kungfoodude

I don't know if that is true or not. Probably no one does because I don't think the Panthers FO ever listened to any offers for him. It doesn't really matter anyway, it's not like the Burns deal where a leak laid it all bare. Horn is here to stay. We just have to hope he stays healthy and proves to be worth the money.

Based on what exactly? This is sort of the crux of one of the issues. Even when he has played, he hasn't been an elite CB. A very good one, yes but he hasn't posted much in the way of consistently elite play or numbers or metrics or anything. Don't get it twisted, the ability is absolutely there but we are paying him for future elite play, not past elite pay. That's a gamble.

I agree. It is a position that has been dramatically mismanaged. Our draft selections have been fuging horrifying. TMJ, Mingo, XL, etc. We just keep making the same mistakes over and over. All in effort to replace a top 20 WR which....we had and traded away. Meanwhile, we fumble the "off limits" player in Brian Burns and get almost nothing for him. Unreal. I know people are really attached to the Warren idea(I really dislike it) but I do think we arw aggressively telegraphing that we probably take an EDGE at 8.

Or at least make the OG's be "homegrown" guys so that actual average compensation is at least offsef by a rookie deal. Two massive FA deals still seems like an unwise long term financial move. But, you can't question their impact to the OL. It has been night and day.

We did have an option(trade) but I do get that replacement is basically draft or nothing. I agree we criminally overpay on past performance(see CMC deal as a result example) but I don't know that gambling on quite literally the highest DB contract in NFL history is a good idea. Especially because of those healthy issues. Even more so because....he really hasn't consistently been elite. I love the player and I absolutely want to keep him around but the money is going to make that pretty difficult. If he spends the next two seasons dinged up again, he's probably literally going to be a cap casualty with no real compensation at all. It's just way more in the freewheel gambling realm than I am comfortable with.

Brian Thomas Jr. He is very, very good.

We are just going to disagree. I think that if you looked at a metric(PFF or maybe AV) you would find us in the bottom 5. Also if you did a subjective look at over all rosters and compare them to our WR corps, you are going to have a very difficult time making an argument against this being a bottom 5 unit. Because of the youth, there is definitely upside but AT, XL and Coker are not scaring anyone overall.

I see no reason why that wouldn't generally be the range of expected wins. Say 5-7. I think that is well within what we should be expecting as of today. The draft or further roster moves may move that line but I would like to hear the justification for this roster suddenly being massively better.

I don't think you will see a CB eclipse that until maybe next offseason. I don't believe there are any imminent deals for guys on rookie deals. The FA market does not have anyone that should be getting anywhere near that.

Yeah, I really don't like either of those contract options, TBH. I think roughly equivalent players can be had in the draft for nickels, comparatively. Oh well, we will see how it works out.

He isn't going to get that.

"Blowing up" is hyperbolic. They have been handing out massive contracts for 2-3 years now so eventually they were going to be forced to make tough choices. Plus they are now gonna have to actually pay their QB something above a dollar store rate. This was a predictable situation(there had been several articles on it over the past two seasons). The question is how much of an impact it will have on their overall outcome. Is it a retool or a mild rebuild?

Yeah, the Horn deal is bananas. He is genuinely not a top 10 player at his position, even when healthy. They are paying him for future performance and, TBH, I don't see it going well. Let's hope we are all wrong and he uses it as motivation to be the best. Moehrig is an interesting one. He is really going to have to play well to justify that, IMO.

I agree, I think he is a rotational guy but he has a top 20 contract at the position, which is completely nuts. That was my biggest heartburn. I don't have an issue adding some rotational pass rushing juice, I am all for it. But damn.....at that money???? Jesus.

I looked at 26 and we have about $89 mil but that is for 26 players with two contracts still yet to be posted. Overall, that's not great. Not terrible but we still have to fill out half a roster with moderately limited resources. Lots of time to tinker, though. There are 5 total void hits for 2026.

The investment overall in non-premium positions is eye opening, for sure.

I think a couple of deals still haven't posted. Plus, you figure we have the cap for the rookie deals and we probably sign some other warm bodies along the way. Ideally, we try to roll at least half that number. You have to consider we have two "premium" positions that decisions will need to be made on in the coming future, QB and LT. Those will be large chunks of money if those players are retained.

Here is are the current players on our team that have a top 15 AAV(per OTC) in their position group. Specialists were not included, as they rarely occupy much actual cap space. Damien Lewis: 8th LG Chuba Hubbard: 11th RB Robert Hunt: 3rd RG Taylor Moton: 10th RT Derrick Brown: 6th IDL Jaycee Horn: 1st CB Trevon Moehrig: 5th S

I don't either. I think it was a massive overpay and panic move. Overall free agency has been a pretty mixed bag for us, IMO. But it was last offseason too.

Oh Rodgers being an indecisive ***** again? Who saw that coming?!!!

Currently 31 players on contract in 2026 with $89,178,390 in cap space per OTC. However, 5 of those players are just void deals and 2 of the players the financial terms of their contracts have not been disclosed yet. So, we really aren't in great cap shape for 2026 at the moment. Lots more moves still on the table to see how it shakes out.

I will say we are accumulating a fair amount of players with substantial void years on their contracts. That isn't uncommon but we have to be careful that we don't go full Saints.

OTC shows it as: $26,699,732 Spotrac shows it as: $27,791,607

The part that keeps being infuriating about most of our whiffs is they are immediately apparent. It's rarely a "well maybe they will adjust and development" scenario. It's started a turd, ended a turd. That seems to be the Panthers draft strategy in the Tepper era. Just keep accumulating turds and watering them in the hopes they will eventually start sprouting flowers.