NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 293. Fix Your Franchise: Carolina Panthers

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

0:00 - Intro 5:30 - How we got here 29:05 - Roster overview 34:00 - Free agency plan 48:10 - Free agency plan 1:10:45 - 3-round mock

Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. I'm Trevor Sikama, that is Connor Rogers, joining you for the final scheduled picture franchise that we have here. Maybe we'll throw you a Tim Wakefield knuckleball in there at some point over the holiday month and give you an extra one but as of right now this is our last one and i don't want to say connor that we saved the best for last but we truly saved this one because we needed to wait for it we needed to wait for this time because we didn't know what bryce young was going to look like we didn't know what dave canales was going to look like. We didn't know what Dave Canales was going to look like. And so much of that has to do with what we are going to do here,

building the offseason for the Carolina Panthers. How are you doing, my friend? I'm good, man. It's nice to put a bow on this series with a team that, if we did a fix-your-franchise for them when we started the series, it would look so much different. And it goes to show you how you can kind of change the fortunes of a season and how to build on a following season I think that's the fun and the

beauty of the Panthers right now is that Bryce has given them hope and optimism and that's probably helped the backing of Canales after a year and we're not going to act like it was perfect this year for the Panthers but things started to go right the second half of this year and i think it certainly significantly changes the outlook of what they will do in the pro market of free agency and how they can attack their draft to hopefully supplement the continued growth of this quarterback and to be fair to us we did do the fixing the franchise for the Panthers in like November of last year. Yes, that was the real reason. I want to be clear.

When we started, we were like, well, I can't do the Panthers because we started with them last year. I mean, we can do the third like a month and a half ago. You're totally right. We looked at this franchise and we're like, oh, no, I know. Are we about to try to tear this to the studs again? Right. And we don't have to, yeah, because Bryce looks a lot better now

and obviously we'll get into the Bryce Young conversation. You know, when we've done Fix Your Franchise, the reason why I love this series so much is because teams can look very different. Certainly the ones that we were doing early on in the series this year, it's heavy focus on general manager candidates, head coaching candidates candidates a lot of

changes within the front office and the coaching staff to sort of you know kick start what you want to be a winning window or at least getting on the right track for the Carolina Panthers Dan Morgan is their general manager and we'll sort of dig into that a little bit more they just hired Dave Canales after firing Frank Frank Reich after you know just a handful of games 11 games so it's not like they're going to move on from Dave Canales those firing Frank Reich after just a handful of games, 11 games. So it's not like they're going to move on from Dave Canales. Those guys are set. We're not moving on from those guys, but we get to devote some extra time to this roster. Talk about what building blocks we want to move around, what went well in 2024,

what we could see continuing to move well in the future. So this is more of a roster building fixture franchise, which is a nice little change of pace. And I think a good way to end this series here. Yeah. This is what you hope for, right. Rather than being like, Oh man,

you know, are they going to get the right coach in here? You start to play the game of, would this guy go there? Does this guy a fit? What's the pairing with the GM or can you move? Is there so many variables when you have to go that route? So once in a while, it's nice to look at an NFL team and say, OK, we feel like they have

the people at the in place of the top that deserve a real crack at this. Now they got to make the right decisions with the actual personnel and the product on the football field. And, you know, we're not going to sugarcoat this. The Panthers right now, they sit here at 3-11. But they have set this up where, you know, a couple of different moves in a division that is not the NFC North level of superpowers that they can get this. We really believe they can get this thing right.

Yep. So let's dig into it. We're getting right into it. Draft capital helps, something they did not have last year. Right, right. So they've got a little bit more draft capital. And as we as we often do, I probably didn't set the show up correctly. But as we often do, we will end this episode with a free agency plan and a and a Carolina centric mock draft that we will do to sort of build an ideal team that we think could be very solid for them moving forward. But let's dig into this three and 11 season that they are currently on right now.

Obviously, no playoff expectations for this team. They are once again fourth in the NFC South. But the world looks a lot brighter than it did, I would say, to start the season. So, you know, last year, how do I put this nicely? It was a shit show for Carolina last year. Yeah. So they hire Frank Reich, and I liked the hire at the time, Connor. I really did.

And I know that we talked about some of this with the fixture franchise last year, so I'm not going to totally rehash it. But you do have to, you know, once again sort of talk about it to how Carolina got to this point. I liked the Frank Reich hire. I really did. You know, Matt Rule, he wasn't going to work out in the NFL very clearly. How he wanted to do things, how he wanted to build an NFL team.

It was not close enough to how he would have built a college program. And, you know, even at the time when Carolina hired him, it's like, all right, he was a program builder in multiple spots in college. Maybe he just understands the game and how it works and just didn't translate to the NFL level. So they go out and they get Frank Reich and Reich highly respected coach around the league uh and uh you know I thought that he was he did he did good things when he was the Indianapolis uh Coltec coach but his time had sort of run its course and funny enough much like Doug Peterson with Jacksonville I thought that Carolina just hit great timing, right? Where this guy was available. He's an offensive mind.

He's a quarterback's coach. And you're picking number one overall, and you got your pick. They end up selecting Bryce Young. And, well, to be frank, didn't go well. Wow, full pun intended, I guess. Nicely done there, buddy. Yeah, there you go. Wow, you know, I just.

When you land on one, sometimes you just really get it it's connor i really do uh so you know it was a real struggle you know there was all right frank reich ends up giving offensive coordinator duties he played calling duties to thomas brown at one point because it was going so bad and they took it back to kind of basically just fall on his own sword because he knew that things weren't going well were Were they 1-10 when he ends up getting fired 11 weeks into the season? 0-6 on the road, worst record in the NFL. It was bad, man. And Bryce Young looked bad. Bryce Young looked terrible last year.

He looked lost, which was more concerning than just being bad. And the offensive line was horrendous in 2023. It really was. It was the number one talking point of what they have to do and how they have to be better for Bryce Young going into the next season. So amongst the changes in the coaching staff, what they also had to do was really retool that roster. So they've got Taylor Moten, Iki Ikuonu. They had those guys as offensive tackles. They bring in Damian Lewis. They bring in Robert Hunt. Spent a good chunk of change to really upgrade that offensive line.

And the offensive line has played better. And we get to 2024 so they hired Dave Canales and we'll get into David Canales a little bit more into detail but they hired Dave Canales two games into the season regular season ho ho you talk about Bryce Young who lost last year he looked just as lost this year and the problem was we were running out of excuses right he had a new voice in his head you had a new head coach you had a new offensive philosophy and most importantly you had a lot better of an offensive line in front of you this offensive line was playing well two weeks into the season they go on with two and Bryce gets benched and we did a podcast earlier back in September you know covering Bryce Young when he got benched and we didn't really know what the future held for him and I

think that that's crazy because both you and I love Bryce Young I had number one overall number one overall prospect that year but for him to look as bad as he did in 2023 and as bad as he did in 20 at the beginning of 2024 I was worried I was really worried about him so they start Andy Dalton they play Andy Dalton they play decently well but you know they sort of had a nice little spark when Andy Dalton came in but then you know he they sort of had a nice little spark when Andy Dalton came in. But then it got back to a little bit of regression of, all right, regression to where Carolina, where they probably were going to be this year. Andy Dalton ends up getting hurt in a car accident, of all things. And he's OK, obviously.

But, you know, that puts Bryce Young back in the lineup. And, Connor, he's looked great. He's had some really nice games. The best games of his NFL career have come since he has been the starter from week nine on. From week nine to week 13 even. There was a four-game stretch where he had passing grades of 75.2, 68.5, 82.8, 79.2. I mean, we're talking about a legit NFL starting quarterback and the closest thing to Alabama version of Bryce Young that we have seen so far.

And, you know, we're doing this podcast after the Cowboys game. And admittedly, it was bad. The Cowboys game was really bad. Six times. But it was bad for everybody. Right. Carolina's offense. Not just a Bryce Young issue.

So here we sit recording this podcast, even after the Cowboys game with them sitting at 311. I am very happy with Bryce Young and where he is right now. And I think that we're on the trajectory to where he could be a really, really good starting quarterback in this league. How do you feel about sort of his journey and where he's at now? Much better now than obviously how things started this year. I like you full transparency. I had him as the number one quarterback. He was not my number one player. I think he was number two. I know I had Willie Anderson,

number one. I mean, same point, right? And I understood the arguments between him and Stroud. Like it was definitely close. I remember back to summer scouting. I had it flipped.

I had Stroud and Bryce. And then by the time we got to the draft, I had a price and Stroud. And it's so interesting to see the trajectory of their careers or even just the. The play, like what they were placed into and what confidence does for a young player. And with Bryce, like I said, you're one. It's one thing to look bad. It's another to look lost.

