Panthers’ 4 trades Friday were a chaotic move to find what Carolina needed most
The Carolina Panthers’ four draft-night trades Friday were momentarily titillating and undeniably confusing, but that’s all they were.
Think of the trades themselves as wisps of smoke, fading quickly into the night. Yes, there were four of them — three to trade down, one to trade up — but very few people will remember the dizzying array of numbers that floated around the draft board and were briefly connected to the Panthers on Friday night.
What matters is the three players that the Panthers got.
And on Day 2 of the 2021 NFL draft, Carolina switched its focus completely to offense, as LSU wide receiver Terrace Marshall Jr., BYU offensive tackle Brady Christensen and Notre Dame tight end Tommy Tremble came aboard the good ship Carolina.
Was it a great day for the Panthers, as they would like to have us believe it was? Come back in three years for the definitive answer.
But it certainly was an interesting day, as new general manager Scott Fitterer worked his phone and computer like his career depended on it — or, more exactly, like he was the GM for a team that has gone 5-11 two years in a row and has holes all over the place.
I would have liked to have seen the Panthers address offensive tackle earlier than in the third round, but then again, Christensen only allowed two pass pressures in 293 pass snaps at Brigham Young last year while blocking for No. 2 overall pick Zach Wilson.
If you were Carolina quarterback Sam Darnold and you wondered where the help was coming from on Thursday night, you had to be feeling better by the end of Friday night. After Matt Rhule opened his NFL coaching career with eight straight defensive selections starting a year ago, he and Fitterer grabbed that trio of offensive players Friday and will likely get a couple more on Saturday.
All three new players Friday were very productive college players and “elite athletes,” as Rhule said, available on the second day of the draft only because of minor perceived deficiencies.
For Marshall, it’s his medical history. For Christensen, he’s 24, meaning he’s a year older than Darnold, who is about to play his fourth NFL season. For Tremble, he’s a tight end who was used as a blocker most of the time at Notre Dame and so the question is whether he can develop as a receiver or just be Chris Manhertz 2.0.
Still, the Panthers deserve some credit for turning what was going to be two picks on the second day of the draft into three by the end of Friday.
“I thought Scott was masterful tonight,” Rhule said after it was all over. He went on to opine that all of Fitterer’s wheeling and dealing meant that “basically the Sam Darnold trade is paid off now.”
There may be some creative math at work there. But what’s actually going to matter most about that trade is whether Darnold turns out to be any good or not for the Panthers.
If he does — and I’ve written that I think it will work out — it was a fantastic move. If he channels the TD/INT and W/L stats that he had in three years with the New York Jets, it was a terrible move.
All the trading almost made it seem like Fitterer was making up for Thursday night, when I was among the crowd who wanted him to trade down and then grab a cornerback. Fitterer did the “draft a corner” part, taking South Carolina cornerback Jaycee Horn at No. 8 overall, but he didn’t trade down to do it, feeling the offers weren’t good enough.
On Friday night, though, he was a flurry of activity. And the Panthers were left with Marshall, Christensen and Tremble, which sounds a little like a law firm.
They won’t all work out; the NFL is a cruel business.
But if the Panthers can muster up an old Meat Loaf ballad for the soundtrack to the night, it will have been a success.
Two out of three ain’t bad. That’s what the Panthers need out of Friday night. The four trades were just window dressing. Out of those three players, they better have gotten two more long-term starters.
