The Carolina Panthers are Embracing a Major Rebuild

The Carolina Panthers have traded star running back Christian McCaffrey to the San Francisco 49ers, signaling the franchise is ready for the massive rebuild that is ahead of them. This is not the only move they have made, and will continue to ensure they have more draft capital in the future.

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The Panthers came into this season with low expectations, but still had some promising, young talent, and even traded for quarterback Baker Mayfield from the Browns. After five weeks of the season, the Panthers sat at 1-4 with some embarrassing losses and abysmal play by Mayfield, and decided to fire head coach Matt Rhule. Rhule accrued an 11-27 record as coach of the Panthers.

The Panthers now sit at 1-5 after another bad loss, and also lost Mayfield to an injury, leaving PJ Walker and eventually Sam Darnold at the quarterback position. It is pretty clear that this position needs a significant upgrade and they should be expected to be all in on drafting a signal caller come April’s draft.

Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s CJ Stroud look like future stars and should be the top targets for the Panthers.

While the Panthers have traded McCaffrey and are rumored to move on from top wideout DJ Moore, the team needs to acquire talent for their future franchise quarterback. The Panthers hope to do this with the draft capital they received in exchange for McCaffrey. Carolina received a second rounder, third, and fourth rounder in the 2023 draft, and a fifth rounder in 2024. If the Panthers also move on from Moore, they could also receive some valuable draft capital in return.

Carolina has some young, talented defensive pieces in defensive backs Jeremy Chinn, Jaycee Horn, and Donte Jackson, as well as lineman Derrick Brown and Brian Burns. What the Panthers lack most now is offensive playmakers and should be the main focal point of next year’s draft.

If the Panthers continue to lose games, which is expected, they put themselves in great position to select one of Young or Stroud in next year’s draft to hopefully turn around this franchise. The Panthers have been in constant search of a franchise quarterback ever since Cam Newton went down with injuries, and hope to find their guy next April.

The job is not finished there, as they must surround this quarterback with talented offensive playmakers and lineman to ensure success.