{"id":137929,"date":"2023-02-01T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=137929"},"modified":"2023-01-29T10:46:24","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T15:46:24","slug":"five-carolina-panthers-cut-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/02\/01\/five-carolina-panthers-cut-candidates\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Carolina Panthers Cut Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Carolina Panthers need to spend money if they want to get better, but they can&#8217;t do that without first addressing some issues with the current payroll. As of this posting, the Panthers are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/nfl\/cap\/2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">currently $9 million over the salary cap<\/a>. The Panthers have a few obvious cut candidates, but some of these decisions won&#8217;t be easy.<\/p>\n<p>Please note that all of the following salary cap numbers are via <a href=\"https:\/\/overthecap.com\/salary-cap\/carolina-panthers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Over the Cap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Top Five Carolina Panthers Cut Candidates, Ranked<\/h2>\n<h3>Tier 1: Probably Gone<\/h3>\n<h4>1. Ian Thomas<\/h4>\n<p>One year after signing a contract extension that made sense to absolutely nobody, Thomas proved the rest of the world correct in wondering what the Panthers were thinking. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2018\/03\/22\/ian-thomas-2018-nfl-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_self\">former fourth-round pick<\/a> had another underwhelming season, finishing as PFF&#8217;s 68th-best tight end out of 74 eligible players while only recording 21 receptions for 197 yards and no touchdowns. While he wasn&#8217;t quite as bad as a blocker, he&#8217;s still worse than fellow tight end Tommy Tremble. If designated as a post-June 1st cut, the Panthers can save $3.1 million in cap space while eating just $3.6 million in dead money.<\/p>\n<h4>2. Laviska Shenault<\/h4>\n<p>Trading two late-round picks for Laviska Shenault was well worth the risk for the Carolina Panthers. However, after one season, it&#8217;s safe to say that Urban Meyer was not the problem with Shenault. The former second-round pick had his worst season to date, recording just 27 receptions for 272 yards and one touchdown while <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2022\/10\/18\/panthers-receiver-terrace-marshall-robbie-anderson\/\" target=\"_self\">failing to establish himself on a lackluster depth chart<\/a>. With no guaranteed money left on his contract, the Panthers can release him and save $1.67 million against the cap.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">LAVISKA SHENAULT TO THE \ud83c\udfe0 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8YyEcccE6A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/8YyEcccE6A<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; PFF (@PFF) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PFF\/status\/1590890757665488897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 11, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>3. Pat Elflein<\/h4>\n<p>The NFL is a cold business, and it&#8217;s truly unfortunate that Pat Elflein could lose his job due to an injury. However, the fact remains that Bradley Bozeman outplayed Elflein, and releasing the center would save $4.2 million against the cap. Bozeman is set to be a free agent, but there is a real possibility that the Panthers could structure Bozeman&#8217;s contract in such a way that it actually leads to a net saving in cap space.<\/p>\n<h2>Tier 2: Probably Sticking Around<\/h2>\n<p>Deciding to cut the following two candidates would result in additional cap space, and it is possible for the Panthers to go down this route. However, both players still play a valuable role on the team, so if Carolina really needs the cap space, it&#8217;s far more likely they restructure an existing contract than cut either of the following players.<\/p>\n<h4>4. Damien Wilson<\/h4>\n<p>Damien Wilson is a fine rotational linebacker that can get after the quarterback at an acceptable rate. However, if you ask him to do anything else, it probably won&#8217;t go well. There is room in the league for guys like that, but is it a role that&#8217;s worth $3.6 million in cap space? That&#8217;s something the Panthers will have to ask themselves as they start trimming down the roster to get under the salary cap.<\/p>\n<h4>5. Marquis Haynes<\/h4>\n<p>It feels weird to put Marquis Haynes on a list like this after a career year, but that&#8217;s just where the Panthers find themselves if they don&#8217;t want to restructure contracts. Haynes is coming off a solid season, recording a career-high five sacks while working as a situational pass rusher. Cutting him would free up $3.05 million in cap space with only $500,000 in dead money, but then the Panthers would need to find another edge rusher, and it&#8217;s hard to imagine them finding a better one with that little savings.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"UPSbpjRmS7NYPNbKruluUg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1246402171\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'UPSbpjRmS7NYPNbKruluUg',sig:'utO6IS9RSKtGj8uF9LcP2nPi8brFKVTWkcBBrNEHYS8=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1246402171',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Carolina Panthers are currently $9 million over the salary cap, but they have five cut candidates that could put them under the cap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":137930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[3726,6105,7661],"class_list":["post-137929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-panthers","tag-ian-thomas","tag-laviska-shenault","tag-panthers-featured"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}