After rehabbing a September 2023 injury to be on the field in Week 1, Shaq Thompson faces another long road to recovery. The Panthers have again lost the veteran linebacker to a season-ending injury.

Thompson sustained an Achilles tear in Week 4, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reports. The only Carolina starter left from Super Bowl 50, Thompson is in the final year of his contract. This is obviously a tough blow to Thompson’s value, as he is now 30 and will exit this season coming off two major injuries.

Anchoring Carolina’s defensive second level since Luke Kuechly‘s 2020 retirement, Thompson came back from a fractured fibula suffered in Week 2 of last season. That injury forced him off the field during another tumultuous Panthers season. Despite the team changing GMs and once again switching HCs, Thompson remained in its plans. He came back and started four games this season, making 35 tackles, but it is now worth wondering if this is it for the 2015 first-round pick with Carolina.

The Panthers, who played much of last season without Thompson and Jaycee Horn, have lost Derrick Brown for the year as well. The latest Thompson setback guts Ejiro Evero‘s defense, which already came into the season shorthanded at edge rusher. Resolving the Brian Burns matter by selling low (via trade to the Giants), the Panthers have D.J. Wonnum on their reserve/PUP list. Jadeveon Clowney has one sack in four games, with no Panther entering Week 5 with more than 1.5.

Sacks are not Thompson’s department, but the off-ball ‘backer has provided consistency and leadership during much of his Carolina tenure. Initially a wingman alongside stalwarts Kuechly and Thomas Davis on that Carolina Super Bowl team as a rookie, the Dave Gettleman-era draftee earned a lucrative extension before Kuechly’s retirement. Thompson played on that deal until accepting a pay cut in 2023. The Panthers restructured that contract this offseason, creating $3MM in cap space. If Thompson is not re-signed by the start of the 2025 league year, the team will incur $3.18MM in dead money.

A 1-15 2001 season aside, this has been the worst stretch in team history. Thompson has missed much of this 3-18 run but has been onboard throughout David Tepper‘s ownership tenure. Thompson had teamed with Frankie Luvu in recent years, but he defected to Washington in free agency. The Panthers added ex-Evero Broncos charge Josey Jewell as a starter in March, and they will need to find another regular. The team used a third-round pick on Trevin Wallace this year and used its No. 1 waiver priority to claim Jon Rhattigan late last month. Claudin Cherelus, a former waiver claim, rounds out Carolina’s ILB group.

Thompson’s 752 career tackles rank fourth in Panthers history — behind Davis, Kuechly and safety Mike Minter — and his 112 starts sit seventh in franchise history among defenders. Barring a low-cost contract to return, Thompson will remain in that spot for the foreseeable future, as the Panthers do not have much for longevity on their defense. Whether it is with Carolina or another franchise, Thompson will aim to play again. He said Monday (via Instagram) retirement is not on the table.

When Shaq Thompson underwent surgery to repair his fractured fibula, it was assumed the Panthers linebacker would miss the rest of the season. While that’s still the most likely scenario, the veteran is apparently holding out hope for a return in 2023.

Thompson told reporters that there’s a chance he could return to the field this season (via Joe Person of The Athletic). The linebacker revealed that his recovery timeline is three months, which would put a potential return around mid-December.

If Thompson doesn’t have any setbacks, he could have the opportunity to play in the Panthers’ final three or four games. Of course, if the organization is out of the playoff picture at that point, they may just choose to keep the 29-year-old healthy for the 2024 campaign. Thompson is still under contract through next season, although the Panthers do have an easy out if they want to move on from the former first-round pick.

Thompson suffered the injury during the Panthers’ Week 2 loss to the Saints. The linebacker is the team’s longest-tenure player and only remaining holdover from the Super Bowl 50 squad. He had one of the most productive seasons of his career in 2022, finishing with a career-high 135 tackles.

Offseason addition Kamu Grugier-Hill has been the biggest benefactor of Thompson’s injury. After exclusively playing on special teams in Week 1, the veteran has seen the field for 110 defensive snaps over the past two weeks. Former Pro Bowler Deion Jones made his season debut in Week 3, playing 52 defensive snaps alongside Grugier-Hill and Frankie Luvu.

SEPTEMBER 19: Thompson has already undergone surgery to repair the fibula fracture, per Reich (via Rapoport). This step will end the nine-year vet’s season.

SEPTEMBER 18: A cart transported Shaq Thompson to the locker room during the Panthers’ narrow loss to the Saints tonight. It does not look like the veteran linebacker will be in uniform again soon.

Frank Reich confirmed Thompson suffered a “significant” ankle injury against the Saints and will miss extensive time, Cameron Wolfe of NFL.com tweets. It should be expected an IR stint will take place, and NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reports this injury is likely to sideline Thompson for the season’s remainder.

