Panthers Top 15 Paid Players at Position

[Panthering]

Regardless of positional value and all that at least I like all of these players except for the Safety I don't know anything about. Good culture guys from top to bottom there who want to actually try and build something up in Charlotte.

[Shocker]

Horn is one of the top corners in the league.  GTFH with that

[kornicova]

5 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

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.

Yeah I'm with you. It is a huge risk, no doubt about that. 

When you look at the sticker price it also seems a lot worse than when you look at the Percentage of the cap. Looking at some very overly simple numbers on OTC if you compare JC's average annual salary of $25M it equals about 9% of the cap this year. Back in 2022 (just picked a random year) that would be about 5th on the list for CBs. So I don't think the contract is as bad as it might seem when you strictly look at the numbers.

[CanadianCat]

15 minutes ago, PNW_PantherMan said:

If only there were some mechanism for exchanging players for draft picks.

Im mean sure you can be smug about your answer, but you are only getting maybe a 2nd for him. Now you need to completely rebuild the entire secondary on top of the d-line. Yeah that sounds great. 

[mrcompletely11]

10 minutes ago, Shocker said:

Horn is one of the top corners in the league.  GTFH with that

there is no way you can objectively argue that

[CanadianCat]

Just now, mrcompletely11 said:

there is no way you can objectively argue that

"One of" Yeah I think most people in the NFL would say that. 

 

 

[mrcompletely11]

1 minute ago, CanadianCat said:

"One of" Yeah I think most people in the NFL would say that. 

 

 

maybe moving forward but certainly not from the previous 4 years.  The best ability is availability

[CanadianCat]

I think a lot of people dont actually understand the business of the NFL and thats clear when they say things like "he's only a top 15 player, why is he getting paid #1 money?!"

Cause thats how it works.. If you are an elite player nearing Free Agency then you will get paid top of the market. Its literally that simple. You dont need to be the best to get paid the best. Its timing. 

If you dont understand that, then probably best to stay away from most business related discussions. 

[kungfoodude]

14 minutes ago, Shocker said:

Horn is one of the top corners in the league.  GTFH with that

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.

[mrcompletely11]

5 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

I think a lot of people dont actually understand the business of the NFL and thats clear when they say things like "he's only a top 15 player, why is he getting paid #1 money?!"

Cause thats how it works.. If you are an elite player nearing Free Agency then you will get paid top of the market. Its literally that simple. You dont need to be the best to get paid the best. Its timing. 

If you dont understand that, then probably best to stay away from most business related discussions. 

Oh I am not saying he wasnt not going to get paid, he had morgan bent over, I am simply pointing out he is probably a top 10ish corner in the nfl

Edited March 14, 2025 by mrcompletely11

[kungfoodude]

10 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

Im mean sure you can be smug about your answer, but you are only getting maybe a 2nd for him. Now you need to completely rebuild the entire secondary on top of the d-line. Yeah that sounds great. 

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.

[CanadianCat]

1 minute ago, mrcompletely11 said:

maybe moving forward but certainly not from the previous 4 years.  The best ability is availability

True. So you can say that he is not worth the money because he has missed a bunch of games - and thats a fair argument. But you can also say that when he is available he is 'one of' the best CB's in the league. 

But now you need to value that. I doubt that he takes a deal worth less then he did (obviously) so then you need to determine is the draft pick we are going to get back for him worth it. 

So you can do what we did, or you can trade the player, thereby making the defence worse, but you have most cap space sitting there. 

So on sundays when we are getting blown out, you can still feel good that we have a lot of cap space. 

[kungfoodude]

8 minutes ago, CanadianCat said:

I think a lot of people dont actually understand the business of the NFL and thats clear when they say things like "he's only a top 15 player, why is he getting paid #1 money?!"

Cause thats how it works.. If you are an elite player nearing Free Agency then you will get paid top of the market. Its literally that simple. You dont need to be the best to get paid the best. Its timing. 

If you dont understand that, then probably best to stay away from most business related discussions. 

I think you have a very simplistic view of a pretty complex system, hence why you are getting emotional and confused.

The league is going through a market adjustment period for several reasons(COVID cap freeze, new TV deal, etc) but paying top dollar for players that aren't clearly elite isn't typically a wise long term investment, regardless of market changes.

Overpays literally happen every single offseason. We should know, we have done it over and over. Miles Sanders, Ian Thomas, CMC, etc, etc.

Edited March 14, 2025 by kungfoodude

[CanadianCat]

Just now, kungfoodude said:

I think you have a very simplistic view of a pretty complex system, hence why you are getting emotional and confused.

The league is going through a market adjustment period for several reasons(COVID cap freeze, new TV deal, etc) but paying top dollar for players that aren't clearly elite isn't typically a wise long term investment, regardless of market changes.

Overpays literally happene every single offseason. We should know, we have done it over and over. Miles Sanders, Ian Thomas, CMC, etc, etc.

I get that my example was not exhaustive of all the reasons, but it also is that simple (generally). Which is why some teams pay players years before the get to FA to save some money and bet that the player continues to develop. 

And I understand your point about Horn, but I dont think we are in a position to allow players of his caliber to leave. We had no succession plan for him. Had we let him go and Mike Jackson was our #1 corner on the team I might throw up.

So we need to over pay to get some stability - and hope the injuries are behind us.