And I think what we learned about Bryce a little bit is some guys can be in a bad situation, but they have so many physical gifts or they could be struggling, but they have so many physical gifts that there's moments that keep them afloat. Anthony Richardson at times throughout his young career has had those moments. I think even when you look at his when Lamar Jackson was really developing as a passer, he was such a gifted playmaker that he was still impacting the game while growing as a passer. And now he's just out of this world at everything. And the same can be said for Josh Allen. When you look at how Josh Allen started his career, Josh Allen was such a gifted athlete that

he was using his running and playmaking to buy his self time to grow as a competent passer. Bryce didn't necessarily have the top tier physical gifts where he could have those moments. And that was so scary about year one. Now year two, it's funny when he starts, when he gets benched and then he comes back in and he starts to grow some confidence from playing uh more competently now you're starting to see the flashes Trevor of some playmaking ability escaping throwing on the run not feeling like oh god here comes the rush I have to stare at it and I don't know what to do just it's crazy what confidence could do for a young player and we've seen the change of confidence for him specifically and they've invested a lot in him and the fact that you have seen steps this year i'd be floored if they don't try to continue to lift him up into year three it just feels like

you made the decision you've invested so much into him you're finally seeing progress with the coach that you think is right for his development the offensive line that you paid a lot of money to. And it's been ups and downs for Leggett. And now Leggett deserves to come, you know, deserves to get the caveat that he needs wrist surgery after the season. So he's playing through a pretty significant injury. But I think they want a little bit more out of Leggett. They're going to have to get a premium pass catcher,

maybe even in this draft. They're going to have to get a premium playmaker for Bryce as part of that setting him up for success. But I think it feels like we have the clear identity into the offseason that it's how do we put the best around Bryce so he goes from taking some steps last year to now it's 2025. We want to see the full on growth in year three. And I really do think that is on the personnel because in theory,

he'll be more comfortable with the scheme, comfortable with the coach, comfortable behind this offensive line. Now it's having more playmaking talent to elevate him further. Yeah. And they did a pretty decent job emphasizing that in last year's draft right dan morgan's first draft as the uh general manager of the carolina panthers he was the assistant gm for three seasons prior to that and then he was elevated to the president of football ops and general manager for 2024 in that draft they take xavier leggett at 32 at the back

end of the first round like you mentioned jonathan as well which sucks I mean I Jonathan Brooks is my RB1 going into last year uh was a huge fan of Jonathan Brooks I even loved the pick like I really did even with him coming off of injury uh I thought it was interesting that they gave Chuba Hubbard the contract that they did given the contract that they did, given the fact that they hadn't even really seen Jonathan Brooks yet. But very clearly, they just wanted to set up an offense where, you know, you look around the league and there's a lot of really great running back duos or just rushing attacks.

I mean, think of the Buffalo Bills, think of the Detroit Lions. Like these teams are just really great and have really good rushing attacks. Carolina wanted to be one of those teams. So they paid Chuba Hubbard the money. But Jonathan Brooks, even in the limited action that we saw from him this year, I thought he showed, man, just the quick movements, the missed tackles forced, I mean, the decisiveness, the explosiveness. Like, he was there for him, and now he tore his ACL again.

And so, I mean, now everything is up in the air for him. Not that he's not going to come back, but, man, two ACL tears, it it's really tough it's just a bummer running back yeah it sucks there's no way around it but you know they invest in the second round there they go third round they go um um tevin wallace the linebacker from kentucky which i thought was an overdraft at the time and we'll sort of get to some team building of why i think they ended up doing that uh could still work out for them but I think it was a quite a big of a risk for for them to pick Tevin Wallace where they did in the third round and then fourth round Jatavian Sanders who I think could be a really nice tight end in his league and

you know we'll get to the free agent point of things but you know Tommy Tremble you know Tommy Tremble's probably on his way out hasn't really showed what he has needed to here for this team you're hoping that Jatavian Sanders can be the guy for you moving forward and so Dan Morgan did a pretty good job emphasizing what he needed to last offseason. They brought in Damian Lewis and Robert Hunt. Okay, great. Check, check. Definitely need that.

You lose Brian Burns. So you got to go out and you got to go get yourself Jadavion Clowney. So you get Jadavion Clowney. The defense, they knew they were probably going to struggle. They lost a lot of guys on that defensive side of the football that were contributing football players. But when it comes to offense, they basically did everything that they could, I think. And when you look at Dave Canales, so he's the head coach. He was the quarterback's coach for the Seattle Seahawks back in 2020.

Then he was the offense coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, first-time play caller in 2023. Did some nice things with Baker Mayfield. Obviously did well enough for Baker Mayfield to earn that second contract and got the Bucs to the divisional round playing the Detroit Lions. And so that team actually played pretty dang well. And you could tell through the first half of that season that Canales was really learning how to be an offensive coordinator

and really learn how to be a play caller. And the second half of the season, You saw some better things from him. But with him as Carolina's head coach. I do think that he's still learning. However. I do want to point to some tangible improvements. From head coach and offensive decisions. From last year to this year.

Last year. This Carolina team had a 50% red zone conversion percentage. This year. It's up to 56%. Last year, they had just 23 total touchdowns. This year, already, they have 27. Last year, they gave up 240 pressures. This year, only 127.

Significantly better. I know they got a couple of games left, but just significantly better. That cannot be overstated. Only 46 plays of 15 yards or more in 2023. They now have 79 this year. So now they're closer to, that's right around like 25th, 26th in the league. So not the best, but certainly not dead last like it was last year. They were 30th in play action rate last year, only ran 118 plays of play action this year. They already have 133 and that number is going to go up with three games left.

Motion rate, they were 28th in the NFL with 207 plays with motion attached to them this year already at 224. They were 32nd in yards after catch last year. They're still only 31st this year. But so many of the ways, Connor, in which you would want to show offensive evolution to where the game is going, how to help out your young quarterback, how to make things a little bit more difficult on the defense. Just those little subtle ways that did not exist for Carolina last year exist now for them. And as they are figuring out their identity with Canales

and Bryce as the tandem head coach and quarterback, I wanted to point out those numbers to say this team is certainly going in the right direction of where the game is going and how to be a better offense in this league. I think it's a great point by you because it shows that they've made their offense not only more modern, but quarterback friendly, which is probably the biggest problem a lot of people had during the previous era is just how static things felt. I remember when we watched him and when we did the fix of your franchise

for them the first time, we were like, I don't think anyone stands a chance back there. Like, what happened here? Nobody stands a chance back there. So you're right. And it's hard to be a first-time head coach who also has a key responsibility as a quarterback developer. Canales has so much on his plate as a head coach,

and his priority number one is preparing the team and winning games, but he also has a priority 1A that not all head coaches in the league have, and that is being stapled next to a young quarterback that needs a lot of answers. And that is not easy to do, but the best coaches in the

league often can do that so I think he deserves Canales deserves a little grace this year not to mention this is a team that man I know it's dangerous to look at luck in the NFL but they've had some bad luck I mean you lose Derek Brown right out of the gate, who's the middle of your entire defense. You talk about Jonathan Brooks, Trevor, who I guess when they paid Chuba, their idea was to be one of these teams that the identity of their offense can be the backfield duo they have. Yes. Right?

So it's like, okay, we're going to keep Chuba here, who has developed into a tougher runner than he was coming out. And we have Brooks, who we think in space, can he play the Jameer Gibbs role for us? And like you said, when you see flashes of Brooks in space, it's like, whoa. Like, this is kind of a different athlete in this offense we haven't seen yet.

That's bad luck that Brooks got hurt again. And Brown got hurt. And they've had a lot of bad luck with J.C. Horn's injuries. Like, they've had some bad luck. And at some point point you think that's got to turn, but it also does kind of reinforce the point that they not only need to hit on talent, but they need to get this roster some depth as well. If they want to be back in the hunt as a playoff team. Yeah. I I'd also be very curious to what Carolina Panthers fans think of this, but

you know, he said that we weren't really going to touch the front office and the coaching staff. And, and I, again, I don't, I don't think I'm touching it at all. You know, Canales isn't Dan Morgan's not going anywhere as the general manager. Canales is not going anywhere as the head coach, Brad Edzik's the offensive coordinator and he has followed Dave Canales for the last three seasons. Now he was the assistant wide receivers coach for the Seattle Seahawks in 2022.

When Canales got hired to be the offensive coordinator in Tampa, he got Izzik to come with him to be his quarterback's coach in Tampa. And then, you know, when Canales gets hired as the head coach for the Panthers, now Izzik has been elevated. So each of them has just like climbed a step of the ladder, just one a little right lower than the other so i don't think that we're making a change at offensive coordinator and then when it comes to defensive coordinator it's zero evero and carolina's defense sucks this

year it's bad it's really bad it's one of the worst defenses in the nfl but I don't think that's Evero's fault there's not really much that he can work with here and so I don't think there's any reason to like scapegoat him in any way shape or form I mean maybe he gets like a head coaching interview or something like that but other than that I don't really see how unless Evero wants to leave I don't see how on Carolina's side of things they would move on from him because Evero was a good defensive coordinator when he was with the Denver Broncos and he was a good defensive coordinator last year with the Carolina Panthers I mean Panthers defense last year was decent it was pretty good and from this year to last year you're Shaq Thompson Frankie Luvu Jeremy Chin I know Jeremy Chin was sort of like in and out whatever but Jeremy Chin uh Brian Burns like all of these guys

not on the team anymore and hardly replaced I mean those two linebackers them losing Shaq Thompson and Frankie Luvu and replacing them with Josie Jewel and, and Tevin Wallace. Like that is a massive downgrade in the middle of your defense. You lose a lot of speed in that scenario. Fuller and Ward, Fuller and Woods have struggled at safety. And Mike Jackson's been playing opposite JC Horn, but that's okay. I mean, you'd probably like better if you could get it there. And then on the

defensive line it's jadavian clowny who's basically the only saving grace that you have there dj wanham's been okay at times but we'll get to the you know we'll get to the guys that might be able to move on from dj johnson who they drafted in the third round i believe yeah third round in 2023 has not developed at all whatsoever yet eater gross matos on the team last year as well who okay he didn't develop into the guy that you wanted him to be but still a depth rotational player that you're not exactly replacing him at all whatsoever I mean their defensive line this year is guys that are just non-impact players outside of Jadavian Clowney you got you've got no impact players in your front seven and then JC Horn basically on an island there at corner with safeties that haven't really played that well behind him.

