Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer has made 13 trades since taking on the role in January (via Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer). If the GM has his way, his 14th trade will address the team’s offensive line issues. Fitterer told reporters that he’s called around about OL trades but hasn’t found a taker, noting that teams aren’t even willing to consider dealing their backups (via The Athletic’s Joe Person on Twitter).
[RELATED: Patriots Trade Stephon Gilmore To Panthers]
“I mean, it’s not like there are offensive linemen available,” the executive said (via Fowler). “I think every team’s in the same situation we are. … There’s just not a lot of offensive linemen on the market right now. No one’s letting them out (the door) — even their backups.”
Quarterback Sam Darnold was hit 11 times and sacked five times during Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys. If the Panthers have playoff aspirations, they’ll need to keep their starting QB healthy, and reinforcing the offensive line would certainly help.
As Darin Gantt of the team’s website points out, the Panthers were forced to play a pair of injured OLs (left tackle Cameron Erving (knee) and right guard John Miller (shoulder)) on Sunday. While some acquisitions would certainly help, head coach Matt Rhule seemed to indicate that improved health could solve the offensive line’s issues.
“I think a lot of it comes down to who’s healthy when we get to Wednesday,” Rhule said (via Gantt). “Those guys, while it’s not always perfect, they’re playing hard for us while they’ve been banged up. I appreciate the way they’re playing. We’ll see what we do moving forward this week, see who’s healthy, see who’s available, and take full stock of where we are.”
Andre Dillard for a mid round pick
Sadly he’s not even worth that any more which is why the Eagles won’t trade him for the Day 3 pick he is worth.
Yeah, if their line was healthy, maybe Philly would have tried to unload Dillard again. They can’t afford to now, and like Hammer said, he’s not going to get them much more than they’d get simply by keeping him for depth (for situations like what is happening now). If Philly had more options, then maybe it could have worked, but Dillard won’t get too much on his own as is.
Dillard is currently starting due to many injuries on the eagles line. Last week 4 of 5 starters were out.
Well, I’m glad they’re monitoring things. If that fails though, there are a couple of free agents that could possibly be helpful. Mitchell Swartz hopefully should be recovered soon, and that could be a high level free agent signing if he’s okay.
Other than that, the list is pretty hit or miss. Forrest Lamp could be as low risk signing. There are a couple of bargain bin vets like Demar Dotson or Ricky Wagner too. There doesn’t seem to be too much going on with linemen these days, but you never know. The Saints have indicated a desire to let Terron Armstead test the market (pretty stupid, especially considering how money they spent on the average Android Peat)), but being NFC South rivals, I doubt that he’d get sent to Carolina if he became available in a trade.