ESPN Grades the Panthers' Offseason

The Panthers made several moves this offseason, but did they move the needle enough?

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

The Carolina Panthers drastically improved its roster this offseason with an infusion of talent on the offensive side of the football. Now that Bryce Young has proven interior protection and weapons at receiver, it will allow the orgnaization to get an accurate read on their second-year quarterback.

ESPN's Seth Walder recently handed out offseason grades to every NFL team. The Panthers were assigned a B-, the 17th-best grade among the 32 teams.

"The Panthers dealt Burns for a second-round pick. I'm torn on Carolina's choice. It has to operate like it is in Year 2 of a rookie QB window, so it might have wanted to retain and pay Burns, but this team is far away from contending and the draft capital helps in the long term. The Panthers made the opposite choice with defensive tackle Derrick Brown, whom they signed to a $96 million extension. Though I'd have preferred to allocate that money to Burns, I like Brown, who led all defensive tackles in run stop win rate last season (47%) by a healthy margin. They paid for that skill, as $24 million per year isn't cheap."

"In free agency, the Panthers beefed up the interior of their offensive line, handing out a massive contract to Hunt and a large deal to fellow guard Damien Lewis. The Panthers ranked 30th and 23rd in run block win rate and pass block win rate, respectively, in 2023, so upgrading the line was paramount. However, these contracts look like overpays and Carolina is not in a particularly strong cap situation going forward."

"The Panthers executed one of the coups of the draft when they received pick No. 155 and a future second-round pick from the Rams to move down from No. 39 to 52, but Carolina promptly squandered some of that extra value to move back up to 46 to take running back Jonathon Brooks."

On paper, the contracts of Hunt and Lewis do seem steep, but no one will care if they help fix the issue, and I believe they will. After firing a head coach in consecutive seasons and posting a 2-15 record just last year, you're not in a position to land quality free agents at market value. There's a tax for being in a rebuild.

While you can't exactly replace Burns, trading him made the most sense for Carolina. It freed up cap space that they otherwise would not have had to be able to sign Robert Hunt, Damien Lewis, and extend Derrick Brown. It also allowed the Panthers to form a deeper group of pass rushers with the signings of Jadeveon Clowney, DJ Wonnum, and K'Lavon Chaisson.

I don't necessarily agree with Walder's assessment of Carolina's offseason moves, but we end up being in the same ballpark for the overall grade.

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