Corral's Injury Changes How the Panthers Will Construct the 53-Man Roster

Once the Panthers made the trade for Baker Mayfield, it signified that this would be a redshirt year for rookie quarterback Matt Corral. Now that Corral is potentially lost for the season with a Lisfranc injury, it changes everything from how he develops to how many QBs the team carries on the active roster.

Even though he wasn't expected to be a factor this fall, having Corral take scout team reps could have done him a lot of good. He would be constantly working on his game while also helping the team out, even if it wasn't on gameday. Unfortunately, this type of foot injury is one that is going to take a significant amount of time to recover from, meaning most, if not all of his development this year will come in the film room.

"I hate it for him," head coach Matt Rhule said. "I thought he was playing well too. I left him down there in that situation backed up because I wanted him to have that, here's the crowd, here's the noise. But I thought I saw a lot of really nice signs early on in the game. Found some guys that were open, did some really good things. I know Matt's a battler. He's just going to have to grind taking care of his foot and all of the things he needs to do as a quarterback."

As far as the roster is concerned, the feeling is that the Panthers will only keep two quarterbacks; Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. GM Scott Fitterer has no interest in trading Darnold at the moment and with Corral likely lost for the year, I seriously doubt they even consider it unless they just get completely blown away by an offer, which won't happen. Rhule has stated many times throughout the month that it's rare for a team to start one quarterback for an entire season.

When asked if it changes the original plan to keep three quarterbacks, Rhule responded, "It potentially could. We'll take the best available guys. We knew with Matt that if he's up, we'd have him in a certain role. But that doesn't mean he couldn't be the two either so that's why I wanted to play him last night. Right now, we're just worried about Matt. We're going to make sure he gets what he needs and then we'll adjust over the next couple of days."

Assuming this is the case, P.J. Walker will be the odd man out. Losing Corral for the season isn't ideal for his development, but it does afford the Panthers the opportunity to carry just two quarterbacks and use that roster spot somewhere else, such as the offensive line or secondary.

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