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It seems almost impossible to think about now, but there was a time when Cam Newton wasn't considered a lock to go No. 1 overall in the 2011 NFL Draft.

Five years ago, the Panthers had the No. 1 pick, and no one really seemed to know who they were going to take.

Some people thought that first-year coach Ron Rivera, who's specialty is defense, might take a defensive player. The Panthers had just spent a second-round pick on a quarterback in 2010 (Jimmy Clausen), so picking a quarterback wasn't an absolute necessity.

ESPN's Todd McShay thought Rivera would go with Marcell Dareus at No. 1.

"Ultimately, I think Dareus is one of the four, elite, elite players in this draft and having the need that they have at the defensive tackle position, right now to me, he makes the most sense," McShay said in April 2011.

Eventually, it became clear that the Panthers would take a quarterback, but still, no one seemed to know who they were going to take. Many experts at the time, including NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock, thought the Panthers would take Blaine Gabbert over Newton.

"Bottom line, [Gabbert's] the first quarterback off the board, and it wouldn't surprise me if Carolina takes him at No. 1," Mayock said in 2011.

Everyone became enthralled with the former University of Missouri quarterback after he completed 44 of 49 passes at his Pro Day in 2011.

So how close did the Panthers come to taking Gabbert?

According to Rivera, Gabbert and Newton were the only two players that the Panthers really targeted.

"Remember, we had the No. 1 pick, and we were talking quarterback, and it came down to Cam Newton and Blaine Gabbert," Rivera told the San Jose Mercury News while attending a golf tournament on Monday. "Those were the two guys we targeted and looked at, and looked at really, really hard."

Rivera said that there were a lot things that the Panthers liked about Gabbert.

"We really studied Blaine," Rivera said. "He's likeable. He's high energy. Big effort. Not satisfied. When we worked him out, if he didn't do something right, he'd say, 'Let me do this. I'm going to show you I can do this.' And he'd go back and do it again. That was one of the things that impressed me about him."

Although the Panthers would eventually pick Newton, Rivera said they gave some serious thought to picking Gabbert.

"We spent a lot of time on him, we really did," Rivera said.

If the Panthers had passed on Newton, that likely would've turned the 2011 draft into a circus. With Newton available, the Bills (No. 3) or Bengals (No. 4) likely would've jumped at the chance to take him. If the Bengals had jumped, that means A.J. Green would be playing for a different team right now.

Bills general manager Doug Whaley, who was the team's assistant GM at the time, says the Bills likely wouldn't have passed on Newton.

In the end, Newton went No. 1 overall, and Gabbert ended up going 10th overall to the Jaguars. Gabbert wasn't even the second quarterback taken in 2011, that honor belongs to Jake Locker, who went eighth overall to the Titans.

In the five years since the draft, Gabbert's been traded, Locker's retired and Newton's been to a Super Bowl, so it's probably safe to say the Panthers made the right pick.

By the way, every time Newton does something spectacular, our Pete Prisco hears about it on Twitter, thanks to this tweet he sent out in 2011.

As Rivera explained though, Prisco's tweet wasn't that crazy because there weren't many people who thought for sure that Newton was the best quarterback in the draft.

Anyway, the Colts' decision to take Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf with the No. 1 pick in the 1998 NFL Draft is one of the biggest "What ifs" in league history. Now that you know how the Panthers were thinking, you can also add Newton over Gabbert to that list.

We can also probably add the 49ers taking Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers with the No. 1 pick in 2005, something that Rodgers discussed during a July 13 appearance on HBO's Any Given Wednesday.