The Carolina Panthers are truly in uncharted waters regarding their next decision, given the NFL Draft is just under 10 days away, and their names are on the clock at #8. The Carolina Panthers are coming off a league-worst defensive performance for the ages, while also ranked 31st in passing yards, only ahead of the rebuilding New England Patriots and rookie QB Drake Maye. Bryce Young left the season with the 23rd most passing yards with 2,403, and 15 TDS, also at 23rd, but is the problem truly just the Wide Receiver #1?
Second-year Head Coach Dave Canales is planning on bringing his love of the game to Carolina in a way that he has said came from his mentor, Head Coach Pete Carroll of the Las Vegas Raiders, now, though formerly the HC with the Seattle Seahawks, where the two began working with each other. The philosophy of that Seattle team during Canales’ tenure was to run the ball and play defense, you might have heard of their defense, “the Legion of Boom.” During his tenure as an offensively focused coach, the Seahawks would go from 23rd in Offensive points and 28th in yards, to being 9th in points and 17th in yards just two years later, and 5 years later would be 4th in both categories. Defensively, however, in the 2010 season, Canales had a 27th-ranked defense in yards and 25th in points, with the next year being top 10 in both categories.
Now, Canales is standing at the head of the classroom as the teacher of the Panthers, preparing to draft at #8 – why not take WR Tetairoa McMillan or TE Tyler Warren to help your young QB? Well, let us take a look back at what those Seattle teams did back then and see if we can glean anything from it, though I will keep it focused on their first-round picks only:
- 2010: 6th pick, T Russell Okung
- 2011: 25th pick, T James Carpenter
- 2012: 15th pick, DE Bruce Irvin
- 2013: No first-round pick
- 2014: No first-round pick
- 2015: No first-round pick
- 2016: 31st pick, G Germain Ifedi
- 2017: No first-round pick
- 2018: 27th pick, RB Rashaad Penny
- 2019: 29th pick, DE LJ Collier
- 2020:27th pick, LB Jordyn Brooks
- 2021: No first-round pick
- 2022: 9th pick, OL Charles Cross
Examining that draft order, you might think that OT/OG Will Campbell or OT/OG Armand Membou will become a Carolina Panther, but instead, the Seattle Seahawks kept swinging at defensive picks, only to take offensive players later on in the draft in most cases.
The Seattle Seahawks had a mission: go get the defensive guy, and protect our guy. That might have rubbed off on the now Carolina Panthers Head Coach, to the point where the overwhelming consensus is that Jalon Walker EDGE from Georgia will be a Carolina Panther in just under 10 days, and if so, I welcome him to the dysfunctional organization we currently still have. If we are going to take a WR at #8, the Carolina Panther fans will need to take a step back and realize that we are not in the same Kansas we left, but now at the mercy of the Canales offensive structure.
I believe that a WR at the #8 pick is going to be too rich for my blood, as even CB/WR Travis Hunter isn’t the caliber of WR Justin Jefferson is, and he garnered pick 22!
Canales is going to follow in the footsteps of his mentor and focus on defensive players, offensive linemen, and trench guys first, letting wide receivers and running backs fall to him to develop. Maybe this 2025 NFL season is the place where the Carolina Panthers find their WR Tyler Lockett in the 3rd or the WR DK Metcalf in the second, and let our defense get some help. On top of that, the decreased workload through the run first, play defense model will quickly remove the immense amount of catches a true WR1 would require, so for that, I want a defensive guy at #8, and no, I don’t want us trading up either!
