Will Derek Carr’s shoulder impact Panthers’ draft? What could they get for No. 8 pick?

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Around happy hour Friday evening, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport sent out an update on X that could have major implications on the NFC South and NFL Draft: New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr has a shoulder injury that threatens his availability for the 2025 season.

A few minutes later, ESPN analyst Louis Riddick posted on the same platform: “That 9th pick gonna be all kinds of interesting.” Colorado coach Deion Sanders then quoted Riddick’s post and added the ubiquitous eyeballs emoji.

It’s not a stretch to suggest the Carr news prompted a similar response from the Carolina Panthers’ decision-makers. With the Saints now seemingly in the market for a quarterback, Carr’s status could directly impact the Panthers’ pick at No. 8, one spot ahead of where the Saints sit in the draft.

First, any other team targeting Sanders (or another quarterback) could look to move in front of the Saints by trading with the Panthers, who are open to the idea of moving back depending on what happens in front of them in the draft, according to league sources.

That takes us to the second point: If the Saints or another quarterback-inspired team leapfrogs the Panthers by moving into the top 7 for a QB, that would make another highly rated prospect available to the Panthers at No. 8.

So yes, to paraphrase Riddick: That ninth pick — and possibly the eighth — could be all kinds of interesting.

With less than two weeks remaining before the first night of the draft in Green Bay, Wis., The Athletic looks at the Saints’ situation, what the Panthers potentially could get for No. 8, as well as their history with the eighth selection.

The odds that Sanders is a Saint

Bookmakers had already installed New Orleans as the favorite to draft Sanders, the son of the Hall of Fame cornerback and current Buffaloes coach. But in the wake of the news about Carr, whose shoulder issue could require surgery, the Saints are now heavier favorites. As of Sunday night, DraftKings lists New Orleans with -110 odds to select Sanders, with the Pittsburgh Steelers a distant second for Sanders at +350.

But the Saints are doing their due diligence on other quarterbacks. Louisville’s Tyler Shough made a pre-draft visit to New Orleans on Friday, according to NOLA.com’s Jeff Duncan.

Shough is a prototypical pocket passer with a big frame (6 foot 5, 219 pounds) who spent seven years at three schools due to a series of injuries at Texas Tech, his second stop. Shough, who turns 26 in September, started his career at Oregon as a backup to Justin Herbert. An NFL head coach recently told The Athletic’s Dianna Russini he believes Shough will be the best quarterback in this class.

What teams might be willing to give up to move to No. 8

Teams have held on to the eighth pick in nine of the past 10 years. The exception was in 2016, when No. 8 was traded three times before and during the draft. The Philadelphia Eagles sent two players — Byron Maxwell and Kiko Alonso — to the Miami Dolphins to move up from No. 13 to No. 8 in an early March trade.

In search of a franchise quarterback, the Eagles then traded up again a week before the draft, sending a haul of picks to the Cleveland Browns to move up to No. 2 for North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz. The Eagles sent Cleveland third- and fourth-round picks in 2016, plus a first-round pick in 2017 and a second in 2018. Philadelphia also received a 2017 fourth from the Browns.

Cleveland wasn’t done. On the night of the draft, they traded back from No. 8 to No. 15 with the Tennessee Titans, who took offensive tackle Jack Conklin at No. 8 and also picked up a sixth-round selection from the Browns in exchange for a third-round pick and a second in 2017.

Given that the Panthers are in the midst of a rebuild, general manager Dan Morgan seemingly would value picks more than players in a trade-back scenario. The farther Morgan is willing to move down, the more he can ask for in return.

But that requires a team that’s willing to trade up. Before Friday’s news on Carr, Tampa Bay Buccaneers GM Jason Licht said he thinks there will be fewer teams looking to move up this year because the “draft is pretty leveled-out at a certain point.”

And the Steelers — the team oddsmakers and some in league circles believe could be interested in moving up from No. 21 for a QB — don’t have a history of making those types of big leaps very often. Only twice since 2001 have the Steelers moved up 10 or more spots in the first round, most recently a 2019 trade with the Denver Broncos from No. 20 to No. 10 for linebacker Devin Bush. Pittsburgh sent the Broncos a second-round pick in 2019 and a third in 2020 in the deal.

