The Carolina Panthers made a ton of moves in the first wave of free agency. There's not a lot of name power to go around, as backup running back Rico Dowdle is arguably the most well-known new edition. However, if we count their own internal free agents then the Panthers' biggest investment by far this offseason went to star cornerback Jaycee Horn, who's coming off a breakout year.
We had expected Horn to sign a new deal worth somewhere around $20 million per year. When the news broke, though Horn had been made the new highest-paid defensive back in NFL history on a massive deal for four years and $100 million.
Since then the Panthers have been taking a pounding from virtually every analyst for the signing, which is universally agreed to be an overpay. Not everyone thinks it was a bad move, though. Joe Person at the Athletic came out with his free agent grades this morning and he's given the Panthers a B+ for the Horn signing. In part, he explains that Horn couldn't become the latest defensive leader to leave.
"Entering the 2024 season, it would have been hard to imagine Horn getting such a big bag... But Horn changed his workout regimen last offseason, stayed healthy until the final two games and parlayed a strong season into a massive deal. Horn’s history means this type of investment comes with risk. But the Panthers didn’t want Horn to follow Brian Burns, Frankie Luvu and Shaq Thompson as the latest defensive leader to leave."
$25 million a year is a big number no matter how you slice it, but there is logic here on Carolina's part. Allowing Horn to leave after he finally was able to stay healthy and is just now beginning to live up to his awesome potential would have amounted to another catastrophic mistake by this front office.
There have been too many of those in recent years, some of which are listed above. The Panthers had to make sure that the one cornerstone on the back end of their defense did not leave town. So, it was definitely preferable to overpay a bit rather than risk even a remote chance that Horn could walk.
If Horn can stay relatively healthy and continues to perform like he did this past season, then he'll be worth every penny of that deal and nobody will be in a position to complain. That said, there's got to be some middle ground between needing to keep a guy and making him the highest-paid player ever at his position group.
Horn wasn't the team's only signing that's been considered an overpay, either. The deal for defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton ($15 million a year, $30+ million guaranteed) has been getting mostly bad grades as an overpay. Even Person gave them a C- for that one. He wasn't a huge fan of the Bobby Brown deal, either ($7 million a year, $9.6 million guaranteed), which got a C+.
Whereas he was probably too kind to the Panthers on the Horn deal, we feel he's being too harsh on those two signings. If they had signed Milton Williams they would have been locked in at around $26 million per year, which is what he eventually got from the New England Patriots.
While it would have ben nice to make one real splash signing, this was probably a stroke of luck for Carolina. Instead of investing a huge amount of money in one guy, they were able to sign two players from the same position group and save a few million more, instead.
Especially given how last season played out for this unit - Derrick Brown going down in Week 1 then the rest of the depth chart getting exposed - you can argue signing two solid starters is more valuable than what they would have gotten from Williams.
Overall, we feel they've significantly upgraded their personnel on defense - even if it doesn't look all that impressive on paper. This may well still be a below-average unit, but if they can manage to rank even as a top-20 scoring defense this coming season it'd be an incredible improvement.
