Panthers Sign CB Charles Tillman to 1-Year Deal

The Carolina Panthers announced today that they have signed former Chicago Bears CB Charles Tillman to a one year deal. The 13 year vet, affectionately known as "Peanut", has 36 career INT's and 42 forced fumbles in his career with the Bears. This signing is important in more ways than one. Besides the obvious fact this bolsters a secondary that doesn't feature a ton of experience still at the CB position, the Panthers are adding one of the NFL's best in terms of personal character to the team.

Last year, Tillman was the recipient of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, a distinction our own Thomas Davis received this year. In today's NFL, where scandal and remarkably poor decision making among players appears to be commonplace, adding another high character guy to the team never hurts.

When asked about his signing here, Tillman said:

"I think Coach Rivera was one of the main reasons why I wanted to be here," Tillman said in a statement. "He’s a guy that I had a lot of respect for when I was in Chicago. I love his leadership and his qualities as a coach and he’s done a good job with the Panthers. There’s a good group of guys here like Thomas Davis, Greg Olsen, Luke Kuechly and Cam Newton. I got a good vibe here.

Let's hope that by reuniting him with Rivera will be the key to getting another good year out of Tillman. The real question will be can he stay healthy? After only missing 14 games his first 10 years in the league, Tillman has only been able to play in 10 games the past two years due to injury. If Tillman can stay out of injury trouble, our secondary will feature one of the better ballhawks in the league, despite his age.

We will update the post as soon as we have some numbers for you.

UPDATE:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>hmm, a bit pricey. RT <a href="https://twitter.com/caplannfl">@caplannfl</a>: One year, $3.05 m deal for Tillman. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Buccaneers?src=hash">#Buccaneers</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Seahawks?src=hash">#Seahawks</a> also were in the mix to sign him.</p>&mdash; Black &amp; Blue Review (@BlackBlueReview) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlackBlueReview/status/586274005340028928">April 9, 2015</a></blockquote>

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