Carolina Panthers gift Chicago Bears with No. 1 overall pick in 2024 NFL Draft
The Carolina Panthers made a bunch of substantial history in their 26-0 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday — and one milestone in particular is harder to swallow than the rest.
The 2-14 Panthers have officially clinched the worst record in the NFL this season. That means that they have officially gifted the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft to the Chicago Bears, who own the Panthers’ first-round draft pick after the blockbuster trade between the two teams this past offseason.
The last team to finish with the worst record and not own the No. 1 pick was the 1983 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“I’m not concerned about the Bears’ first pick. I’m really not,” Panthers interim head coach Chris Tabor told reporters after the game. “I’m focused in on what happened today, and why did it go wrong? Now what I’m going to do is, I have another opportunity to come back. Everybody, the story lines that you want to write, I get all that. But I’m going to stay true to myself, on the process, another opportunity, and whatever’s written is written.
“But I know that if I shortchange myself next week, then I’ve compromised. And what I have to do, as a coach leading this team at this moment, is make sure that we’re pros. Be a pro, do things right, be on time and do those things and go through the process to give ourselves a chance.”
In March, the Panthers agreed to terms on a trade with the Bears to send the ninth overall pick, the 61st overall pick, a 2024 first-round pick, a 2025 second-round pick and wide receiver DJ Moore to Chicago for the first overall selection in 2023. The Panthers used that move to acquire rookie quarterback Bryce Young — the dazzling Alabama quarterback who the Panthers still consider the future of their franchise.
Young hasn’t lived up to his No. 1 pick pedigree in his rookie year. Coming into Sunday’s game, he’d notched a 59.7 completion percentage with 2,671 yards (only eclipsing a 300-yard passing game once), 11 touchdowns, nine interceptions and a quarterback rating of 34.7 — which was close to the lowest in the league among starting quarterbacks. He had also been sacked 53 times.
Those numbers all predictably got worse on Sunday, after Young was sacked six times and only threw for 112 yards and added a pick, too.
The top prospects in this year’s draft include a strong group of quarterbacks — including North Carolina’s Drake Maye and Southern California’s Caleb Williams — and generational prospect at wide receiver out of Ohio State, Marvin Harrison Jr.
