Carolina Panthers general manager Dan Morgan was a guest of the Pat McAfee show Wednesday, and one of the many topics addressed by the former Panthers pro bowler was their decision to trade up for Texas A&M edge rusher Nic Scourton. Scourton looked like a top 10 pick after his sophomore season at Purdue, racking up 50 tackles and 10 sacks but those numbers dropped to 37 and 5 last season at A&M, leading to his stock sliding this past weekend. The drop in production didn’t bother Morgan and the Panthers as they made their move, swapping 4 picks with the Denver Broncos to grab Scourton at pick #51.
“He’s a guy we felt really good about, we actually had a first round grade on him, we had him in the late 1st round so we traded up to get him. We put a priority on getting edge in this draft, it was a deep edge class, and he was just one of those guys that we really had a liking for.” When he was asked about the timing of the trade and the discussion happening on draft night Morgan elaborated, “There was a couple edge guys that went, so we were just kinda looking at our board, and we were like lets go get this guy, we think he can be a difference maker for us and a guy who can make a bunch of plays, lets go get him, and we traded up for him.”
Morgan then addressed the Panthers draft philosophy on fixing the NFL’s worst scoring defense from a year ago.
“We know that the game is won in the trenches, whether its O-line or D-line, if you’re not winning the line of scrimmage up front on both sides of the ball, your chances of winning go down mightily, so we wanted to build a defensive front this year, like we built the offensive front last year, and we feel like we accomplished that this year, so we’re excited for the defensive front now.”
Morgan and the front office received high praise for their work draft night, and the defense certainly looks a lot deeper. In addition to Scourton, the Panthers used a 3rd rounder on Ole Miss edge rusher Princely Umanmielen, a 4th round pick on Ohio State safety Lathan Ransom, and their 5th on Florida DT Cam Jackson. Along with some key free agents, this defensive looks ready to compete for the NFC South crown.
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