The Panthers and guard Trai Turner are in the early stages of working out a new deal, according to Joseph Person of the Charlotte Observer. League sources say that the talks are preliminary, and that’s probably because the price tag for Turner is trending upwards.
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Guards don’t make as much as tackles, but recent contracts inked by Kevin Zeitler (five years, $60MM) and Kelechi Osemele (five years, $58.5MM) have pushed the market. Those deals were inked in free agency, but others like Joel Bitonio (five years, $51.2MM), David DeCastro (five years, $50MM), Kyle Long (four years, $40MM), and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (five years, $42.4MM) got paid handsomely to remain with their respective teams.
Now, it’s Turner’s turn to get paid. The 23-year-old (24 in June) has made the Pro Bowl in each of the past two seasons and has been viewed as a quality lineman ever since his rookie year in 2014. As a former third round pick, the Panthers have him under contract at a $1.931MM cap number (which was boosted thanks to the proven performance escalator clause), but it will take a lot more than that to lock him up for 2018 and beyond.
In February, Turner changed representation and signed with Drew Rosenhaus.