So to me, I don't think you're touching this coaching staff at all whatsoever. Evero is coached too well in Denver and he coached too well last year for you to think that there's any reason why you would move on. I think it is simply you just got to get way better players on that defense side of the ball. I'm with you. Listen, it is dangerous to fire people in years like this where you said it, Trevor. Like, what do you want? At some point, you need players. You need players. And I think the Panthers have an understanding as an organization that because of what they were going into with this year,

as an organization, they knew they were going to allocate so many resources to the offense because they just were probably embarrassed by their offensive line. And they knew they were going to use some key picks on offense, get a wide receiver, get a running back, get a move tight end. That like somebody is's gonna suffer from that and what suffered from it was their defense when you trade Brian Burns when you lose Derek Brown right away it's not like you were swimming with talent on that side of the ball to begin with

so Canales was hired and his staff was hired with the mission of getting this quarterback situation right and uplifting Bryce. And then everything falls under that. So now they need to find a way to field the competitive defense. There's no hiding that. And that's going to take some really good drafting, I think, deeper into the draft. And it's going to take finding some depth signings because you can't be the team that hey we lost the guy here or we lost the guy there and

now the whole thing fell out from under us yeah so but i i agree with you i don't look at the panthers and go hey they're they got three wins like they're not getting enough out of this roster. I look at the roster and I go, yeah, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Your win total was probably five and a half. I think it was five and a half. Which is the lowest in football, by the way. For those listening, there was like four teams with five and a half win totals this year. That's as low as they set it this year.

It's really hard to do. You're not going to be set at two and a half wins as a win total. Yeah, it's really hard to be four and a half win total in the NFL. Although the Giants and Raiders are testing that theory right now. No, I'm saying like, I'm saying that projection. I know. I know, but they're

giving it a run. They might only win two games each. In actuality, we know that teams win less than five games each. I actually think the Raiders got one more. In actuality, we know that teams win less than five games all the time, but it's hard to predict that. Exactly. Football, there's just too many, not even fluky natures of it, but how close things can be on a bounce or something going right.

Right. But, yeah, I mean, I'm with you all the way. Give some continuity here. And you've got to think their owner and David Tepper, he wants continuity. He doesn't want to be looked at as this madman. He signed rule to like the monster deal. And gave him a you can't say no offer.

And gave him full control because he like he didn't, he didn't, he wanted that to be the he wanted a football guy he wanted the football guy that has like the janitor style keys like the big ring with like 30 keys on it he handed that to matt rule and said every room is yours you can do whatever you want i just want you here for seven years and i don't want to have to worry about being embarrassing and you know i'm not sitting here in hindsight and criticizing that. He said all that, but Tepper still has a master key in his back pocket. And he gets whatever door he wants. No, it's electronic, dude.

This is a multi-billionaire. No, it's an RPG. He's blowing the door off. He's setting C4 on the locks or the pins of the door. And blowing at the smithereens. When we did our Tepper research for the first time which is probably the panthers fix your franchise but maybe before that i don't remember i mean he is an interesting cat at a minimum the bulldozing of that rival house is up there with

unprecedented unprecedented territory it's unbelievable i would say all right we getting in the roster yeah i think it's i think it it's really time after we kind of pooped on its lawn, to be honest with you. No, no, no, I don't think we did, but I think we set it up correctly. I hope I appropriately painted a decent picture for when I said, like when I talked about the stats of like, hey, it's not good in Carolina right now, but like you are going in the right direction.

There is so much more faith that this could be better for this staff and this regime than it was previously. And so you could also believe that this team could finish strong, get another win out here. We'll see. Maybe Panthers fans don't want that because you want the better draft pick, but I'm just saying. I think that there's things to play for still on this team.

So as we often do, we'll start this with a roster overview. We'll'll get into some team needs we'll talk about how much cap space they have to spend we'll talk about some cap targets maybe some flexibility that they can have on their own roster which we definitely need to talk about that with carolina and then we'll sort of take that free agency plan and get into a mock draft here with them key pieces on offense okay so once again this does not mean that this is these are the only good players on the team but these are the players that i think you are building around certainly for the short-term future if not long-term bryce young chuba hubbard both offensive tackles both guards, and Xavier Leguette. And look, I would love to throw Jalen Coker in there

because I know people are like, he's going to leave Jalen Coker off the list. Good story so far. I love Jalen Coker. So I want to be very clear. He is a part of their plans. Absolutely. He's had a great season.

We even saw this past week against the Cowboys, right? Jalen Coker's been awesome. Would I call him a key piece? Not yet. Not quite yet. And some people could go like, Jalen Coker's been more reliable than Xavier Leguette. I'm not going to fight you on that. Xavier Leguette was picked 32 overall.

Jalen Coker was an undrafted free agent. There is something to draft capital spent to acquire you, which gives you a longer leash or in the minds of the decision makers, makes you think a certain way about a player. So again, I'm not sitting here cutting Jalen Coker from the team, but I would like to see it for one more year from him before I call him a key player that I know that they're not going to just move on from at the drop of a hat if he has a bad streak or something like that. So that's how I see the roster. Anybody else that you would throw in there?

No, I think you had it. I think the best way to explain what you're going through is the Panthers don't go into next year and go, Jalen Coker is locked into our top three wide receivers, no matter what. And he may very well be. And guess what? He very well could be. And he is making it a point right now to show that. But you don't go in with that.

You're not invested in him like that. You are expecting him now to make the roster, which is a pretty impressive jump for a guy that wasn't drafted. But I think that's your point. Like you invested the pick that you, what you invested in Leggett, you expect Leggett to be a top two wide receiver for you next year. And that's why he's a foundational piece. So it doesn't mean that a guy can't become something.

It's just how you view it when you're putting all the puzzle pieces together of the team. So this is what I have on offense. Defense. This might be quick. Clowney. JC Horn. Derek Brown. Yeah.

I have to look up Clowney's contract. They have him for another year. He did sign another year, and it's actually real money in a sense. Yeah, they have him for another year. I was wondering at the time, I was like, is he going to be a mercenary deadline move? And now I get why they didn't do that i would want clowny on the team next year you would yeah oh yeah yeah i'm glad

they didn't just give him away like everybody was acting they don't have anyone else you need players you're you're rushing the passer if they get rid of clowny they're calling you up i'll put my hand in the dirt okay we need somebody4", 240 to get after the passer. Yeah. With bend. Yeah, with bend. I can bend a little bit. Okay.

I don't know if the bull rush is going to work, though, for me. No, you got natural leverage. You got him. I do have natural leverage. That's a good point. Okay, so those are the only three, though. I mean, look. That's it.

Again, Tevin Wallace, I know that they would love for him to be a starting linebacker like i know some people in the draft really like tevin wallace um shout out mike renner mike renner was one of them he was like dude you gotta watch tevin wallace i watched him a little bit i saw a little bit more of the drawbacks renner understood the potential of him so renner was a big fan of him i know but he wasn't alone there were a lot of people that really liked tevin wallace and to get him in the third round, honestly, it's still a little bit rich for me. But I understand the potential. I understand where they got him.

So you're hoping that he develops, but I can't say key piece yet. Safety is like I talked about. Those guys are kind of replaceable. Corners outside of J.C. Horn. You just drafted Shaw Smith-Wade. So again, he's not going anywhere. But key piece, you could throw him in there, I guess, if you wanted to, if you really wanted more than three.

But the key pieces are those three. It's Derek Brown, it's Jadavion Clowney, and it's J.C. Horn. That's my thoughts. Yeah, I'm with you. I had to look up. I had Wallace in the fifth, so that'll be interesting how that one plays. I knew he was going earlier, though, than where had him yeah i didn't i didn't love him and i had him he was my last

fifth round grade for linebackers so now we can get into free agency so free agency for this team is very interesting because if you just look at it at face value and you go over to 2025 effective cap space for NFL teams, right now, the Carolina Panthers have projected $16 million in effective cap space is the cap space that you would have after getting to a 53 man roster depending on how many pending free agents you have and also signing your draft class so it is again they use the word effective cap space because if you don't plan for any of that stuff well then that's stupid because you'd have to budget for it anyways so 16 mil in effective cap space that's it and when you look at Carolina, we talk about how much team is kind of void of talent. On one side of the ball, for sure, yeah. On one side of the ball, for sure.

But even just some key pieces on both sides of the ball. You go, okay, how do we only have 16 here? Well, it was some Matt Rule contracts, some Matt Rule players that are still kind of sitting around, which we can talk about in a second. And it's also spending a lot of money last year. He spent a lot of money on Jadavion Clowney, spent a lot of money on Damian Lewis.

He spent a lot of money on Robert Hunt. A hundred million dollar man. Those are the three that you have a lot of money invested in. And when it comes to cap hits for next year, Taylor Moden, their right tackle is 31 mil on the cap right now. If you did nothing, they don't do anything, which you're going to do something.

