They’ll Likely Be Back, But The 53 Might Elude Them
There are always a few players on the fringe of a roster who teams don’t feel confident enough to move on from completely, but also aren’t going to pencil them into a roster spot sooner than they have to. The Panthers will likely bring all of the following players back, but that is far from a commitment to them beyond training camp – all will likely face strong competition in training camp for a chance to be a member of the 2019 Panthers’ roster.
Some, like Taylor Heinicke, Marshall Newhouse, Fozzy Whittaker and Ben Jacobs haven’t been bad, but are either fairly replaceable or likely don’t fit in well with the rest of the Panthers roster. This is most obviously true for Fozzy Whittaker – who is a genuinely good scat back – but with McCaffrey on the roster, all of the snaps Whittaker used to get are now likely to go to him. The Panthers will likely want him back in case something happens to McCaffrey, but it’s always going to be hard to give a roster spot to a guy who is going to a special-teams-only guy at 30 years of age. The other guy the Panthers will likely bring back is Amini Silatolu, as while he really has done little to show that he is deserving of a spot on an NFL roster, that hasn’t stopped the Panthers from bringing him back in the past.
The ‘Role’ Guys
S Colin Jones
The Patriots famously use the ‘Do your job’ mantra, a mantra which is highly applicable to NFL roster construction, and on every roster there are a handful of guys who have a particular role and do it well – but lack the talent to develop into anything more than a role player. For the Panthers, Kyle Love and Colin Jones are two such guys, as while both are good players, neither are quite enough to be considered legitimate starting players at the NFL level, but in the case of Love offer excellent value as a rotational piece and in the case of Jones provide a high level of play on special teams while offering depth at a range of positions.
Both Love and Jones will be in their early thirties come the start of the 2019 season, and while one or both of them might fancy a change of scenery, they will have spent a combined 14 seasons in Carolina come free agency and as long as the Panthers are willing to extend the courtesy of offering them fair compensation for their work then it should be hoped that they are back in Carolina next season doing what they do best.
A Little Extra Money
As they did last offseason, the Panthers also have the ability to free up some extra cap space by letting players go. While there are a lot of players they could release to do this, some are probably not going anywhere – Cam Newton, Luke Kuechly et al – and some don’t have large enough cap figures for the Panthers to look to free up space by letting them go. When these players are disregarded, there are four players the Panthers might look to release in order to create some cap space.
Ross Cockrell will miss all of the 2018 season due to injury, but before he went down he looked primed to take over the nickel role held by Captain Munnerlyn. Given that, and the $8.6m they are due to be paid in 2019, it would be a surprise to see both players on the 2019 roster. This is a decision that might wait until training camp, as Cockrell’s injury will make it hard for the Panthers to commit to him early on and Munnerlyn’s play has been inconsistent enough to give Cockrell a real chance of winning the role. Cutting either player would release around $2m and while that isn’t a huge amount, that would likely cover a good chunk of the rookie salaries for next season.
One player who is far more likely to be gone come training camp is Da’Norris Searcy, as with everybody healthy and resigned, he would likely be the fourth safety on the roster and the Panthers can save nearly $3m by letting him go – or if he were to retire. If neither Reid nor Adams return, he might come back to avoid them having to draft a safety once again, but if he isn’t a starter going into the draft, it is going to be hard to justify that cap number – especially given how hard it was for him to stay healthy this season.
Finally, there is Torrey Smith. The Panthers traded for Smith prior to this season, and while they didn’t give up much to get him – Daryl Worley was likely to be cut regardless – Smith’s $5m cap hit is hard to justify given that he is averaging less than 30 yards per game for the season despite nearly five targets per game. Smith is undeniably a good influence in the locker room and the Panthers would be wise to bring him back, but likely not for the money he is due. This could be a similar case to Charles Johnson a few years ago, where Smith is released only to be resigned for a lesser amount, but in a league where teams are consistently close to the cap every season, it is going to be hard to pay $5m to a guy who is likely on the bottom half of the receiver depth chart. If the Panthers’ receivers had fallen apart with Smith out against the Ravens, there might be more of a case for keeping him, but at this point the comparison with Jerricho Cotchery makes a lot of sense – only Cotchery wasn’t making $5m.
It is obviously far too early to preorder your 2019 jerseys based on this kind of speculation but despite the Panthers having a lot of pieces up in the air after this season, there is a reasonable chance that most of them come to rest back in Carolina. This team doesn’t have a lot of holes and if they aren’t using their draft capital to replace free agent losses, then it will be all the easier for them to compete in 2019, but money is always tight in the NFL, and the Panthers are almost certainly going to have to compromise somewhere along the line – according to Spotrac, Carolina would have $23m in cap space heading into 2019 if all things remained equal. Still, there is a lot of 2018 football left, and the Panthers should certainly not be looking to 2019 for a while.
But it’s never too early.
