With their first two picks of the 2007 draft, the Carolina Panthers selected stalwarts for the middle of both their offense and their defense. The first pick, Jon Beason, was one in a long line of star-caliber middle linebackers for the Panthers; their second, however, represented the first time the Panthers made a true draft investment in the center position. Nearly 11 years later and with his 33rd birthday less than two weeks away, Ryan Kalil remains in his post while Beason hasn’t played for the Panthers in nearly half a decade.
Beginning in 2009, over six of the next seven seasons, Ryan Kalil was the only center to start for the Carolina Panthers (he did miss one game – a 2015 Colts win with an ankle injury). The only major blemish was 2012, when many Panthers fans were introduced to the term lisfranc fracture, the injury which ended Kalil’s season after only five weeks. Over those seven seasons, Kalil earned Pro Bowl honors five times and was twice named First Team All-Pro (2013, 2015). Following the team’s Super Bowl run in 2015, Kalil and the Panthers agreed to a hefty extension with the intent of keeping the captain in a Panthers’ uniform for the entirety of his career.
Since then we’ve seen the Panthers suffer a Super Bowl hangover and bounce back to make the playoffs. What we haven’t seen is Kalil display the same durability he’d shown through most of his career. Kalil has missed 18 of the last 32 games and more importantly, the team’s record has not changed demonstrably whether Kalil was or was not in the lineup. The Panthers were 3-5 both with and without Kalil in 2016; 4-2 with him and 7-3 without him in 2017.
Just this month, we’ve seen the end of the Legion of Boom and Jordy Nelson in Green Bay. Jonathan Stewart, who said he offered to take a pay cut to stay with the Panthers, will don a Giants uniform in 2018. There is no room for nostalgia in the salary cap.
Not in the hyper-competitive year-to-year league where the Eagles just won the Super Bowl, putting on display their impressive (and needed) roster depth that large veteran deals can prevent. While the Eagles still have their starting QB on a rookie deal, both Seattle and Green Bay know the pain of veteran QB contracts and it ultimately ended the tenures of some of their beloved veterans.
Carolina Panthers tackle Jordan Gross (69) runs onto the field during player introductions prior to NFL football game against the New York Giants in Charlotte, NC Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn)
Even at home, we’ve witnessed the day come for Panther legends Steve Smith and Jordan Gross, who begrudgingly and famously acknowledged he wasn’t a fan of Dave Gettleman reaching into his pocket for a pay cut for Gross’ final year; that tense conversation came with Gross missing only one game in his last four seasons. So why, after missing more than half of the regular season games over the last two years, during which he held the league’s highest and then sixth-highest cap hits for a center, does Ryan Kalil still have the same contract?
The best center on the free agent market, Weston Richburg, just signed a deal that looks almost identical to Kalil’s, except with lower cap hits than Kalil’s this year until 2021. As it stands, only three centers will cost their team more cap space than Ryan Kalil in 2018:
Cowboys – Travis Fredrick – 5 seasons, 0 games missed.
Falcons – Alex Mack – 0 games missed in 8 of his 9 seasons.
Steelers – Maurkice Pouncey – missed a total of 5 games in 6 seasons, outside of a lost 2014.
Hopefully, the Panthers medical staff is confident that Kalil’s 2018 will be a return to form for him, but that’s not a wager many are willing to place on anyone who has endured more than a decade in the NFL trenches; even though Kalil played well in the final games of the season, can he maintain that momentum for an entire season? It’s not Ryan Kalil’s responsibility to take less, but the front office has more than likely been presenting him with some options that don’t involve paying him for services rendered; it’s not as if Kalil hasn’t had an eye towards life after the Panthers for a couple of years now.
If the Panthers had cut Kalil before last Friday, they could’ve saved over $7m in cap space heading into free agency. To give some context, half of the league’s starting centers count less than $3 million against the cap. Certainly a restructure, the polite term for a pay cut in these situations, could have netted enough for another veteran free agent and still allowed Kalil to close out where he started.
Very few athletes get to script their final act.
That Ryan Kalil might be one of them is, at best, curious.
