{"id":166655,"date":"2024-03-27T16:32:47","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T20:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=166655"},"modified":"2024-03-27T16:32:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T20:32:47","slug":"sam-franklin-signs-contract-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/03\/27\/sam-franklin-signs-contract-panthers\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers Re-Sign Core Special Teamer To New Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NFL veteran safety Sam Franklin signed a new contract with the Carolina Panthers. Franklin spent the 2023 season with the Carolina Panthers. He was signed by the Panthers as an undrafted free agent in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Panthers are bringing back safety and special teams ace Sam Franklin on a one-year deal, per source.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Joe Person (@josephperson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/josephperson\/status\/1773043649493786993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Sam Franklin, Carolina Panthers, Agree to Contract<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sam Franklin spent most of the 2023 season on special teams but had a four-game stint of starts as the Panthers navigated injuries in the secondary. He made his impact known immediately, returning an interception 99 yards for a touchdown against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/vikings\/\" target=\"_self\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overall, his time on defense was hit or miss. While starting with an exciting pick-six, he had few splash plays over the remainder of his starts. He recorded only one pass breakup but gave up minimal yardage when targeted, allowing seven catches and 67 yards. Unfortunately, two of those catches resulted in touchdowns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Franklin signed with the Panthers in 2020 as an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.panthers.com\/news\/panthers-agree-to-terms-with-17-undrafted-free-agents\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">undrafted free agent<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> out of Temple. If that college rings a bell, it should. Franklin was identified as one of several players that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2022\/10\/10\/carolina-panthers-fire-matt-rhule\/\" target=\"_self\">former head coach <\/a><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/panthers\/gm-report\/rhules-former-college-players-their-projected-impact-in-carolina\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Matt Rhule signed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from his college days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite that connection, Franklin started his NFL career exclusively on special teams. He was a kick and punt team staple, until Week 7 of his rookie season when he got his first start on defense. That began a four-game stretch at the free safety position. During that time, he performed fairly well, allowing just 62 yards and two touchdowns. Notably, 59 of those yards and both touchdowns came against the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Franklin\u2019s special team skills kept him on the roster, as he continued a similar role into 2021. While maintaining a prominent role on kickoffs and punts, he had no defensive starts in his second season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, Franklin\u2019s next start did not come until Week 12 of the 2022 season. During that game, he held receivers targeted his direction to just three yards and recorded one hurry on the quarterback.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overall, Franklin is a special teams specialist who can make splash defensive plays on occasion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Bob Donnan &#8211; USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NFL veteran safety Sam Franklin signed a new contract with the Carolina Panthers. Franklin spent the 2023 season with the Carolina Panthers. He was signed by the Panthers as an undrafted free agent in 2020. Panthers are bringing back safety and special teams ace Sam Franklin on a one-year deal, per source. &mdash; Joe Person [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5011,"featured_media":166673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[36,30],"tags":[246,7661,10306],"class_list":["post-166655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-panthers","tag-nfl-news","tag-panthers-featured","tag-sam-franklin"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166655","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\/5011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}