Mr. Scot

He was a cut though, signed prior to the start of the tampering period.

Interior. Pretty sure he used to play center for the Vikings.

Didn't need to google Elflein. He's been talked about here before. Good player but has been injured some over the last few years if I recall correctly. Signed on a reasonable deal too.

I think this is actually the first news I've seen of a player signing with a different team. Sure as hell didn't expect that distinction to belong to us.

Or maybe not. Apparently the Panthers have signed Pat Elflein.

If you're F5ing this thread, you might just be abusing your keyboard.

Another re-sign, one that some people thought might be a good signing for less than elite money...

Pretty much all of the initial news is teams re-signing their own players, including apparently Tampa and Shaq Barrett.

Interesting note...

LG pointed out he's still paid among the top 10 guard salaries. You can think that's just because he played for Meyer during his last 2 years of college if you want. Reality though is that Norwell was never bad, just overpaid.

I'd be surprised... ...but I've been surprised before.

*Jansen isn't official yet, but has reportedly agreed to terms.

Barr was speculated as a possible cap casualty.

Haason Reddick, though he's not expected to be cheap. Might also be wise to look at former Seahawks (James Carpenter and KJ Wright come to mind).

Very possible. Of course if they don't, they can still make a tender offer as long as they do it before free agency opens.

Well, Smith definitely isn't going back to Tennessee, so there's that.

A pay cut was reasonable since he was overpaid by a prior GM. To be fair though, he's still making well above vet minimum.

I think most of us believe they will. I'm admittedly a little perplexed as to why they haven't yet though, given that they made tender offers to all our other RFAs in pretty short order. Mind you, it's possible that maybe they're working on something more than just a tender offer.

To be fair, the credit for the Saints drafting more properly belongs to Jeff Ireland. The pro personnel side of things was under Terry Fontenot, who's now GM of the Falcons. It's going to be interesting to see if things change since they lost Fontenot (almost lost Ireland too).

Noteworthy: Although there's a general expectation that the team will make a tender offer to Efe Obada, they have yet to do so. If they don't make one by 4pm Wednesday, he becomes an unrestricted free agent.

It's an easy mistake to make.

After, if they fill them. The Panthers currently list Sean Padden as "Vice President of Football Operations", so Bryan Porter's position may have become redundant. Despite the title, my understanding is that "Director of Football Operations" wasn't really a "football" position per se. It was a logistics position, planning travel to road games and stuff like that. Mark Carrier's Executive Director of Football Staff position was probably redundant too. Marty was looking to get Carrier into the football side of Panthers front office so it's possible the title was created specifically for him, but Rhule and Fitterer didn't share that particular interest, so... That leaves the Assistant GM spot, something we haven't had for a while but which I think we could actually use (and Tepper seems to agree). I've seen lots of speculation that the Panthers could go after Dan Morgan for that job, and it makes sense not only because of Morgan's connection to the team but because he and Scott Fitterer have a mutual respect for each other. Morgan credits Fitterer for teaching him how to do personnel work. I know a lot of us would love to see that happen.

Pretty good read (subscription required) A realistic look at 18 possible free agent targets (of all flavors) Don’t look for the Panthers to kick off free agency this week with a big spending spree, as Matt Rhule and Scott Fitterer have tempered expectations for a team that remains in a rebuild. Acquiring the Texans’ Deshaun Watson would certainly speed the process. But the Panthers have needs besides a franchise quarterback. “We’re not just one player away,” Rhule said last week. “We’re in a situation where we have to keep building our team. … We have to be really targeted.” With Christian McCaffrey and Shaq Thompson restructuring their contracts last week, the Panthers have about $30 million in cap space, although Rhule said it’s effectively $13 million after accounting for rookie contracts and the $7 million the team will set aside for in-season moves. The Panthers made a $13.75 million commitment to right tackle Taylor Moton last week, and there will be teams that come out of the gates with wallets open this week. But with the salary cap shrinking to $182.5 million, expect to see a number of players take one-year contracts so they can hit the market again after the new TV money kicks in. It sounds like this is where the Panthers plan to do a lot of their shopping, beginning with Monday’s start to the legal tampering window. “We’ll talk to a lot of agents starting on Monday and see where the market is,” Fitterer said. “However, this might be one of those years where if you just wait and are patient, you might be able to get quite a few players in that middle class who get pinched by the cap. Even though we’ve created a lot of cap room, this is not a year we’re going to go wild spending money. We’re going to be very judicious in how we go about this.” The Panthers will home in on specific position groups and figure to be most active during the second wave of free agency.

Shaq Lawson got traded to the Texans. Carl Lawson is a free agent, though he's stated he'd prefer to return to the Bengals.