Friday evening will afford the Carolina Panthers a bit of control in Detroit this weekend.
Sports Illustrated senior reporter Albert Breer just provided a thorough 32-team outlook for the 2024 NFL draft. And while the Panthers are without a first-round pick this spring, Breer notes that their first selection (the one that opens up the second round) puts them in a position to wheel and deal:
Supporting Bryce Young will certainly be a priority, and given the strength of the receiver class, it’s not out of line to think that new GM Dan Morgan will tap into wideouts at Nos. 33, 39 or 65. That said, having the first pick in the second round can put a team in a position of power on the Friday of draft weekend, so it’d hardly be shocking to see Morgan hold an auction for the pick after the first round to grow the team’s draft warchest.
Morgan, during his pre-draft press conference from Thursday, didn’t rule out the possibility of a trade-down. In fact, he didn’t even rule out the possibility of trading up either.
“I think sitting at 33, obviously, you have 32 teams ahead of you,” Morgan said. “So, we really gotta see how it plays out. I’m not gonna box myself in to any, like, ‘Hey, we’re not gonna do this, we’re not gonna do that.’ Ideally though, if we’re sitting there and there’s a really good player, we’ll take him. Trading up—those are discussions that we still have to have. So I think everything is on the table right now. I don’t wanna box us in right now.”
Teams that could be interested in that 33rd pick include the Denver Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants—all of whom may be in the market for a quarterback.
The Panthers are also in possession of the draft’s 39th overall selection, which was acquired from the Giants in their trade of two-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Brian Burns.
