Mr. Scot

@rayzor, here are some of the names and info from Person's article on potential free agent connections... S Jessie Bates (Bengals): With Jeremy Chinn likely moving closer to the line in Ejiro Evero’s 3-4 scheme, Bates would be a great complement to Xavier Woods on the back end. ILB Tremaine Edmunds (Bills): Edmunds is the middle linebacker in Buffalo’s 4-3 base, but would look good in any defense. DL Dre’Mont Jones (Broncos): Jones started a career-high 13 games in 2022 during Evero’s lone season as the Broncos’ defensive coordinator...Jones could slide into the other defensive end spot opposite Derrick Brown. WR Jakobi Meyers (Patriots): Meyers should cash in. Because he’s young (26) and coming off a productive season (67 receptions for 804 yards and six TDs), Meyers likely will price himself out of the Panthers’ plans. TE Dalton Schultz (Cowboys): It makes more fiscal sense to draft a tight end, but Schultz would be a huge asset for a young quarterback. Edge Yannick Ngakoue (Colts): The 6-2, 246-pound Ngakoue spent his first four seasons in Jacksonville under defensive coordinator Todd Wash, the Panthers’ recently hired defensive line coach... Ngakoue then bounced around four teams the past three seasons, including last year with Reich in Indianapolis. LB Bobby Okereke (Colts): This seems like a no-brainer. As mentioned, the Panthers could stand another inside ‘backer And the 26-year-old Okereke was with Reich in Indy the past four seasons, ranking among the top 15 in the league in tackles each of the past two years. One obstacle blocking a reunion with Reich in Charlotte: Bears coach Matt Eberflus TE Mike Gesicki (Dolphins): Gesicki saw his targets decrease by a stunning 54 percent in Mike McDaniel’s first season in Miami. But Gesicki caught at least 50 passes in the three previous seasons and is still only 27. WR D.J. Chark (Lions): The Panthers needed a receiver who could stretch the field even before sending Moore to the Bears. That’s where Chark comes in. Edge Ogbonnia Okoronkwo (Texans): Fitterer identified Luvu and Reddick as two athletic pass rushers whose best years were in front of them. Okoronkwo looks to be in the same category:. WR Mecole Hardman (Chiefs): The Panthers are among the teams interested in the speedy Hardman... He was headed toward his best year last season — with six touchdowns in eight games — before injuries sidelined him. WR Parris Campbell (Colts): Another fast guy! And another player with ties to Reich. There’s a trend developing here. Campbell was injured his first three seasons, but stayed healthy during a career year in 2022. RB Jamaal Williams (Lions): Williams could rejoin former position coach Duce Staley in Carolina WR Mack Hollins (Raiders): Hollins was pretty far down the Eagles’ depth chart when Reich was in Philly. But the 6-4, 221-pounder tripled his career best with 690 receiving yards last year in Vegas, plays special teams and is a “glue guy” in the locker room. He also shouldn’t cost much. G/C Daniel Brunskill (49ers): With guards Austin Corbett and Brady Christensen recovering from serious leg injuries, bringing in an experienced interior lineman such as Brunskill seems prudent. C/G Evan Brown (Lions): Like Brunskill, Brown is another interior lineman with position flexibility. LB Alex Singleton (Broncos): The former Eagles linebacker was one of the league’s best values last year. After signing a one-year, $1.1 million deal, Singleton amassed 163 tackles — the most by a Broncos defender in 15 years — as an inside linebacker for Evero. Insert eyeball emoji here. RB Boston Scott (Eagles): Scott was a rotational back under Staley in Philadelphia. He also can return kicks: His 27.1-yard average last year would have ranked in the top five in the NFL if he’d had enough returns to qualify. ... Also mentioned as possible signings: QB Jacoby Brissett (Browns) QB Andy Dalton (Saints) Edge Leonard Floyd (Rams) LB Bobby Wagner (Rams) S Nick Scott (Rams)

Excerpts from he analysis part... Is general manager Scott Fitterer going to follow that with some big splashes when free agency starts Wednesday? Probably not, given his track record since coming to Carolina two years ago. Some of Fitterer’s best work has come during the second wave of free agency, after the dust has settled on the biggest names and biggest contracts. Haason Reddick, Frankie Luvu, Bradley Bozeman and Matt Ioannidis are among the value signings who have paid off for the Panthers. ... Zeroing in on players with high upside who won’t break the bank is especially important this year. The Panthers have a long list of needs — with receiver moving to the top after DJ Moore was included in the Bears’ trade. But they’re also looking for a bridge quarterback to work with whichever QB they draft at No. 1, a pass-catching tight end, speed at linebacker, depth along both lines and maybe a ball-hawking safety. Fitterer won’t be able to cross off all those items in free agency, which begins at noon ET Monday with the legal tampering period. But it helps that Frank Reich has a veteran-laden coaching staff with connections to players at all positions across the league. ... I'll pull some tidbits from his free agent list here in a second.

Gimme a minute...

From what I've read, the question of where to raise their family was one of the reasons they left Baltimore.

Well, ya know...

Mods, this should be pinned too

Could this affect Bozeman, I wonder

@TheCasillas , I looked at the link. Didn't see anything about the Giants. Saw they did misspell Gantt's name in giving credit to the source.

I think we'll be better off if we keep the NFL discussion separate from the Panthers discussion, but I'll leave that up to the mods.

No mention of the Panthers...

A thread for news and rumors specific to the Panthers as the legal tampering period begins... Here are a couple of good preview articles to start us off.

Giants?

Passing accuracy, processing speed, football intelligence, and pocket presence are things that make a great quarterback at the NFL level. Running ability is a "nice to have" but it's not an essential. CJ Stroud has the quarterbacking skills already. That's why he's a far superior candidate to Richardson.

If we stay at 1, I'll be highly surprised if it's not Stroud.

The skills that he has are mostly just physical traits. A couple of teams have gone the route of trying to take physical specimens and train them to be quarterbacks. It hasn't proven to be a good strategy. That's why I'm not a fan of drafting Richardson (or Will Levis, for that matter). You take the guy who already knows how to play the position. If he's also a great athlete, fine. But having actual quarterback skills will always trump having athletic skills.

I remember Prisco having a back and forth with Tom Sorenson back when Sorenson was writing for The Observer. My favorite though was when he made a list of the ten best quarterbacks in the league listing Chad Pennington as the tenth. Then had an angry exchange with a reader where he proclaimed that Pennington wasn't a top ten quarterback

Breer is probably the best behind the scenes reporter you can find. And with the trade being over, there's no reason for anybody to smokescreen any of this stuff. Hell, look at what he said about the Panthers discussions (or lack thereof) with the Colts and Texans.

Yeah, pretty much every iteration I've seen of "the Panthers like" is "Stroud and (insert player here)". Stroud is the only guy everybody seems to be able to agree on the Panthers wanting. Worth noting though that this doesn't guarantee he'll be the guy.

Breer actually stated that one of the reasons we decided to go all the way up to #1 is that there wasn't a huge difference between what the Bears wanted and what the Cardinals wanted for their respective picks.

Not at all... If you like more than one player equally, you could move back, gain additional picks to make your roster even better and still get one of the guys you wanted. Don't know that anything like that will happen but if it did, I'd call that pretty smart.

Hate to tell ya but per Dane Brugler, Frank Reich really likes Levis.

Tis the season...