I'll explain. 31 mil on the cap. Robert Hunt's 21 mil. Derek Brown's 19. Damian Lewis, 14. Jadavion Clowney's 14. That is a shit ton of money in five players. That is a lot of money in just five players,

especially when one of them's not a quarterback. Yeah. You got to rework those babies right there. So they're pretty thick there. Yeah. Now, if you restructure these contracts, which I will say, there's a couple of ways that you can go about it. I was talking with Mike K a little bit about this. Mike K does a great job covering the Carolina Panthers. He follows the team very, very closely. And I was sort of asking him about this situation. And I

was like, okay, well, you know, is it a situation where they can restructure these deals because they can and Mike is more on the side of, he thinks they're sort of going to eat some of their vegetables with some of these deals and sort of let them play out as opposed to restructure them because when you restructure them you turn those void years into actual contract years so he thinks that for some of these players they're going to kind of bite the bullet a little bit with the contracts that they gave him but just to let you guys know, it's 16 mil in effective cap space right now. They save 12 mil if they restructure Taylor Moten, or they could just

extend him, right? They could so that you got some flexibility, what you could do with Moten's money. He's not going to be 31 mil on the cap next year. It's just a matter of how they want to do it. Do they want to like restructure the deal? Do they want to sign him to some sort of an extension? And you know, like, okay, you can move the money around a little bit more, but it's at least 12 mil that you save in a restructure. You can save nine mil if you restructure Derek Browns. You can save 11 mil if you restructure Robert Hunts. You can save six mil if you restructure Damian Lewis.

In those four players right there, you have $38 million in potential cap savings if you restructure those deals now it's gonna you know take picking up some void years and doing all that and so you got to think about this long term it's not just like a guarantee but there's 38 mil that you can make right there you can cut miles sanders post june 1 you can save 6.7 million dollars and the fact that they drafted jonathan brooks I know his injury kind of puts this up in the air a little bit, but certainly the fact that they paid Chuba Hubbard,

they're going to move on from Miles Sanders. So they're going to save at least $6.7 million when you put, designate him as a post-June 1 cut. And they can cut DJ Wanham at any time. They don't even need to have, they don't even need to designate him as a post-June 1. They can cut him at any time and they save $ million so there's about 14 more million right there so all in all that's even without a jc horn contract extension where you could get even more flexible with sort of how much money you're paying jc horn because horn is uh what is horn on the cap next year that's his fifth year so he's 12 mil on the cap next year on the last year of his deal so they will they will re-sign him at some point and you can get even more flexible with that all in all if you were to do all of those names you could get

potentially around 65 mil in my opinion in effective cap space now talking with mike i don't think they're going to do that for all of them that's the max that's the max so i think we could probably appropriately say this team could realistically have 45 to 50 mil in effective cap space with a couple of those restructures how do you feel about about that? That sounds right. You don't want to totally kick the can down the road on everything. And then you're running into the same problem year after year after year until it's finally due. So I think you could do a little bit. You could have it both ways a little bit, right? Where, hey, we're going to free up some money because there's some moves we really want to make. But we're also going to be a little calculated and precise that we are,

it's like paying your credit card bill, right? Where we're going to pay some of our bill this year and be smart. So we have flexibility for the future because we, we want that potential flexibility in case other opportunities open up. So I think that checks out rather than saying, hey, the 65 to 70 full mill, hover around 40 to 45 mil, which is more than enough to take care of your business when you're structuring for agent contracts.

You could either lower the cap early. Maybe there's a deal you want to front load a little bit. There's always an answer around this when you have somebody that understands how to manipulate or wisely work the cap over time. So free agents for this team. So now that we're going into it thinking, hey, we're cutting DJ Wanham,

and we're moving on from Miles Sanders. So those guys, I think, are off the team. The other guys, I think it's more of a restructures. They're sticking around. That's fine. When it comes to true free agents for 2025, Austin Corbett, Andy Dalton, Shaq Thompson, Brady Christensen, Tommy Tremble, Mike Jackson, Jordan Fuller, Eddie Pinheiro.

From talking with Mike, it seems as though Thompson, Tremble, Pinheiro, I think those guys are probably gone. I love Shaq Thompson. I mean, he's a Carolina Panthers legend, but him coming off an Achilles tear. It's tough. It's tough. I just don't think he's going to be back next year. So that's a tough one, I understand.

Austin Corbett, who was the starting center for this team, he injured his knee two years ago, and then he tore his biceps this year. So now you've got a guy who has had season ending injuries over the last two seasons I don't think you re-sign a player like that so I don't think Austin Corbett's going to be back basically the only ones that I think that they're going to re-sign are Christensen Brady Christensen who I think could be a swing offensive lineman for you that you could play guard or tackle.

And Mike Jackson, who's been a starting outside corner for you. You're not exactly in the business of just letting even serviceable corners walk. So I think those two are re-signed. Maybe Dalton? I don't know. I have no idea really how they feel about that situation I mean Dalton's a great serviceable yeah I mean if his family and if he loves living in Carolina and in Charlotte sure maybe but um I don't it would have to be a pretty favorable situation in which Andy would be like yeah yeah just throw me you know throw me a couple mil I'll be the backup I love it here in Charlotte. I'll stick around.

I can see that. It seems like they have the right quarterback room in terms of, you know, the personalities and stuff. You don't have somebody that's just breathing down Bryce's back and trying to take the job. Right. It feels like the right mentor and veteran voice in the room. Yeah. Going back and make sure I didn't. Oh, Nick Scott as well I think could be gone.

I'm just kind of looking at the list here. Like he's a free agent that's up, and I think he could be gone. But all in all, you're not really breaking the bank. Like re-signing Christensen, re-signing Mike Jack, re-signing Dalton even. What are we allocating? Like 10-ish mil? Max. Max. Yeah. To re-sign those guys. So we're probably operating around like 30, 40 million.

Yeah. Or sorry, 35 to 40 million. If we're going into like true free agency. And actual money to spend. Yeah. Yeah. So if you agree with that, then let's talk about team needs for them. I'll let you sort of talk about and sort of spearhead the team needs.

And remember, we obviously we moved on from – in this plan, we moved on from Miles Sanders. We think they're going to move on from DJ Wanham as well. You know, you're maybe bringing back a couple of the lower-tier guys. Mike Jack can start for you at outside corner if you want. But what do you think of the big team needs for this team going into free agency and then into the draft as well? I just think they need key help up front.

Like, A, you want to say – Defensive line. Defensive line across the board. Because, yeah, you should have Derek Brown back next year, but I think you need more pass rush. I think you need more beef up in the middle. I think you need to prioritize

this defensive line, just so you're not literally run over. That's my biggest problem when I look at the panthers like that's just it's just too easy for opposing offenses to not only execute but more importantly control the game right when you look at i mean teams right now are averaging five yards of carry against them right now and they're just of carry against them right now. And they're just bottom of the league, basically, in every run defense category.

And you need to be a more stout unit up front, which will come with health, but it'll also come with adding more talent. And I do think you need somebody opposite Clowney that has pure pass rush skills. Right now, do you want to spend on that? Do you want to draft that? I think the answer is a little bit of both in this scenario. I just lost my tab. I'll cut my tab on over the cap. You're probably going to have to get some stopgap veterans

to mesh with younger players. There isn't some franchise cornerstone ad I see here. That's a... Well, that's what I was going to ask you is like... What's the answer? If we're building out a plan here, Carolina currently has, I think, the fifth overall pick as we are recording this podcast.

If I remember correctly. Just had Tankathon open. Yes, they are fifth. The fifth overall pick uh nothing's gonna change with the monday night football games tonight well i suppose it could if vegas wins then they drop all the way down to wow if vegas wins tonight they drop all the way down to seven oh it's it's crazy the volatility from one through strength of schedule though oh wow i didn't realize this about the giants either they have the highest strength of schedule

whoa if the giants win a game they're gonna drop if the giants or the raiders win any game over the next three weeks they will drop six spots in the draft order. Well, you know what their biggest fear is, right? Winning. And how do they do that? Two things. One, Drew Locke gets healthy. Two, the Eagles sit everybody the last week of the season.

Which now, of course, everybody could be playing for seating at the end. We don't know that as we sit here today. But there's a world where the Giants beat the Eagles backups and go from one to, what did you say, seven? If the Giants, let's say, let's say the Giants just like one this week. If the Giants won this week, they would have dropped from number two overall in the draft order to number seven.

And that would be the same exact thing. If Vegas loses or if Vegas wins on Monday night football. Yeah. This thing's far from over far from over. I didn't realize that. It's crazy. loses or if Vegas wins on Monday night football. Yeah. This thing's far from over far from over. I didn't realize that. It's crazy. Yeah.

So Caroline's picking number five, but just going back to the sort of the team building thing. So if they're picking number five, my question to you is, cause you know, if we're putting our Dan Morgan cap on, we, we got to come up with a plan and I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I think that front seven is the major issue of this team, and you're not going to draft a linebacker at seven. So basically front four. I'm basically saying that we're going to operate in free agency as if we are going to take the best trench player that we have on the board at number five, if not trading down to do the same thing a little bit later. I think that's fair. And then you can go in looking for players to supplement in your front rather than thinking you need to pay what they did for the offensive line

and buy a defensive line in this draft. Like you can get complimentary players, I think. There are two names to me that I'm interested in for the Panthers that are so different from one another in the draft room, free in free agency. All right. Let's that. I think if you sign these guys, you're still thinking about also drafting a front seven player.

The first one, very under the radar, Michael Hoyt on the Rams. He is 28 years old old he'll hit free agency he's a role player for the rams he's playing a little under 60 of the snaps he's a very unique player that he's six four around like 300 plus pounds and they play them all up and down and standing up he can do a lot of unique things that's just a guy that I think a team like this is kind of missing on their front.

