Wide receiver Xavier Legette played his college ball at South Carolina and he may not have to travel far to kick off his NFL career.
Legette said that he’s spent a lot of time with the Panthers over the course of the pre-draft process and that the team has suggested that they will be picking him if he remains on the board through the end of the first round on Thursday night.
“I’ve met with the Panthers about four or five times,” Legette said, via John Crumpler of USA Today. “The relationship, it just keeps continuing to grow. They’re really hoping I can make it the second round. They keep on telling me if I’m sitting at 33, they’re gonna take me.”
Legette had 71 catches for 1,255 yards and seven touchdowns for the Gamecocks last season. If other teams want to see if that production translates to their offense, they may have to jump the Panthers to get a chance to see the wideout in their uniform.
When edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney signed with the Panthers last month, he said that he was going to urge his former high school teammate Stephon Gilmore to join him in Charlotte.
Gilmore has not landed a deal with the team yet, but it remains a possibility. Gilmore and the Panthers were in contact earlier this offseason and General Manager Dan Morgan said at a Thursday press conference, via Darin Gantt of the team’s website, that the door is still open.
It’s going to remain that way at least a little while longer. Morgan said that the team plans to revisit the possibility of adding Gilmore to the roster after next week’s draft.
Gilmore played for the Panthers in 2021 and moved on to the Colts and Cowboys the last two years. His most successful run came with the Patriots from 2017 to 2020. Gilmore was named defensive player of the year in 2019 and he made two All-Pro teams before being traded to Carolina.
Wide receiver Troy Franklin has made several stops in the AFC East as he meets with teams ahead of the draft.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports that the former Oregon wideout met with the Bills on Thursday. He has also visited with the Jets and Patriots in his travels around the division and with the Panthers and Browns when he’s left those confines.
Franklin set school records with 1,383 receiving yards and 14 receiving touchdowns while catching passes from Bo Nix for the Ducks last season. He also scored nine touchdowns during the 2022 season and has Oregon’s career receiving touchdown record.
Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze are widely expected to be the first wideouts off the board, but Franklin joins players like Brian Thomas, Ladd McConkey, Roman Wilson, and Adonai Mitchell to make up a deep group of wideouts who should be picked in the first couple of rounds as well.
The Panthers have less than half their opening day starters on defense from 2023 back for the 2024 season, but the overhaul on that side of the ball has not left them feeling like they have to play catch-up ahead of the 2024 season.
Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero remained in the job despite the team’s head coaching job, which provides continuity in terms of the scheme. Several of the players they brought in — defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson, linebacker Josey Jewell, and safety Jordan Fuller — have played for Evero with other teams and that means they will be refreshing their knowledge of the defense rather than learning it on the fly.
The combination has Evero feeling much better about where things stand than he did a year ago.
“I wouldn’t say better equipped, but I feel so much better about our starting point compared to last year,” Evero said, via the team’s website. “Just with the experience and knowledge and foundation of the system. Every player that we have has been in, most of the players that we’ve had have been in some version of our system with the same dialogue and language and communication skills. And so from that standpoint, we are a lot further ahead than we were this time last year.”
Two of the new guys without ties to Evero are D.J. Wonnum and Jadeveon Clowney, who had 17.5 sacks between them last year. Keeping them productive while seeing improvement elsewhere on defense would be a good sign for a better year in Carolina.
The NFL is a deadline-driven business. Except when it isn’t.
For players who are hit with the franchise tag or the transition tag, the key date is July 15. That’s the last day for tagged players and their teams to do multi-year deals.
The rule itself is stupid. It places an artificial barrier on teams and players who would otherwise decide to extend their relationship if/when, for example: (1) the player has an injury scare and decides to take the last, best offer made; or (2) the player gets off to a great start in the regular season and the team decides to give him what he wants.
But the rule remains the rule. In past years, the rule has resulted in most long-term deals for franchise-tagged players getting done at or close to the mid-July deadline.
This year, seven of nine tagged players already have their deals, with only two franchise-tagged players — Bengals receiver Tee Higgins and Buccaneers safety Antoine Winfield Jr. — have yet to sign long-term deals.
The benefit for both sides is to get the player on board for offseason workouts. Still, for the player, waiting never makes the offer worse. Whatever is on the table now will be there on July 15. That’s one of the main reasons why deals don’t get done until the deadline. The sooner you move to your best position, the more likely you’ll be squeezed away from it.
Each player and team will have their own reasons for doing their deals when they do them. The players could have waited. They didn’t. The teams could have waited. They didn’t.
For the last two, the wait continues.
