The 2024 NFL Combine has come and gone and teams have shifted their attention to pro days and individual visits with players. The draft is less than two months away, and draft boards are coming into focus.
Front and center on the Carolina Panthers list of needs is wide receiver (and the ever present need for better offensive lineman). We’ve touched on free agent targets, but that landscape has changed with some franchise tag placements and will surely change more before the league year starts next week. We’ll talk more about that another day.
Free agency can’t be the only plan of attack for fixing this wide receiver corps though. The Panthers need young talent to pair with their young quarterback. Regardless of your thoughts on the quarterback, the Panthers badly need a star on the outside, and they’re unlikely to find that in the free agent market. Fortunately for them, the 2024 NFL Draft aligns with their need at wide receiver and presents them with a bevy of options.
The Panthers don’t have a first round pick, so they’re out of the market for the top three guys—Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze. The next tier of receivers is within reach at 33 though, and there’s enough depth at the position that some realistic targets at 33 might fall and still be available at pick 65. There are a lot of similarly talented wide receivers, and team preferences are going to be a large determinant of who goes where.
In that second and third round range, the Panthers will basically be able to take their pick of wide receiver archetype. There’s a big-bodied but slower wide receiver from Florida State, and we’ve seen that work out to great success here in the past. There are thin framed burners like Xavier Worthy and Troy Franklin. We’ve got some ‘sneaky athletes’ that probably look like perfect slot receivers in Ladd McConkey and Ricky Pearsall. There are some big, powerful athletes like Adonai Mitchell and Xavier Legette.
Because the class is so deep, the Panthers don’t need to reach for a receiver at the 33rd overall pick. If anything, they’re in a prime spot to try to trade down with a team that’s got their eyes on someone that fell out of the first round. Plus there’s that whole thing about teams getting anxious between days one and two of the draft and wanting to go get their guy to start day two. If the Panthers pull that off, they’ll acquire more assets and still be positioned well to get an immediate day one contributor on the outside.
If they elect to attack one of their other needs at the top of the second round, there should still be plenty of options by the time their third round pick rolls around. One of the aforementioned second round targets could fall. There are players that took a backseat in their collegiate roles like Roman Wilson or the not-Rome Odunze Washington receivers.
It’s a super deep wide receiver class, and there’s no reason the Carolina Panthers shouldn’t come away with a day one contributor if not a day one starter out of this draft. They’re in a prime spot to pick from whatever wide receiver archetype they want, and they should get an immediate boost to their offense because of it.
