The Panthers continue to trim their roster as they head into the next stage of offseason workouts, announcing Monday morning that they have released veteran safety Da’Norris Searcy, who entered last season as the starter opposite Mike Adams before suffering two concussions in the course of 30 days and being placed on injured reserve.
They’ve also waived tackle Isaiah Battle.
While the move seemed preordained with the 30-year old Searcy having a similar skillset to safety Eric Reid, whom the Panthers gave a three-year contract extension to earlier this offseason, Searcy’s exit leaves a spot on the roster for either a free-agent safety to be signed – former Panther Tre Boston is still available – or for second-year player Rashaan Gaulden, who played safety at times last season and was also hinted to be in the mix for reps at nickel back in the upcoming season, to move into a larger role.
The move will grant the Panthers $1.76m in salary cap relief for the 2018 season; they currently have Reid – who will start at strong safety, Gaulden, veteran special teams captain Colin Jones, Damian Parms, Kai Nacua and Cole Luke on the roster at safety.
According to Spotrac, the Panthers have just over $10m in cap space available after releasing Searcy – about $7m of that is earmarked for the 2019 draft class and the Panthers will get just over $7m more on June 2nd after designating Matt Kalil’s release a post-June 1 roster move.
“This year, if it fell right and the safety was there, obviously we would’ve taken one, but it just didn’t work out that way,” said Marty Hurney after the Panthers left the NFL Draft without selecting a safety – but he hinted that the Panthers might not be done working towards the position. “We don’t play tomorrow. You’re never going to have all your needs filled. So you’re just always looking and we have some guys on our football team that we think can compete and do a good job at safety. But we are always going to be looking at every spot not just safety this year – a running back last year. That’s the key.”
“Every day you come in and try to use all avenues to try and improve your football team.”
The Panthers signed veteran running CJ Anderson on May 7th of last season after leaving the draft without a clear backup for Christian McCaffrey – they currently have 88 out of a possible 90 roster spots filled.
