General manager Scott Fitterer and the Carolina Panthers were lauded for their return from Thursday night’s trade of Christian McCaffrey. Heck, they even got more than the Indianapolis Colts did for Marshall Faulk back in 1999—when the NFL actually cared about running backs.
But could they have done better?
On Monday, MMQB senior NFL reporter Albert Breer published some new details from Carolina’s negotiations for their former star rusher. Breer noted that the McCaffrey sweepstakes came down to—with some less serious interest from the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos—the San Francisco 49ers (of course) and the Los Angeles Rams.
The Panthers ultimately landed on the package from San Francisco—one that included a second-round pick, a third-round pick and a fourth-pick in 2023 and a fifth-rounder in 2024. Breer writes:
“Coming to the final price required compromise. The Panthers’ initial proposal used the draft value chart by slotting the 49ers’ pick in each round as the 32nd pick. Conversely, San Francisco was using the chart with its picks slotted 14th, which is around where it is now (with the team 3–3 heading into Week 7). Obviously, that created disparate proposals. So they found a middle ground in the 20s.”
But the report would later reveal that the Rams’ final bid actually had a bit more juice to it. According to Breer, Los Angeles offered second- and third-rounders in 2023, fourth- and fifth-rounders in 2024 and running back Cam Akers—who is not currently playing due to “philosophical differences.”
So, perhaps the Panthers weren’t that interested in the former second-round running back. Or maybe they just really valued that 2023 fourth-rounder from San Francisco rather than the 2024 fourth-rounder from Los Angeles.
Either way, Carolina got what they got and changed the course of the contentious NFC West.
