Carolina Panthers Salary Cap Update
If it’s not clear already, the Panthers have taken a full dive into rebuild mode. Panthers' owner David Tepper and general manager Marty Hurney’s moves this offseason serves as clear evidence for the direction the team is headed. There are explicit side effects to a team making a distinct shift as the Panthers have as in taking on dead money - but in the Panthers situation that’s largely attributed to poor front office decisions.
Carolina has gone from a team that resigned their players at market value to help continue to make playoff pushes, to now a team taking a step back, letting impending free agents walk, and focusing on rebuilding organically.
James Bradberry (New York Giants), Mario Addison (Buffalo Bills), and Gerald McCoy (Dallas Cowboys) are just three players that have departed from Carolina this offseason - with Cam Newton likely to be released in the near future.
As Panthers fans wait for more free agency signings, one needs to have an idea of how the salary cap numbers add up for the available cap room the team has left to spend. The NFL’s 2020 Salary Cap is $198.2 million with $10.27 million in rollover cap, leaving the adjusted salary cap sitting at $208.47 million. That leaves the Panthers with $11.6 million in cap space after draft picks (via Spotrac), prior to the Pharoh Cooper and Seth DeValve signings on Friday.
The team has officially signed Cooper, DeValve, Teddy Bridgewater, Seth Roberts, Stephen Weatherly, Keith Kirkwood, Juston Burris, and John Miller since free agency officially kicked off. The Panthers also re-signed Tre Boston to a three-year/ $18 million deal. Additionally, Carolina officially traded guard Trai Turner to the Los Angeles Chargers for Russell Okung (base salary of $13 million in 2020 in the final year of his contract).
As for the limited cap space remaining, that’s due to the aforementioned dead cap space the Panthers currently possess. Dead cap space is the leftover cap dollars from players released, traded, or who have retired. The dead cap for Carolina sits at a whopping $46.1 million, the most in the NFL by a wide margin as the Jacksonville Jaguars rank second with $33.9 million in dead cap. Once Cam Newton is released as reported, the Panthers dead cap will increase to $48.1 million.
The Panthers’ top 17 active contracts go as follows in the Tweet below. Cam Newton is likely on his way out which would leave defensive end Kawann Short as the Panther with the highest cap hit in 2020 at $20.3 million. Also, Teddy Bridgewater’s cap hit for the first year of his three-year/$63 million contract sits at only $14 million in 2020 as his contract is back-loaded to accommodate the team's tight cap space in 2020.
The moves the team has made this offseason - besides Teddy Bridgewater - have all been quite conservative deals on low-cost players on 'prove it deals' with the upside a young rebuilding team can take a gamble on. Carolina is not in a place to go throw top-dollar at high-end free agents until their dead cap clears and once they have a better idea of where their trajectory is as an organization. Keep in mind that Christian McCaffrey will need to be paid in the near future as well.
The Panthers will continue to build through the draft and grow from within as that is seemingly their best and the only option at this point. David Tepper sent a message to season ticket holders back in late February saying that, "It takes time to build things up the right way, and sometimes you have to do a little tearing down before moving forward." Tepper added, "Understand this: I am laser-focused on building a championship organization on and off the field."