It is not yet a lock Thompson is done for the year, with NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero reporting the veteran defender sustained a fibula fracture that will require more tests to determine if he has a chance of coming back this season. Thompson, 29, is the Panthers’ longest-tenured defender and the only starter remaining from the team’s Super Bowl 50 appearance. He has been with the Panthers since 2015, when the team selected him in the first round.

Thompson has made 107 starts for the Panthers — third-most by a linebacker in team history, behind only Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly. This trio was in place from 2015-18, but Davis finished his career elsewhere and Kuechly retired after the 2019 season. While the Panthers have made a number of changes on defense as they transitioned from Ron Rivera to Matt Rhule to Reich as HC, Thompson has persisted.

This offseason, the Panthers effectively gave Thompson a pay cut. Thompson had signed a four-year, $54.43MM extension in December 2019. Two years remained on that deal. Rather than head into what became a modest market for off-ball linebackers not named Tremaine Edmunds this offseason, Thompson opted to stay on a revised deal. The Panthers gave Thompson additional guarantees in exchange for the cut; he is now tied to a two-year $12.6MM agreement. Thompson received $8.5MM guaranteed on this adjusted accord, which still runs through 2024.

Carolina has moved on from a few of its linebackers in recent years, trading Denzel Perryman and then moving on from other Rhule-era pickups (Jermaine Carter, Cory Littleton, Damien Wilson). Hybrid player Frankie Luvu operates as a key off-ball presence for Carolina, which used offseason pickup Kamu Grugier-Hill in place of Thompson tonight. That arrangement may be likely to continue for the foreseeable future, barring a surprise diagnosis or the Panthers making a move at linebacker.

The only Panthers starter left from Super Bowl 50, Shaq Thompson agreed to terms on a new contract this offseason. The decision kept Thompson in Carolina, but it amounted to a pay cut.

Thompson was previously tethered to a four-year, $54.43MM deal — one agreed to in December 2019 — that ran through 2023. While that contract paid nearly $14MM per year, Thompson’s new deal ties him to the team through 2024 at a $6.3MM AAV. In exchange for this reduction in average salary, the Panthers handed Thompson $8.5MM in guaranteed money.

Guarantees notwithstanding, Thompson is now on a deal in line with many linebackers who signed this offseason. While Tremaine Edmunds and Bobby Okereke signed deals for eight figures per year, a number of linebackers — Kyzir White, Azeez Al-Shaair, David Long, Bobby Wagner, Alex Singleton, Cole Holcomb, Alex Anzalone, T.J. Edwards, Eric Kendricks and Germaine Pratt — signed for between $5MM and $7MM per annum.

“Just look at the linebacker market; nobody was getting paid,” Thompson said, via Panthers.com’s Augusta Stone. “So it was just weighing out, ‘Do I want to be here, or do I want to go somewhere else? Do I want to be with my brothers, who I went to war with, or do I want to go to a different team and meet new people?’ And shoot, I’m a big loyal guy. So I stayed with my brothers.”

Thompson agreed to his redone deal just before that market formed, with news of the contract coming out March 11 — two days before the legal tampering period began. The new deal also extended Thompson’s contract by a year and includes a $2MM salary guarantee for 2024. That would be unlikely to stop the Panthers from moving on next year, should Thompson’s play tail off in his upcoming age-29 season, but the team did make a 2024 release more difficult by adding three void years to the deal.

Of the above-referenced lot of ILBs, only two (Anzalone and Singleton) received more than the $8.5MM fully guaranteed Thompson did. Both the Lions and Broncos linebackers secured $9MM guaranteed. Thompson’s agreement effectively served as one of the market-setting moves at a position this offseason. While Thompson’s previous extension gave him the third-most guaranteed money among linebackers at the time, this one will keep his Carolina career going as another new coaching staff takes over.

Thompson’s name emerged in trade rumors shortly after Matt Rhule‘s firing, joining just about every other Panthers veteran of note. While Christian McCaffrey, Chosen Anderson and D.J. Moore are gone, Thompson will stick around after his fourth straight 100-tackle season. As the Panthers rallied back from their 1-5 start, Thompson finished with a career-high 135 tackles. Pro Football Focus rated the Washington alum as a top-25 linebacker overall but slotted him second at the position against the run, with only Wagner earning a higher grade in that area.

Drafted during the Dave Gettleman–Ron Rivera period, Thompson has 106 games for the Panthers. Among linebackers, that number trails only Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly — the team’s prized duo when Thompson arrived — in franchise history. Thompson starting 13 games this season will move him past Kuechly on that list.