The Panthers have met with a number of prospects with the NFL Draft approaching, and it gives us clues as to their priorities.
The Carolina Panthers have historically tipped their picks in the NFL Draft. A lot of their selections tend to be players that zeroed in on for visits during the pre-draft process, and they tend to be pretty bad at hiding their interest in their top targets in the early rounds of the draft.
With that, we can take an early-ish look at who the Panthers have been visiting with to see what position groups they’re targeting most heavily and which top prospect they might be zeroing in on.
I’m referencing this tracker on Reddit that seems to be as up-to-date as one can be at this point.
First, of the players the Panthers have met with between the Senior Bowl, Shrine Bowl, and various other pre-draft meetings, here is the count by position:
- QB: 1
- RB: 7
- WR: 4
- TE: 4
- OL: 1
- OT: 2
- EDGE: 7
- DE: 1
- DT: 9
- LB: 6
- CB: 7
- S: 4
- K: 1
The Panthers are clearly adamant about improving their defense. Interior linemen make up the largest piece of the pie in the Panthers visits so far. There are a couple of prominent names on the list, like Mason Graham, who the Panthers visited with at the combine. Otherwise, it’s a lot of guys that would be late round or undrafted free agent targets.
The rest of the defense has gotten a lot of attention as well. The Panthers have met with two projected first round safeties (Nick Emmanwori and Malaki Starks) and a couple of mid rounders (Billy Bowman Jr. and Jonas Sanker). Safety depth is one of the most glaring holes still on the roster, so it’d be a surprise to see the Panthers not aggressively look to fill the position in the draft.
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit from the positional trends is what the Panthers are looking at offensively. They’ve met with more running backs than any other position on the offense and have paid little attention to offensive linemen. It looks like they’ll potentially add more running back depth on Day 3 of the draft even with Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle in the fold and Jonathon Brooks potentially coming back sometime in the future.
The Panthers have met with a couple of individual prospects on multiple occasions:
- Cam Jackson, DT, Florida
- Jalon Walker, LB, Georgia
Jackson is interesting because he’s a Day 3 prospect that projects purely as a two down run stuffing nose tackle. He’s someone to keep an eye on as a player the Panthers could pick ahead of his projected slot.
The other player is Jalon Walker, CSR’s favorite hybrid/tweener player with freakish traits and okay college production. He’s been one of the more commonly mocked players to the Panthers, and that’s being corroborated by the team’s apparent interest in him.
Notably missing from the list entirely is Georgia EDGE Mykel Williams. Williams has gained a lot of traction as a player the Panthers have “real interest” in according to Joe Person, but I can’t find any reports suggesting the Panthers have actually met with the two-time All-SEC defensive end.