The imminent start of the Combine means many things, from mock drafts to big boards to tales of coaches standing on tables at Prime 47 – but among all of the 40 times, Greg Olsen cameos and inappropriate interview questions, one thing that often goes a bit under the radar is that this is often the time of year that teams look to cut players to create cap space in anticipation of free agency.
Last season, this saw the Panthers release the likes of Kurt Coleman and Jonathan Stewart during Combine Week and this Monday has already seen the release of Captain Munnerlyn and the team declining to re-sign Mike Adams – who might be in the crosshairs next?
Da’Norris Searcy
Searcy isn’t a bad safety, but what he is – and always has been – is a box safety who struggles when asked to cover downfield. That isn’t necessarily an issue, but with the Panthers resigning Eric Reid, another safety who works best in the box, this means that one of the two will have to play significantly out of position or Searcy will be demoted to a depth piece. The issue then becomes how much is too much to pay a depth safety, and given the Panthers can release nearly $1.9m in cap space by moving on from Searcy, that might qualify as “too much”.
If they do move on from Searcy, there are familiar options they could turn to, as fellow free agent Colin Jones offers the ability to play in the box and Rashaan Gaulden is still improving in the secondary – the resigning of Damian Parms as training camp competition makes moving on from Searcy even more likely.
Torrey Smith
Whether the Panthers opt to keep Smith or not is very hard to predict – on paper, it is very clear that he is somebody they should move on from. After all, the Panthers paid Smith nearly $300,000 per catch last season, and over $25,000 per yard. For comparison, at that rate the Panthers would have paid Christian McCaffrey over $49m last season… and Smith’s role is only likely to decrease in 2019. Additionally, as the Panthers could free up $5m next season by releasing Smith – this really should be a slam dunk, so what’s stopping them from doing this?
In short, Smith is a true leader in the locker room, and given the youthfulness of the Panthers’ receiving core and offense in general, that isn’t without value. Unlike with Munnerlyn and even Searcy, Smith is somebody the Panthers probably really want to keep around, they just might not be able to justify doing so. At the end of the day, the Panthers might look to do what they did with Charles Johnson a few years ago – releasing Smith only to resign him for a smaller amount. There is obviously a real risk in trying this tactic, as Smith would be well within his right to walk about the door and not look back, but given the amount of cap they could save by moving on, that is a risk they’ll likely have to take.
The Elephant Of A Contract In The Room
There has been a lot of talk about the Panthers potentially moving on from Matt Kalil this offseason, and while that is a real possibility – releasing him with a post-June 1st cut would save $7.25m against the 2019 cap, albeit with a large dead cap designation, as things stand right now, however, he would be the Week 1 starter at left tackle. As long as that remains the case, it will be hard for the Panthers to move on from him. However, once the Panthers sign/draft another tackle, expect the Panthers to move on from Kalil, who will have only played 16 games of a five-year, $55m contract.
