NFL Free Agency

[LinvilleGorge]

9 minutes ago, PleaseCutStewart said:

Curious if we would entertain the option of moving Moton to LT and having Yosh play RT (if we resign him) if we aren't able to get a good free agent LT or draft one. Not sure how Moton would look on the left side, but I thought Yosh looked a lot better at RT than LT last season

Most of the fanbase has been talking about Moton at LT pretty much ever since we drafted him. Pretty clear that's just not something the Panthers are going to entertain for whatever reason and at this point after playing exclusively RT for so long I'm sure it wouldn't be the plug and play switch that fans envision. Everything you've been doing for your entire NFL career now gets reversed.

[Mike2.0]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Most of the fanbase has been talking about Moton at LT pretty much ever since we drafted him. Pretty clear that's just not something the Panthers are going to entertain for whatever reason and at this point after playing exclusively RT for so long I'm sure it wouldn't be the plug and play switch that fans envision. Everything you've been doing for your entire NFL career now gets reversed.

In someways it’s best to keep Moton at RT after nine seasons because as you say, everything would be reversed, so it might not be an easy switch. Besides, Moton has consistently been one of our highest rated players at his position via PFF. So I’d keep him at RT and find an upgrade at LT via the draft or FA. 

[frankw]

When preseason rolls around this year Taylor Moton will be 32. Too far in the game now to start tinkering. Just keep him where he is.

[frankw]

14 hours ago, strato said:

I saw today where the tag for a C was something like 28 mil. Because the rules lump all OL positions together for the tag number calculations. 
 

So Baltimore will likely not be tagging Linderbaum, I mean… would you? Doesn’t mean they can’t get him back. 
 

I wouldn’t mind paying if they could make the numbers work. Because now we are gonna be weaker at LOT to start with, but beyond that we kind of half measured the interior with not upgrading C. 
 

Get stout all across the inside. 

Center should have been addressed in the draft already. Just a simple truth.

[strato]

28 minutes ago, frankw said:

Center should have been addressed in the draft already. Just a simple truth.

You can argue ‘should’. It certainly could have been. And might be this year. You gonna complain if we instead sign the best proven C out there?

[frankw]

8 minutes ago, strato said:

You can argue ‘should’. It certainly could have been. And might be this year. You gonna complain if we instead sign the best proven C out there?

Depends on the price tag.

But as another poster has noted in another thread. We are not going to be able to continue to spend our way out of our OL challenges via free agency dollars. And we certainly cannot keep shining Dan Morgan's shoes like he's the executive of the year for doing so. Any huddler here could do that. And even if we continue down that path we are going to end up in the same boat when it's all said and done. When our offense is laboring to make it anywhere near the end zone and our defense cannot save the day it's just going to be a repeat of the same scapegoating as last year. We'll blame the DC we'll blame the defense for not winning us the game etc. Anything to divert from the reality that our FO has put us in these predicaments to prop up a bad pick.

Edited 3 hours ago by frankw

[strato]

1 hour ago, frankw said:

Depends on the price tag.

But as another poster has noted in another thread. We are not going to be able to continue to spend our way out of our OL challenges via free agency dollars. And we certainly cannot keep shining Dan Morgan's shoes like he's the executive of the year for doing so. Any huddler here could do that. And even if we continue down that path we are going to end up in the same boat when it's all said and done. When our offense is laboring to make it anywhere near the end zone and our defense cannot save the day it's just going to be a repeat of the same scapegoating as last year. We'll blame the DC we'll blame the defense for not winning us the game etc. Anything to divert from the reality that our FO has put us in these predicaments to prop up a bad pick.

Well when I look at the OL I see two OTs on rookie or journeyman deals n say, 2027 maybe 2028. I think the long term deal for Icky will be off the table. At a point the Hunt deal will be nearing or at its end. 
Depending on how they decide to approach it, this OL could be 60% to 80% different than 2025 fairly soon.  
 

Edited 2 hours ago by strato

[Soul Rebel]

29 minutes ago, strato said:

Well when I look at the OL I see two OTs on rookie or journeyman deals n say, 2027 maybe 2028. I think the long term deal for Icky will be off the table. At a point the Hunt deal will be nearing or at its end. 
Depending on how they decide to approach it, this OL could be 60% to 80% different than 2025 fairly soon.  
 

This is a good way of thinking. IF Linderbaum is available, I think you could justify swapping out Icky's extension money here and figure out LT & RT for the future. Icky ain't playing in '26 and if he does, it will not be indicitive of a big pay day.

If he wants that, he will have to look elsewhere considering he only really stepped up his play this past year. 

I do see a world where Linderbaum is our center of the future, Tillis kicks Tyler's "big money" down the road a year to when he can finegle the futures of Lewis, Hunt and Moton. We solidify the middle (a problem we've had since Kalil left) with a 26-year old center, and spend the next two offseasons finding a couple of tackles and one guard replacement. 

I'm thinking Lewis stays at LG and Hunt is a post-6/1 cut in 2027.

Hunt: $5.3M in dead cap for '27 & '28, but frees up $19M in 2027.

Moton $7M in dead cap for '27 and '28, but opens up $21.5M in 2027.

There's $40M in cap space with the release of Hunt and Moton. 

$20M for Linderbaum, $10M in dead money (Moton accounts for $28M alone in 2027)

This still leaves $10M to play with next offseason.

[strato]

26 minutes ago, Soul Rebel said:

This is a good way of thinking. IF Linderbaum is available, I think you could justify swapping out Icky's extension money here and figure out LT & RT for the future. Icky ain't playing in '26 and if he does, it will not be indicitive of a big pay day.

If he wants that, he will have to look elsewhere considering he only really stepped up his play this past year. 

I do see a world where Linderbaum is our center of the future, Tillis kicks Tyler's "big money" down the road a year to when he can finegle the futures of Lewis, Hunt and Moton. We solidify the middle (a problem we've had since Kalil left) with a 26-year old center, and spend the next two offseasons finding a couple of tackles and one guard replacement. 

I'm thinking Lewis stays at LG and Hunt is a post-6/1 cut in 2027.

Hunt: $5.3M in dead cap for '27 & '28, but frees up $19M in 2027.

Moton $7M in dead cap for '27 and '28, but opens up $21.5M in 2027.

There's $40M in cap space with the release of Hunt and Moton. 

$20M for Linderbaum, $10M in dead money (Moton accounts for $28M alone in 2027)

This still leaves $10M to play with next offseason.

Yeah you’d probably want to do a big signing bonus small salary for Linderbaum in 2026.  
Icky’s 5th year is guaranteed but you won’t likely be paying him anywhere near what his extension when healthy would have called for. 
 

We have a year to play Icky’s situation as unknown. By the end of the season they should know how he is healing. You got G, ROT, even LOT still maybe, and off the roster coming for 2027 with him. 
 

I am figuring we have to draft a T high in (one of) the next two drafts.  If not two Ts. There will be a lot of flexibility with Moton easing out of the picture and possibly Hunt. 
I don’t see how we keep paying that money for G but if we had two OTs on rookie deals, it could be worked out I would think. 

Edited 41 minutes ago by strato