Carolina Panthers linebacker Shaq Thompson is coming off the two best seasons of his eight-year career. Yet, he’s still not a lock for the 2023 roster—at least according to Joe Person.
This past weekend, The Athletic had beat writers for each of the league’s 32 teams name a potential salary cap cut. Person chose Thompson, who carries a $24.46 million cap hit for the upcoming campaign.
“Thompson is the last position player left from the Panthers’ Super Bowl season of 2015, when Thompson was a rookie playing alongside Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis,” he writes. “The former first-round pick has never reached the status of those two franchise pillars — admittedly, a high bar. But he’s been a solid player who finished his age-27 season with a career-best 135 tackles, which ranked in the top 15 in the league. Thompson also was durable, playing a full season after an offseason knee procedure. It just comes down to money for a player whose contract was restructured each of the past two offseasons. As a result, Thompson now carries the Panthers’ third-highest cap number, just behind DJ Moore ($25 million) and Taylor Moton ($24.54 million).”
Thompson is on the final season of a four-year, $54.43 million extension, one he signed in December of 2019. If he is released from that final season, the cut would save the Panthers $13.2 million while leaving $11.3 million in dead cap.
But until a move is made, or not made, Thompson already had some words of advice for those hoping he gets the axe . . .
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Story originally appeared on Panthers Wire
Source: News