The salary cap (around $16 million over the cap) may mostly freeze the Panthers out of this years FA market, even for their own FA's, but the Panthers can find some good news from the early FA rankings.

The biggest worry for Panthers fans has been the likely loss of starting FA UT Dwan Edwards (6 sacks), but in the early FA rankings the Panthers might have gotten some very good news, in a sort of backhanded way. ProFootballFocus.com give Edwards a very low -6.8 ranking, and Rotoworld.com ranks him as only the 17th best DT (behind 15. Roy Miller - Bucs, 16. Sammie Lee Hill - Lions, and 18. Maake Kemoeatu). The good news, it may be much easier to re-sign Edwards than first thought, and the bad news, no one seems to think very highly of Dwan Edwards.

Overall, none of the Panthers FA's are ranked very high by PFF, so it shouldn't cost much to bring them back, if they want to? Here are their rankings of the Panthers FA's:

5.3 TE Ben Hartsock

1.4 TE Gary Barnidge

1.1 LB Jason Phillips

0.4 QB Derek Anderson

0.2 CB Captain Munnerlyn

0.1 LB Jordan Senn

0.0 CB Nate Ness

0.0 OG Mike Pollak

-0.6 S Sherrod Martin

-5.5 DE/OLB Antwan Applewhite

-5.7 WR Louis Murphy

-6.8 DT Dwan Edwards

-11.0 DT Andre Neblett

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/01/01/free-agents-carolina-panthers/