There's been a great deal of discussion about the Panthers drafting their heir apparent to Jonathan Stewart in this season's draft. Stewart, turning 30 in 2017, sees most of his dead cap money fall off, as his cap hit of 8.25 million will see only 3.5 million of it as "dead" against the cap (per Spotrac.com) in 2017. 2016 sees Stewart counting as 9.55 million against the cap, with 7.3 considered already dead. It's not a bad idea to consider releasing Stewart next season, though his cap hit does reduce to only 1.5 mil in 2018. Most of the talks have centered around Derrick Henry, running back prospect out of Alabama, who some consider to be a fringe first rounder. Here's why that won't happen.
Dave Gettleman's draft history
Gettleman was the Pro Personnel Director for the New York Giants from 1999-2011, where he became the Senior Pro Personnel Analyst in 2012. In English, Gettleman definitely had a great deal of input/control over who the Giants drafted, and definitely did his homework on prospects. Now it's not always a strong indicator of how the evaluator feels about certain positions, but looking at a draft history can certainly shed some light.
The Giants only selected three running backs in the first three rounds during Dave Gettleman's time. They picked Joe Montgomery 49th overall in the 1999 draft, Ron Dayne 11th overall in the 2000 draft, and then waited 12 years to take another one in David Wilson at the 32nd overall pick. Now, the Giants did inherit Tiki Barber from the prior regime, who started to take off in 2000, but it's an interesting thing to see. The Giants ended up finding Brandon Jacobs in the fourth round years later, and were able to fill the need in free agency.
Current state of the position
Gettleman has since taken a running back in the later rounds of the last three drafts. One of them couldn't fix his fumble issues, one got injured and sniped up by the New England Patriots, where Cameron Artis-Payne appears to be a fine rotational piece. He rounds out a group that also consists of a fast change of pace back in Fozzy Whittaker, the bulldozing Mike Tolbert, and the promising young Brandon Wegher. I just don't see them using a first round pick with three young talents behind the recently reliable Stewart.
Trading up in the 2nd
Now, you may be saying "well, the Panthers could still trade up in the second to acquire Henry." And that's a pretty feasible situation. However, one also should recall that Gettleman entered the 2015 draft with 9 draft picks, including two fourth round picks and three fifth round picks. This gave Gettleman the ammunition to move up in the draft to acquire Devin Funchess, at a position where aside from Kelvin Benjamin the team wasn't relatively deep or young at.
If you break down what the Panthers needed to make that happen, you'll see it isn't that easy this year. They traded their second, their third, and their sixth round pick. That still left the Panthers with 5 more draft picks in the later rounds. If the Panthers looked to execute that kind of trade, they would likely leave themselves with only 2 picks left, and that includes only a 7th round pick. The Panthers managed to give up only a 6th along with their third last season, but they do not have a 6th this year. That doesn't necessarily rule out trading away a future pick, but my general observation is one year later, you up the round by one as well. Gettleman hasn't been keen on trading picks higher than the 6th or so in his time as GM. He's also executed a trade in the later in the draft in each of the last two season,s and having that flexibility to move up for a late round gem is certainly something for consideration as well.
One interesting scenario I could see is the Panthers could potentially have a suitor try to leap frog the Broncos for Paxton Lynch, if he's still there. Gettleman has preached that he'd rather have a dime than two nickels (or something like that), so it would depend on what exactly the Panthers get out of said trade. However, the Panthers would then give up their fifth year option rights on their first pick, which is a big help when you continue to hit gold on first round prospects.
So unless a trade down occurs, I just don't see it happening unless Henry tumbles to the back end of the second and Gettleman only needs to move up a few spots. Most mocks have Henry going in the upper half of the second round, sometimes as soon as the second or third pick in the round. So in sum, I think we see Gettleman sit and wait to see exactly how far a guy like Henry falls. I'm sure there will be plenty of players on the board that are high on Gettleman's board, especially with a draft as deep as this one. We may see a trade up, but it might not be for Henry.
What do you think, Panthers fans?