The spotlight is tough enough to command when you’re playing for the Carolina Panthers—a smaller market franchise with largely middling results. So it’s a pretty common occurrence that a standout player doesn’t exactly stand out to the rest of the sport.
Luckily, we have fine football folks such as Cynthia Frelund out here to help shine that spotlight.
In her recent list of the league’s most underappreciated players, the NFL Network analytics expert gives some props to Panthers safety Jeremy Chinn, who has been one of the most productive defensive backs in football over the past two years.
“Chinn’s positional versatility creates the type of middle-of-the-field problems that QBs — especially younger ones who didn’t face a variety of defenses in college — have a hard time solving,” Frelund writes. “Among DBs, Chinn ranked ninth in tackles (106, leading the Panthers), fourth in stops (47) and tied for seventh in QB pressures (8) in 2021.”
That positional versatility, as Frelund notes, is something defensive coordinator Phil Snow and the Panthers obviously value. But the dynamic 6-foot-3, 220-pound defender—according to the dynamic 6-foot-3, 220-pound defender—is going to keep it mainly posted in the secondary, even despite previous thoughts of a move to linebacker.
“That’s not something that we really discuss—me going back to linebacker,” Chinn said after Tuesday’s OTA session. “As soon as the season ended, I was like, ‘Alright, I’m a safety now. That’s the position I’ve been playing this past year.’ So I didn’t really think about going back to linebacker. That’s not something we spent a lot of time talking about.”
Although a switch may ultimately benefit both Chinn and the Carolina defense, which has a particular need in the middle of the unit, he’s been doing just fine right where he’s at.
