injury to Jake Delhomme, a broken finger that continues to keep him out of practices and out of games, finally forced the hand of John Fox, the coach who hitched his and the franchise's star to Delhomme through one of the worst stretches any veteran NFL quarterback has ever played though.

It's yet to be seen just how many futures were determined by that decision. We can safely assume Delhomme will not be the starting quarterback next season. We can even reason that Fox himself will not be back. But we can say with near certainty that if Matt Moore is Carolina's starting quarterback by training camp next summer, something has gone terribly wrong in Charlotte.

Fox hinted Wednesday that once Delhomme is able to return from the injured finger, he might be considered the starter again. For that to change, Moore would need to make something happen this Sunday on the road against the Patriots.

"You put out there who you think gives you the best chance to win," Fox said.

He famously said that last month about Delhomme, who has thrown 18 interceptions and has a passer rating of 59.4.

Moore, after leading Carolina to a win over lowly Tampa Bay, has an even lower rating. If he were to start the next four games for the Panthers, his opposite numbers at quarterback in those games would likely be Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Eli Manning and Drew Brees.

"I've got to focus on me," Moore said. "I can't get star-struck."

The Panthers have been star-crossed at quarterback since the fateful 2007 season, when they ended up starting Vinny Testaverde for a few games. Even now, Carolina finds itself looking back wondering what happened along the way that led to this.

Thus, the larger question is: Who will lead this team next season?

The general analysis of quarterbacks coming out of college this year is that there are some very good ones and there are a lot of them. And even without a first-round draft pick for next season, the Panthers are in a good position to get a quarterback they can build a future around.

There are whispers of Tim Tebow, who might be available in the second round. There's talk of tall, classic pocket passers such as Arkansas gunslinger Ryan Mallett or Central Michigan's Dan LeFevour.

The hot rumor around the NFL is that Jacksonville wants Tebow as a sort of savior-quarterback and is privately asking other teams to back off. Like that's going to happen. NFL teams don't think that way. And most consider him a second-round draft pick anyway. At best.

Carolina is in the enviable position of being pretty well set across the roster except at quarterback. Injuries depleted the defense, which exacerbated the franchise's meltdown this year, and it could yet cost Fox his job.

The talk around the team now is that Marty Hurney, the general manager, has become less expendable with the firing of owner Jerry Richardson's sons. How that will play into the decision to keep Fox or not could be determined by how much energy the team has down the stretch.

Richardson fired George Seifert in 2001, both for going 1-15 and because the owner believed the life had been "sucked from the franchise." That hasn't happened here yet. Sure, there are boos and some empty seats at the home games. And the drama surrounding Delhomme has been going on now for almost a year.

But the Panthers got a good look at what a 1-15 team looks like Sunday when the 1-11 Bucs rolled into and then stumbled out of town. Tampa Bay is a franchise in disarray. Ironically, Fox loves Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman, a player the Panthers took a long, hard look at before this year's draft.

Ultimately, the Panthers decided not to take a quarterback. They haven't taken one since they risked a fourth-round pick on Stefan LeFors of Louisville five drafts ago. That didn't work out too well. The quarterbacks Carolina drafted before that? Randy Fasani in 2002, Chris Weinke in 2001 and Kerry Collins and Jerry Colquitt in 1995.

So the future has to be better than the past for the Panthers and their quarterbacks, and it has to be better than the future if Fox is to keep his job. Look for Moore to start Sunday and then Delhomme in a week or so afterward and then count on the Panthers to declare open season on free agents. Ultimately, next year's starting quarterback is probably already on somebody's NFL roster.

Just not the Panthers' roster.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com