Carolina Panthers trade up with Seahawks to take Jeremy Chinn in the NFL draft
A player from Southern Illinois hadn’t been drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL draft since 1984. The Panthers have never taken someone from the school.
On the second day of the 2020 draft that changed. Carolina, instead, felt so strongly about safety Jeremy Chinn that they moved up from the 69th overall pick to the 64th overall pick to make sure that no one else took him.
The Panthers traded with the Seahawks to move up, also giving away pick No. 148 to make the selection, the fifth round pick they acquired in the trade of quarterback Kyle Allen to Washington.
The move is the first trade for Carolina in this year’s draft and the third defensive player they have selected, but this is the first time they have addressed the secondary, filling a need at safety. While the Panthers desperately need a cornerback to replace James Bradberry, who signed with the Giants this offseason, Chinn provides a versatile option for Carolina as he played safety and cornerback in college.
While the Panthers will be primarily developing him at safety, the team will use him in a variety of ways. All three players the Panthers have taken thus far have been “positionless” as Rhule has said in the past. They don’t just fit in one box.
“We look at him as a guy that can be trained as a safety and as nickel, Sam linebacker. He’ll be able to go out and play number two to the field, also be able to come back in nickel and dime, maybe even defend some of the running backs and tight ends,” Matt Rhule said. “I think when you look at the NFC South and you see the tight ends that we have to face, when you see the running backs that we have to face, having guys like him that can give us some matchups against those guys... it just gives you a lot of flexibility.”
There wasn’t a team in particular that the Panthers were concerned would take Chinn, 22, ahead of them, but they elected to move up with the pick they got from the trade of Kyle Allen to Washington because of how strongly they felt about him.
“We just thought that he was too good to take the chance of seeing if he could get through six more picks to get to us,” general manager Marty Hurney said. “We thought that we had a fair deal for both sides to go up and get him and thought that he was a player who can really help our defense grow. I think when you feel that strongly about a guy, sometimes you just don’t want to take the chance to see him get there. I don’t think he would have gotten to us in the third round.”
The consensus All-American in his senior year, Chinn was also named to the FCS ADA Academic All Star team and MVFC All-Academic team, but missed two games in 2019 due to plantar fasciitis. The six-foot-three, 221-pound defensive back still finished the season with 71 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, four interceptions, seven passes defensed and a sack. All of that despite being a no-star recruit out of high school.
“I’m just someone who’s always going to be around the football. Where ever the football is I’m going to get there,” Chinn said. “You’ll see me running all around the field when you turn on the tape. I can run with anybody. I’m always going to be around the ball. As far as a person, I’m a very high character guy. I hold myself to a very high standard and I hold the people around me to a very high standard as well.”
Hurney really started to like Chinn at the Senior Bowl, seeing how he was able to compete against the top talent in the country. His speed — ran a 4.45 40-yard dash —and ball skills separated him, despite seeing almost entirely FCS talent throughout his college career. In the end, it was skill sets and what he has the potential to do that landed the first ever Saluki with the Panthers.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 9:39 PM.
