With organized team activities officially coming up next week, the 2024 offseason is largely behind us. So, how did the Carolina Panthers do?
Well, Pro Football Focus analyst Trevor Sikkema thinks they did . . . just alright. When grading each team’s offseason, he gives the Panthers a ‘C+’ mark:
Firing a head coach after just one year isn’t great, but you could tell there was just no saving the relationship between Frank Reich and owner David Tepper. I am excited about what Dave Canales could be as a head coach, so I’ll remain positive there.
The Panthers lost some big-name players, such as Brian Burns and Frankie Luvu. They also said goodbye to Jeremy Chinn, Bradley Bozeman and Hayden Hurst.
It’s hard to see the fumbling of the Burns situation as anything other than an impactful net negative. However, they did stay aggressive to bring in some good players like Jadeveon Clowney, Robert Hunt, Damien Lewis and Diontae Johnson.
It was tough for the Panthers to make the big draft splash they needed without their original first-round pick, but I believe Xavier Legette and Jonathon Brooks can be early contributors, and Ja’Tavion Sanders could be TE1 at some point.
If nothing else, the Panthers did exactly what they needed to this offseason—make Bryce Young the priority. The 2023 No. 1 overall pick now has $153 million’s worth of starting guards in Hunt and Lewis, a fresh group of weapons in Legette, Brooks and Sanders and a quarterback-friendly head coach in Canales.
The losses Sikkema notes, particularly Burns and Luvu, may be tough to overcome at first—especially for a team that finished last in sacks this past season. But at least they’re giving their young passer a chance, something they couldn’t say was ultimately the case last year.