That 10-spot jump is not that much different than the 13 spots the Steelers would be moving up in a hypothetical trade with the Panthers, which might get more in return with a quarterback involved. While most expect the Steelers to eventually sign free-agent Aaron Rodgers, they had Sanders and Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart in for pre-draft visits.

Only three times in the past 25 years has a quarterback been the No. 8 pick, and none of those instances involved a trade. Jake Locker (Tennessee) was the second QB taken (behind Cam Newton) in 2011, while Ryan Tannehill (Miami) was the third QB after Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III went 1-2 the following year.

The Atlanta Falcons sent shockwaves across the NFL landscape last spring by using the eighth pick on Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. after signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract in free agency.

Maybe there’s a mystery team in the market for a QB this year that could be a trade partner for Carolina. If not, the Panthers can stay put at No. 8, which has been good to them in the past.

To move or not to move?

Dave Gettleman doesn’t recall getting many calls about the eighth pick in 2017, but the then-Panthers GM wasn’t looking to move it. Jonathan Stewart had turned 30 that offseason, and the Panthers were looking to start the succession process at running back.

“You’ve gotta keep backfilling,” Gettleman said Friday in a phone interview. “You can’t let a position — you’ve got Jonathan; you can’t let the guy age out (or) you’re looking at each other and saying, ‘OK, what do we do now?’ ”

The Panthers zeroed in on LSU running back Leonard Fournette and Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey, who wasn’t as big as Fournette but possessed elite running and receiving skills.

“The size didn’t scare me because of (McCaffrey’s) quickness and his vision. He rarely took a big hit. He was very similar to Warrick Dunn that way,” Gettleman said.

“He had wide receiver hands. He had natural, soft, supple hands. And he was a football player,” Gettleman added. “His dad played in the league for many years, won Super Bowls. … We just felt that he was the guy.”

But some in the Panthers’ building thought it was a close call. At least one assistant coach wasn’t sure who Gettleman would pick if both Fournette and McCaffrey were available at No. 8. It turned out Gettleman didn’t have to choose after Fournette went fourth to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“Who knows? Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of others?” Gettleman said. “No, we were pretty much sold on Christian.”

With McCaffrey sharing carries with Stewart as a rookie, the Panthers made the playoffs in 2017 before releasing Stewart a couple of months later. McCaffrey rushed for 1,098 yards in 2018, and in 2019, he became just the third player in NFL history to reach the 1,000-yard mark in both rushing and receiving in the same season.

After a pair of injury-plagued seasons, the Panthers traded McCaffrey to San Francisco in 2022 for four draft picks, the highest of which was a second-round selection.

McCaffrey is one of four players the Panthers have selected eighth. The list includes three Pro Bowl players — Jordan Gross, McCaffrey and Jaycee Horn — along with running back Tim Biakabutuka, whose career was cut short after six seasons due to injuries.

A starter from the day he arrived in 2003, Gross spent his entire 11-year career with the Panthers, went to three Pro Bowls and is a member of the team’s Hall of Honor. Horn missed 29 of 51 games over his first three seasons. But he stayed healthy last season, made his first Pro Bowl and briefly was the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history after signing a four-year, $100 million extension in March.

In recent years, the Panthers used top-10 picks on Derrick Brown and Ikem Ekwonu, both of whom became immediate starters. Gettleman generally is a proponent of hanging on to a high pick rather than trading down.

In nine drafts as a GM with the Panthers and the New York Giants, Gettleman never traded back until his final draft in 2021, when the Chicago Bears made him “too good of an offer” to move up from No. 11 to No. 20 for quarterback Justin Fields. The Giants traded back again later in the draft.

“If you’re moving back, you’ve gotta have a number of guys on your board that you’re fine with picking. Because if you’ve got a guy that you love and you move back, the house always wins,” he said. “In my mind, when you’ve got a guy that you want, then you take him.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. To a certain degree, teams that move back, I could make the argument that they don’t know what they want. So rather than make a decision, they punt.”

(Top photo of Carr: Elsa / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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