A fill holes kind of guy. We can play him a lot of different places. He's in our rotation. He's not ever going to have 12 sacks for us, but can you get a six sacks and be stout against the run? Like Michael Hoyt. Oh, they do need,

they, the floor must be elevated. That's the kind of player this is. Exactly, Trevor. Like you look at the run defense grade 70.9 this year. You look at his pass rush grade 63.3. He's a very average pass rusher, but he gives you a floor, I think, against the run while not being a zero against the pass. And with his build, I think he could play different alignments for you.

And this isn't a break the bank signing. This isn't I'm not I'm not going out and giving a guy $40 million. I'm looking for value to raise the floor, like you just said. Yeah, I don't mind that. So this is a guy that I think can raise the floor of this unit. And then I'm going to throw a dart on a veteran to play a rotational role but also maybe help the first round pick that i'm taking because i'd like a veteran presence for that guy besides clowny and that world and this all depends on money because i think these guys

have had down years they're getting older like i'm looking at like the Khalil Max of the world right it's getting towards the end here Mac is an older player he's not a star rusher anymore but a guy that could still give you some pass rush snaps effectively help a young guy along and now you actually have a rotation where you have guys like Clowney and Hoyt that could play the run and then maybe you have a guy like Mac that's not only helping with your edge pass rush, but helping a young player as well. And Derek Brown back in the middle. I don't know if,

I don't know if Kalil Mac would come to Carolina is my only thing. But we said that about Clowney, right? Like why Clowney go there? But Clowney's from an hour away. That's a good point. He's from 45 minutes away. He's $20 million. Also health, but that's a good point. No,

it's true. Like, how are you going to spend the twilight of your career? I think Khalil Mack is the name I used. You could do this with a couple different veteran edge rushers that have had down years. There's Khalil Mack. There's Matt Judon, Hassan Reddick which would be a return and these guys are not having I want to make this clear like these guys are not having you're getting them at a cost-effective price

and you only have a shot at them because they don't have a ton of suitors this isn't like Miles Garrett in free agency I love I love the Mack idea you know what i need to do let's go into wikipedia and change khalil mac's hometown to charlottesville okay moresville carolina you know just so just so it's not you know it's not too obvious and uh it's still in the charlotte area and then yeah then then he's coming home and then we get to force the narrative that he's coming home i think you're on to something and we can make that a kid during the presentation. They can make the I'm coming home.

Exactly. Mashup video, but there's actually no, like it's all CGI. Like Cleo Mack never played in this town. No, you did. You just don't remember.

No, it's everyone else. This is wrong. What do you think? Wikipedia is wrong. Wikipedia is wrong. Two podcasters. Wouldn't completely sabotage this man's life story in order

to get him on one football team. In order to fix your franchise plan to work. It would never happen. They'd make a Netflix documentary of us at that point. So those are my two very like not sexy at all signings that I think make the Panthers a better defense. So, I mean, I, I have, I have sort of one not sexy signing. Mo Hurst has been beat up a good amount, and he hasn't played well this year,

but he suffered an ankle injury at the beginning of the year. But, like, this past year is sort of an outlier with how he's played. I don't mind, like, Mo Hurst as an interior defensive lineman to really help you out there. So, like, for depth guys, like non-star guys, he's playing in cleveland right now he's a free agent i i'd see sort of how he's feeling and where where his sort of uh health is at but mo hearst is somebody that i looked at is like all right not

gonna break the bank i like hoyt though that's a decent that's a decent call out there somebody else who i think is a decent call out is mal Koontz okay who was really excited to watch Malcolm Koontz play this year he had an 81.3 pff grade last season um had an almost 80.0 pass rush grade last year was really nice to pass rusher especially during the second half of the season for the Raiders and uh suffered an Achilles injury at the beginning of this season so we didn't get to see him and he's coming off an Achilles injury obviously there's a lot that sort of goes into that so there's a little bit of risk involved there but Kuntz on one side Clowney on the other especially for a defense that likes to be multiple and can do a lot of

odd front stuff like Evro has done when it is time with uh with the Denver Broncos and certainly at times with the Carolina Panthers I I saw I I like that idea I like that idea there for them of having like Koontz on one side and Jadavian Clowney on the other because there's a lot of really good interior defensive linemen that you could draft in this upcoming draft and I feel like you you'd give yourself flexibility to say all right well if we can get mason graham at number five great if we can't get mason graham we could probably get somebody in the second round um who's able to uh to fit that bill oh no wait oh no they do still have a second round i was just thinking they do they don't have their they didn't have their second round pick because they traded it as part of the um as part of the bryce

young trade to the chicago bears but they actually do have a second round pick because they traded it as part of the um as part of the bryce young trade to the chicago bears but they actually do have a second round pick because they traded back with los angeles rams when they moved up to go to get braden fist so they do still have that second round pick so malcolm coons was somebody i thought of osa diggy zoo i think could be a big impactful player as well as an interior defensive lineman i'd like to add an idl for sure not so sure he gets out of dallas but i think they like him. He was the name that I thought of there. I got Jaron Reed.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I haven't looked at Jaron Reed's grades or film. He's just, he's just solid. But every, every year playing solid,

then he's been very solid in Seattle. Okay. That's fine. I'm all for that. I had other two positions that I was a little bit more emphasized on. These are positions that I don't think they're going to draft high. And there are two positions that I think they really need to upgrade if they can. And I actually think it behooves them the most to go after it in free agency as opposed to the draft.

Safety and wide receiver. Safety, there's a handful of guys that can really help this football team out especially if you're not bringing fuller back buda baker's on the market right he probably goes back to arizona maybe but but but at one point in time he demanded a trade or wanted to trade so i know he's feeling better they'll talk contract but buda baker justin reed from the chiefs trayvon merrig from the raiders also a free agent basically their only good secondary player i think he could be pretty nice for the carolina panthers elijah molden is also a free agent from the los angeles chargers talenova hufonga if they get hufonga i would i would be all in on that.

And we're looking at a Niners situation. You can say to yourself, Niners would never let Talanova Hufanga go. One, he's been through injuries. Two, they're about to make a decision with Brock Purdy. They're already on the books for a lot of their players, right? They got money situation brewing there. So there's a chance that Talanova Hufanga could absolutely hit the market if you could get him that is my that might be honestly Talanova Hufanga might be my number

one free agent target for the Carolina Panthers I like that a lot it's a name we have not mentioned on this show if you can get him that is a high impact player not only can he make an impact from the strong safety and just safety level but he can mitigate what you lost from the 2023 defense with Shaq Thompson and Frankie Lou now elsewhere he mitigates a lot of that because of what he is as an enforcer over the middle at the second level as a strong safety type so I love the idea of them getting Talanova Ufonga and then if you want to stick with Xavier Woods he could be your more free safety type that's fine you've got him under contract then we get to wide receiver that was the other position.

Safety and wide receiver, I think, are the big ones that they should hit. Or maybe I should say this. They should swing for the fences with safety and wide receiver and free agency because I still love your idea of getting some depth pieces on the defensive line. I just think that that might be more of a draft need for them, given who is available. And wide receiver, as much as it pains me to say this, Dave Canales knows Chris Godwin pretty damn well.

Sammy's doing it. So Chris Godwin has to be very high on their board. T. Higgins is the obvious one. He becomes the wide receiver one in this room immediately. I think Marquise Brown is an interesting type of an ad that they could have to be a deep threat type of a player that they thought they were adding in Deontay Johnson. But that obviously did not work out well for them. And then another one, a little bit of a wild card here.

Cooper Cup. Wow. That is my wild card. You could say like, hey, they got Adam Thielen. And you're right. Obviously, like if they still have Adam Thielen, maybe they think that that would be redundant. But if they don't still have Adam Thielen for whatever reason, or if they think that Adam Thielen is really taking a step back

and they don't believe the same could be said for Cooper Cup, I wonder if they could get him for like a mid-round pick, to be honest with you. Now, I don't know if the Rams would do that, but with him potentially being on the trade block earlier this year before the deadline he's gonna be a little bit older of a prospect player should say that's my kind of uh out there outside the box scenario of a wide receiver for them to go after i like it a lot i'm a huge fan of the Chris Godwin idea. Because Godwin, even coming off the big injury, it'll be his age 29 season. I think his play style would be such a great addition for Bryce Young.

1,000%. Like a player that Bryce can lean on with timing and rhythm and make plays for you at every layer of the field, especially over the middle of the field. Like you said, there's already a relationship there with Canales. Right. I think that's the home run scenario. If Chris Godwin goes anywhere,

I really wonder if it's Carolina. For a lot of money. Now, yeah, here's the thing that I will say. Tampa is going to give Chris Godwin a very competitive offer. Of course, they love him. They are not in the world where they're just moving on from Chris Godwin. No. You got to really blow them out of the water with something crazy.

But if you are getting like genuinely like close to 30 mil a year for chris godwin 28 29 something like that that might be more than tampa can afford and that might be a situation where you could get him to come over and be your wide receiver one and i think i'd rather to piggyback off of another good idea you brought up in Cooper Cup, I'd rather overpay Godwin at 29 than send assets and take on a lot of money for a 32-year-old Cooper Cup. But obviously the world doesn't work that way. Like obviously there's a chance you don't have a shot at Godwin. But if I was just ordering what I would do,

like Godwin would be the 1A by a good margin. T. Higgins went to school at Clemson. Just shouting that out. But he's not from Carolina. I just had to look this up. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is actually outside of Knoxville, I think. T. Higgins' hometown in his Wikipedia ever, whoever gives him $37 million a year. He's not getting 37.

