Panthers Are Confident They'll Reach a Long-Term Deal with Derrick Brown

Carolina has no plans of moving on from one of the best defensive lineman in the NFL.

Over the last handful of years, Carolina Panthers fans have watched their star players traded away for draft picks. Whether it was dealing RB Christian McCaffrey to San Francisco, WR DJ Moore to Chicago, or OLB Brian Burns to New York, each move weakened the trust of the fanbase in the front office to commit to winning and actually build something.

The next contract situation everyone will have their eyes on is defensive lineman Derrick Brown, who is coming off a record-breaking season where he finished with 103 tackles - the most of any defensive tackle in the history of the NFL.

Given how top-tier players have been sent out the door, there's little faith in the Panthers' brass to land a long-term contract with Brown. However, according to GM Dan Morgan, he likes where things stand and is confident they'll be able to meet in the middle at some point.

"I'm not going to put any timetable on it," Morgan told reporters at the NFL owner's meeting in Orlando. "We have had some good discussions with his agent, but as of right now we're working through that and hopefully it ends up working out in the end, which I think it will."

Morgan also made it a point that he wants to one, build this roster through the draft and "keep their own" and two, dominate the trenches on both sides of the ball. Taking those two points into account, it doesn't feel like Brown will be added to that list of players who were traded away.

Moving off of Brian Burns was not an easy move whatsoever, but you could argue that Brown's upside and importance to the Panthers' future is higher than Burns. It's not easy to find big guys like Brown who can take on double teams and still wreak havoc in the backfield on a consistent basis. That's an asset you can't afford to just give away.