I know. Do you think the Patriots offer that though? 47. What do you think the Patriots offer that open market, open market T Higgins? What does he get? What's the over under set at by Vegas? Let's pull up the receiver contracts,

which is the adult way of doing this. I guess this is with just no numbers in front of me. I would think the, I would think the over under would be like 20, no, 26, five starts at a three. Oh,

you think it's, it's for sure. Starting with a three to put in perspective. Hold on. Yeah. Well, hold on. This is open free perspective. Hold on. Yeah, well, hold on. This is open free agency.

Didn't Jefferson sign for 35? 35. Okay. CD 34, AJ Brown 32, Amon Ra a little over 30, Ayuk 30 flat, Tyreek Hill 30 flat. This is open market free agency. All of those receivers, he's not at all.

I agree. I'm not saying I would do this. I want to make this really clear. I'm saying, what is the over under? You're saying if G Higgins power move, everybody walks out of Cincinnati. That's what we do.

Steve Soto, 15 years. We get what we want. I'll give him $57 million a year. I'm looking at the stats. I've looked at the stats. Hell, I'm looking at the stats right now. Strictly based off film, I'm giving T. Higgins $57.5 million a year.

I think I'd set the over-under at $30.5. I'm going to text Brad Spielberg the second that this podcast is over and i'm gonna say is connor high as a kite on a summer breezy day make it clear open free agency the bangles do not tag him nothing they're just like any benefit go see go see what you can get out there in the open market i think i think the patri Patriots would offer them 30. I said 30.5 is my over-under, so I'm going to go with that would be what the offer would be from an open market team.

I don't think they're alone, by the way, New England. Right. I think realistically, we've tried to give T. Higgins to a lot of teams, obviously, when we've done this fixture franchise, but I really do feel as though the Patriots or the Panthers feel like the team that's going to offer him the most money. Now it might not be the Panthers, depending again on how they deal with their restructured contracts of all

of those guys. Cause that's going to, that, that will, that will set basically how much they're going to spend here. But you know why I'm not insane. I'm not insane. I'm not insane. I'm not owned.

A 29-year-old Calvin Ridley. A year ago. Yeah. A year ago. Think of inflation in the NFL. A 29-year-old Calvin Ridley got 23. 23 is not even close to the same conversation. T. Higgins is 26.

Open market. I think the over-under is set at 30.5. No, I say 27. Maybe I am insane. 27.5. I don't know. That's what I say. I say 27.5.

All right. And you know, if this played out in real life, you'd get the good wide receiver, and I'd be like, well, we had a good process. That's what sucks about free agency. If this played out in real life, you'd get the good wide receiver, and I'd be like, well, we had a good process. And then we'd be dogs. That's what sucks about free agency. There is no consolation for second, third, fourth, fifth. You just sit there and go, well, we didn't get the player.

Dude, I can't remember. I can't remember who this was. Who was it? When I was covering the Bucs, there was a player who was a free free agent and i knew that the buccaneers were interested in it and it was one of those situations where the bucks like had a competitive offer into this player and then some other team came i don't i again i'll try to remember this player if i can remember it and let you guys know another podcast and then some other team i cannot remember who it was, basically came in and just went insane,

like 135% over market value. And it was basically a situation where it was like, are we talking about the same guy? Yep. Like, you just offered him that much money. He obviously took it. And it's like, you negotiate that correctly. Like, I genuinely think that Tampa had negotiated it correctly with this player, giving him a good amount of money Look, and it's like you negotiate that correctly. And someone earns it.

Tampa had negotiated it correctly with this player, giving him a good amount of money that was good for the team but also good for the player. And then another team came in and was like, yeah, actually, we'll give you five mil a year over whatever that number was. And it's like, what are we doing here? And that team gets that player, and the other team has to go, well, we handled that correctly, and tough shit.

You get the player. The Jets did that with C.J. Mosley. Oh, that was with Mosley? C.J. Mosley in 2019 signed a five-year, $85 million deal as an off-ball linebacker. Yeah, that deal was insane. I mean, that's half a decade ago. Insane, brother.

They were in another stratosphere to get the player. Stratosphere. It's a bad place to be. Yeah, it's when you got to be. You never want to negotiate from that. You basically lose every time. In football. In football.

I don't think you do in baseball because I think contracts are. You can lose, but they age differently. And there's no hard cap at all which is the whole gigantic reason like you either got money or you don't right in football you're pretty much all in the same playing field for the most part and there are so few scenarios where that makes sense and i think that's the really important part of having very solid pyramid a very solid pyramid of power on your organization to where you have to be able to check one another. The head coach has to be able to check the GM.

The GM has got to be able to check the head coach. The owner's got to be able to check the GM because you can't have somebody drunk with power, be like, nope, I'm sipping our Kool-Aid. I believe we're one player away. And then you do something massively stupid and you go, oh, it turns out we were five players away. And now we just have a lot of money dumped into one player and it doesn't really help us because it's not a quarterback. So there's just not nearly as many situations as fans or teams even. Right.

Say like, oh yeah, we're one player away. Are you? I don't know uh okay so to put all this with a bow before we get to the three-round mock draft we've moved on from miles sanders we moved on from dj one the rest of the team is relatively the same here i say we go we i say we put talanova who fong on this team and i say that we put one of chris godwin or t higgins on this team yeah godwin operate with a wideufanga on this team. And I say that we put one of Chris Godwin or T Higgins on this team. Yeah.

Godwin operate with a wide receiver one on this team on top of Xavier Leggett on top of Jalen Coker. And what's Adam Thielen's contract actually. A good thing to look up. Yeah. I don't know. Let's see. Let's see.

Oh, well he has like uncuttable money. So that's not. So Adamelan is on this team next year in theory oh no no no he had he had uncuttable money for this season but it's still kind of stupid to cut him like you're gonna save 3.4 mil but carry a five million dollar cap hit for a guy that is effective with your quarterback yeah if you post june one him you save the same amount of money that you save with miles sanders so you save 6.7 if you designate him to post june one which you can do because you don't have to do it with dj one him so okay maybe but ultimately like you said like i'm not exactly in the business of saying like hey you know like let's take weapons away from bryce young you know i'm not really in that business so

if you're comfortable with him and you like him, we can keep him there. And then we're adding another wide receiver two or one, I guess you could say like a Chris Godwin, a T Higgins, a Marquise Brown, a train for a Cooper cup, whatever it is. Like, I think that they should, they should go after somebody this off season, much like obviously they already tried to with Deontay Johnson.

It just didn't work out for them. I think that you do the same sort of thing at a heightened level this upcoming year. So you got a safety, you got a, you've got a wide receiver, a wide receiver one or a wide receiver two. And then if that's the case,

you're probably just settling for like a Michael Hoyt or something along the defensive line. You know, somebody new along the defensive line. I'll talk about him like that. Someone like a Michael Hoyt. Like he went to the dollar menu at McDonald's. That's what he talks about him.

Hey, brother. I know. Fish filet. Dude, back in high school, that gets you through. College, tough times. Did you? I'm going to ask you a question here because no one's listening this is going to determine our friendship moving forward did you ever just got to make sure

take a chicken sandwich and a double stack from mcdonald's and a double cheeseburger from mcdonald's take away one of the buns and put it together absolutely okay all right you're still invited to the wedding absolutely thank god it was really i'm really looking forward to it so i don't really do that at my wedding to be honest with you we're that's a legendary like end of wedding midnight snack idea that maybe only the bros would really appreciate but man oh i don't know say i was gonna say slam that yeah this isn't like a only men thing i just wonder if the like imagine like your elderly grandmother like hungry on the way out and you hand her a big chicken and a big double here you go grandpa oh but don't be a bulkin

oh man here goes grams it'll uh it'll soak up the tequila oh that's good all right so she's got three hours that's what we got for that team going into the mock draft format. You ready to go? Yeah, let's do this. Let's do it. Pulling up the beautiful mock draft simulator. You guys can get the fully unlocked mock draft simulator over at pff.com. You can unlock all seven rounds.

You know... Carolina's got two fourth round picks. That's what I'm looking at. Do we extend it out? Yes, let's do the fourth. Yes. All right, all right, all right. We're doing it.

All right, I'm about to start the mock. Swear to God. One of these four teams takes Mason Graham. I'll start over. There it is, the dagger. A good pick, though, from New England. It's not the end of the world. I hate it because it's realistic.

Right, this is life when you're picking a pick. New England could go Mason Graham. All right. What are we doing? I think we are taking Abdul Carter. Right? All right. I'll tell you what.

Go ahead. People listening on audio are like, what the hell just happened? So Mason Graham went through overall to the New England Patriots. So he's not on the board anymore. And if you want to say, like, oh, it's not realistic that the Patriots should take him, I do think that there is a reality where if you are picking No. 5 overall in the draft, Mason Graham is gone. Whatever the order of the teams are going to be when it's all said and done,

Mason Graham is one of the best three players in this class. And so it is more of a risk, in my opinion, to have him in No. 5. Now, you could say to yourself, well, the New York Giants and the Las Vegas Raiders are going to take quarterback, and they didn't take quarterback in this situation, but I don't know how quarterback's going to play out. So I don't think that's as much of a guarantee as we think that it might be.

Yeah, I guess the argument is, and it still keeps this realistic, is that, say, Shadur goes to the Giants at one and Cam Ward goes to the Raiders at two, or flip him, who cares, and say the Patriots take Travis Hunter, Jacksonville could still take Mason Graham. So it's not like you're sitting here and going, well, actually, when the quarterback, so. He could be off the board at five.

It sucks for us because he would have been a sick pick here. But hey, this is this is part of drafting. Yeah, he would have been. You don't always get what you want. Ain't that the truth, brother? What do you Carter? Where do you stand on Jalen Walker? Like his draft ceiling?

I like Jalen Walker. I think he'd be a top 15 pick in this draft. Yeah, I'm not taking him here but i i think i just i think he's gonna go real early i really know yeah i think he's going top 15 yeah i think if tyree i think earlier if tyree willison could go top 15 yeah he's a better prospect yes he is more impactful of what he does that's a very good way of putting it he's also better than lucas van ness where did did Van Ness go? Very early. I think 12th.

Yeah, he's better than Van Ness. Because they flipped with the Jets that year. They didn't make their 13th. Yep. Yeah, so you can easily talk about Jalen Walker going in the top 10, in my opinion. In a not insane draft, like this draft doesn't have insane blue chip chip talent everywhere i thought last year's was

better at the top so i think abdul kard is to pick i think so too um which is go ahead i was gonna say like will johnson gives you a pretty sick cornerback duo he does also depending on how you feel about jc horn right with the with the injuries that he has had over the last three years pending free agent if you think you are more likely than not to move on from him then you probably consider this with will johnson but i think it does have to be edge rusher abdul carter on one side jadavian clowny on the other uh you got some good guys in the middle obviously derrick Brown's coming back. You'll add Michael Hoy. You'll have A'shaun Robinson.

He's still on the team. Shai Tuttle, I think, is still on the team. You've got your deeper interior rotation, but I like edge rusher here still. I think Abdul Carter is an absolute demon on the edge. He's been fantastic basically since the first game. Look at this. I'm showing this on the screen for

everybody who's watching on YouTube. So three of his lowest graded games, not quite, but three of the lower tiered games. The first one is the very first game that he was a full-time edge against West Virginia. And in that game, he was going up against Wyatt Milam on some reps, not all of them, but he's a good player. Very good player since then he's been a monster he's got four games where he's graded at over an 84.1 and that's not just as a pass rusher on true pass sets he has a 92.5 pass rush grade and a 21.3 passers win percentage he's a beast he's a beast beast. He got Johnny Cornelius. Oh, did he? Pretty high.

Not defensive end? A little bit, yeah. Like, there was some wins there where I was. The thing is, Carter, he is so explosive, and he's starting to round out his moves. That's what you look for in an NFL guy. He's not just high effort, you know, getting sacks off of a twist or a stunt there there is special raw ability there and hey we had this conversation about a certain Penn State pass rusher this time last year who I think wasn't as good of a prospect as Carter is

Chop Robinson's playing good football right now for Miami. Yep. Playing really good football. He is. So you want to draft special traits at edge, even if you believe they're a little raw. And you made the perfect point, Trevor, that Carter's on the trajectory where he's gotten better month after month

this season. You know what's funny? Please tell. When you said he's got Johnny Cornelius, I thought you were talking about a college football award. That's why I said, oh, best defensive end? Because I thought you were talking about, like, the Johnny Cornelius award.

Brother, I can't keep up with all the names. I can't keep up with all these awards. No, the awards are ridiculous. All these names from, like, the 60s? Yeah, he got the Johnny Cornelius best pass rusher award. I thought you were like, I thought you said he's got the Johnny Cornelius.

The Johnny Cornelius good guy award. Best guy with the media all year. Most charity work. The Johnny Cornelius award. Not that he had a couple good reps against the Johnny Cornelius. The tackle for oregon in the big 10 championship i thought you said that's amazing johnny cornelius that is amazing

all right so we're picking the johnny cornelius award winner abdul carter yes congrats abdul carter nice job with the community just an incredible job. Got them at number 53 now. Let's see. Got some wide receivers on the board. Savion Williams still on the board. Xavier Restrepo. Ooh, Kamari Ramsey. Jaden Higgins.

Mason Taylor, Gunnar Helm. Jack Bash. Jack Bash. Wide receivers. A lot of talent. A lot of talent. Xavier Watts. Oh, baby.

Watts and Talanova Hufanga. Yeah, that's a nice... They complement each other well. Kind of nasty. Oh, Chris Paul, though. I do like Chris Paul a lot. I haven't caught up on linebackers yet. He is just really good to me.

He understands the position so well I know we're looking at it now on the screen the Florida game's a stinker he had a 44.9 grade and I understand that his his highest grade of games came at the beginning of the season where they weren't playing really great opponents but pretty good great good grade against LSU pretty good grades against Oklahoma Arkansas Georgia and Mississippi State to end the season in that rivalry game. 85.5 run defense grade, 85.9 coverage grade. I like Chris Paul, man. I would genuinely think about him here because... Well, they need linebacker.

Yeah. I don't love taking linebacker here because Panthers have a lot of needs, but linebacker is one of them. I know. And torn because I really like Jack Besch or Jaden Higgins here, too. That would make it some wide receiver one again, like T. Higgins, Chris Godwin, Marquise Brown. Gets fair. If you feel good about getting one of those guys and you'd likely get who's getting wrist surgery. And you got Coker. You got Cokeroker and we're not 100% cutting feeling,

but we could post June cut feeling. Yeah, you're right. We can probably wait on wide receiver in that scenario. I'm going to wait on wide receiver and I'm actually going to throw another name at you. Alfred Collins. Yeah.

I mean, they need help in the interior. Look at this man. That's what you love about Alfred Collins monster in the room. They always have that kind of two gapping hold the four contain like i you know what i really wanted mason graham obviously still would at five i actually like this scenario a lot better of abdul carter at five and then alfred collins at 53 as opposed to Mason Graham at five. And look at all the edge rushers that have gone.

Right. That's the thing. You got to get one. And he didn't just get one. He got a hell of a player. Ezeraku's gone. Kyle Kinnar's gone. JT Tui Maloa was gone.

Mike Green is gone. Jack Sawyer is gone. Omar Norman Lott is gone. Like Prince Leomond Miellon is gone. TJ Sanders, Landon Jackson. Like all these dudes are off the board. And I don't know if it's going to be that cool, like quite that much of a run,

but I think you got a better chance of picking the Alfred Collins at 53. I like this idea. I like Alfred Collins here a lot. I, now that like it all kind of comes together. All right, let's do it. Yeah.

Frid. And the front just looks so much more like an NFL team. Compared to what they've dealt with this year. Okay, yeah, they still do have the third round pick. Damn, Watts is still here? That's sick. I don't know if Watts would still be here. I guess 69.

It's not insane. That's not crazy. It's not. Let's see, who else we got? Kevin Winston Jr. is here not crazy. It's not. Let's see who else we got. Kevin Winston Jr. Is here from Penn State. Another safety. Winston's going to go back, right?

I think he would have to. Yeah, I haven't seen anything official from him, but one would think, why would you come out after? Because he's a true junior. Right. Why would you come out after this season? He did declare. Wow. Like I said all along kevin winston jr had to come out just had to come out you just got you got to capitalize on it

i actually don't love that decision no uh so shepter is calling it a partially torn ACL for who? Winston. Oh. So he's expected to be able to do drills at the combine. Okay. He was my favorite safety over summer, but now I feel like I'm playing more roulette.

I loved this player over summer. I thought he was the best, And that's counting Malachi, who is also a phenomenal safety in this draft. Yeah. But when I watched him and Malachi Starks from Georgia, I was like, oh wow, this is gonna be a really good safety class.

All right. So Kevin Winston Jr., we've said it all along. He had to declare this was the time to strike. Yeah. So we have, obviously he's on the board maxwell harrison the corner from kentucky if you wanted a young aggressive kentucky player yep um jeffrey brasa who we've talked about the linebacker from um oregon who is sort of that hybrid like safety linebacker type of a player.

Just solid grades throughout this season. Marcus Mabou. Yeah. I would only, let's see, 6'5", 300. I don't think you would need him. No. Tez Johnson would be fun. Airtine International, Trey Harris.

Airtine International, Trey Harris is still here. I think this is realistic. I think him being available at 69 is actually realistic. Nick Emanwari. And playing him at linebacker? Yeah, but you already have that in Tevin Wallace. Right, yeah. I don't want to go down that road again.

I wouldn't need that. Did you see Parker Brailsford went back too? I did, which is good because he can get bigger and stronger. Logan Jones also went back. Did you see that? No, I did not see that. That was looking like he was going to be my top center. Center class is dire.

Decimated. Dire. Holy smokes. I missed the. Decimated. Dire. Holy smokes. I missed the Logan Jones news. Yeah. I saw Brailsford. Wow. All right.

Well, cool. I believe. At least that's what I was told. Oh, I believe you. Well, you shouldn't. Drew Aller went back today as we sit here and record that. I told somebody that I asked about it. It was kind of the worst kept secret in the scouting community.

Like nobody expected Aller to come out. And the only reason people thought he would have would be to capitalize on a weak quarterback class. I would have. He would have went in the top 10. Going to keep it a buck with you. He would have went in the top 10. You think he would have gone in the top 10. Going to keep it a buck with you. He would have went in the top 10. Hey, you think he would have got in the top 10? Mm-hmm.

All right, then I think it's absolutely foolish that he would go back to school. Yeah, I think he would have went in the top 10. And he would have been, they would have sat him for a year, whoever took him, but. No, they wouldn't have. You're right, because everyone says that and they play him. The irresistible urge to play your guy you didn't want to have to play.

Yeah, and we're not falling for that anymore um hey he could change it hey if they they have a hot playoff maybe he says screw it i changed my mind man who do we go for here we got two d we got two defensive linemen we've been on this pick for a long time i know the draft is everybody's freaking out. I mean, the clock's been at zero forever. We got to go back to linebacker, right? And see what's there. Not that I have high expectations. I would like a linebacker. Oh, man.

Bross is basically the only one. Yeah, this isn't, this isn't. I don't hate this. No, no. I like Jeffrey Bross. He's a good player. I think he's good. I could don't hate this. No, no. I like Jeffrey Bross. He's a good player. I think he's good. I could be talked into this.

We're picking at 69 right now, and then we've got 106 and 115. So let's sort of think about the positions that we would want to attack. Can we take Winston, or do we think he's not going to be there? No, he's not going to be there at 106. No, no. No, at 69. Oh! Maybe because of the medical.

He has borderline round one tape from 2023. Yeah, but two years ago now. But he has a partially torn ACL and missed the season. So I don't think he'll go in the top 50. I think he's probably a second rounder. I think if we wanted to pick Kevin Winston Jr., we probably would have had to pick him at 53. I think that's fair.

But I don't know. I really don't know. Because safeties always go kind of late, it feels like. They really do. It's kind of nuts. I'm looking up the 2024 draft from last year. Hold on, let me... Let's see.

Let's see. Where's safety? Safeties. Tyler Newman was the first safety off the board at 47. Javon Bullard went 58. Cole Bishop, 60. Kalen Bullock, 78. That's where they tend to go.

I think we could get away with it with Winston. It's not unreasonable right now because he's not medically cleared yet. How do you feel about like Latham Ransom or Xavier Watts? Because if you feel good about any of them, then we can just say, all right, we're going to take a safety here. I, I,

Watts's range is awesome to me. And if you want to make a pro signing and then you pair Watts with that player, like Watts has a lot of range. As you see his snaps right there, he's played everywhere. I don't dislike Latham Ransom, by the way. I'm going to see how realistic this is.

Hold on. Oh, this is just DBs. We don't have safeties. Okay, that's dumb. All right, so Tyler Newman was the first one last year. Let's see. Where's the first safety? Brian Branch, I think, was the first safety the previous season

or the previous draft in 2023 at 45. Then Jatavion Martin was 47. DJ Turner was 60, but those guys were kind of like hybrid corners as well. Sidney Brown was 66. Yeah, this is sort of the range. Marte Mapu was 76. 2022, Cal Hamilton went 14. went 14 okay yeah obviously that was a lot higher lewis scene went 32 yikes that was a brutal one jalen petrie 37

taquan brisker's 48 now i think the safeties could go higher in this draft okay we're all just i don't know why we're having this conversation honestly people are like just Quan Brisk, here's 48. Now, I think the safeties could go higher in this draft. Okay. We're all just, I don't know why we're having this conversation, honestly. People are like, just make the fucking pick, morons. I think we go Jeffrey Brasa. Let's go linebacker. Okay.

We got there. All right, so we're going linebacker option there. 106 wide receiver. We're looking at wide receiver. Yeah. Let's see if we can get some value here. All right. Kobe Hudson,

Pat Bryant, Pat Bryant, Pat Bryant's a nice fit. Get a physical wide receiver. Yeah. Don't hate that. I don't hate it at all. I think that's the move.

Okay. Could go Pat Bryant. What about tight end? We got a tight end left. Cause remember if we're, it's basically just Jatavian Sanders if Tommy Trumbull's out of there. Right. Jackson Hawes, I do like. We don't have to pick him right now.

But again, that's the – Good name to keep in mind. T-Ferg. T-Ferg. I like T-Ferg. Could get T-Ferg. Oregon tight end Terrence Ferguson for everybody just joining us and not living and dying with the NFL draft since May,

like us very sick individuals. Fergalicious. Fergalicious. Best available. A lot of defensive guys, which kind of sets up well for it. Man, center. I wish we could pick a center. I just.

Jake Slaughter's been good from Florida. I haven't watched i haven't re-watched the centers in a while he got first team all-american so i wonder if i gotta go back and watch him then if he's going to be a priority day day three type of a dude so you've got edge rusher we've got defensive tackle we've got linebacker all right probably pat bryant here i think pat bryant's the value all right illinois wide receiver pat bryant gives you that x position yes on the line of scrimmage you can move xavier leggett around if you want to he doesn't just have to play attached to the line of scrimmage and then of course depending on what wide receiver you sign that gives you some pretty good depth like pat bryant is to me like a better version of basically what

jonathan mingo was Jonathan Mingo was. Like Mingo was more athletic, but he was more inconsistent. And Pat Bryant is like, okay, I'm not as athletic as Jonathan Mingo, but I am the contested catch on the line of scrimmage type of receiver that you wanted. Right. And he'll block for you, Pat Bryant, which you got to realize if you're trotting out some, you know, you have some big wide receivers

that can block. It's going to help the run game a lot for this team. How do you feel about J.J. Pegues? This would be a nice way to set up the D-line. We've spent a lot of resources on the defensive line in this exercise. Yeah, but we need it. But that's the whole goal. So you're not going to hear me argue against that.

He's a little bit of a different player. I love the versatility man i was gonna say he's different than what we got in collins which is why i like it piggies can play dn for you big dn he could play defensive tackle he's a really nice athlete he even you know like moonlights is a wildcat quarterback fullback type of a dude like this is somebody that it's just a good football player i want on my team yep that'd be a fun one jj piggies it is we're doing it look at this we loaded up this is actually this i think we'll hear good remarks for this draft hey see people come on mike let's get after it mike let's go mike get out of your seat b plus b plus. B-plus for Mike McCarthy here.

It's one of the highest grades Mike McCarthy's ever given us, grading the mock draft. As, of course, you guys know, Mike McCarthy, who spent a little bit of time at PFF. He still does. PFF intern. PFF intern. He still grades all the mock draft simulator grades here for us. So we got a little B-plus from Mike, so it's good to go.

All right. So to wrap it all up, Carolina Panthers. Not too much changing on the roster. You're getting a little bit flexible with some of the contracts you got. We're moving on from Miles Sanders, moving on from DJ Wanham. We're signing a big-time wide receiver. You want to have T. Higgins, Chris Godwin, Marquise Brown, maybe trading for Cooper Cupps, something like that.

We're bringing in Talanova Hufanga. We're moving on from Fuller, so he's going to be the starting strong safety for you. We've got Michael Hoyt. We're also adding to Fuller, so he's going to be the starting strong safety for you. We've got Michael Hoyt. We're also adding to the interior defensive line. And then for the draft, it's Abdul Carter on one side. It's Jadavion Clowney on the other. It's Alfred Collins in the middle, along with Derek Brown and J.J.

Pegues there as well, along with, again, Michael Hoyt is there. So we're totally retooling the rotation of the defensive line for the Panthers. Jeffrey Basa is now at the linebacker spot as well with Tevin Wallace and Josie Jewell. Wide receiver Pat Bryant to really make that wide receiver group even deeper. And there we go. That is us fixing the Carolina Panthers. We would love to hear from you guys.

Of course, we love doing these Fix Your Franchise series. And the reason why we do is because we get to hear from diehard Panthers fans and just fans of the teams that we do this series for. So way to do that youtube.com backslash at nfl stock exchange if you're audio only you can hit us up on twitter and instagram as well at tave of a tray at connor j rogers uh connor anything else before we get out of here really fun doing this series this year i feel like it took a huge step forward it's awesome how on board everybody got the demands for their franchise, people listening to Fix Your Franchise,

even if it's not a team that they root for, I think is the coolest part. It gives you a really good grasp of the bottom of the NFL, the lower half of the NFL. While everybody's talking about the playoffs and moving forward, we talk about the teams that are trying to get it right for next year. I really enjoyed it, man.

I have too. Appreciate everybody and all the love, all the interaction, even if it wasn't all the interaction that we've had from your franchise. We understand that not everybody's going to agree with our takes. We don't just do this podcast because we want everybody to agree with us. We're doing it because we love the conversations. It's a lot of fun. And the what if, the team building, like Connor said, is a ton of fun.

So whether you're a fan of one of these teams or just wanting to get it in the conversation we love you guys thank you so much this makes it so much fun for us to do we are not done this week the schedule is going to change a little bit just to let everybody know it's going to be a little bit flexible with certainly with the holidays and with Christmas and with New Year's coming up because we want to get into more early position rankings episode we did wide receiver in case you missed that. You can go back on the channel. We did that for last week. We're doing quarterback this week,

but we are, as of right now, planning on recording that on a Friday. So it's going to be a little bit later. It's going to give us a little bit more time to watch a little bit more extra film. And as we move forward, since a lot of these podcasts that we're doing aren't necessarily timely to the Monday results,

you know, sometimes if we're doing a mock draft episode, we'll probably do it on a Monday, but we might even be switching when the first podcast episode is of the week to give us more time to watch some of this film to make sure that these early rankings episodes are as thorough as they can be for us to give them to you. So just wanted to say that as the holiday season is approaching,

the episodes might be a little mixed and match of when they're coming out, but we promise we're going to give you guys as much as we possibly can over this next month. I'm Trevor Sycamore. That is Connor Rogers saying, thank you guys so much for watching and listening to the NFL stock exchange podcast. We'll see you guys later this week.