Carolina Panthers plan to sign veteran pass rusher after dreadful debut
The Carolina Panthers plan to add some much-needed depth at the pass rushing position.
A league source confirmed to The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday morning that the Panthers intend to sign veteran defensive end Charles Harris to the squad ahead of their Week 2 contest and home-opener against the Los Angeles Chargers. NFL Network was the first with the news.
Harris, 29, has played a lot of football. He was a first-round draft pick in 2017, when he played in 16 games for the Miami Dolphins and accumulated two sacks as a rookie. In total, he’s been on three teams in seven years in the league: three in Miami, one in Atlanta and three in Detroit — the latter of which is where he connected with current Panthers defensive line coach Todd Wash.
When teamed up with Wash, in 2021, Harris notched a career-best 7.5 sacks.
In his career, Harris has played in 90 games and has started 30. The 6-foot-3, 250-pound pass rusher notched 16.5 sacks and 171 tackles. He’s only started in seven games since 2021, which is a result of a few lingering injuries in 2022 and 2023.
The move comes after a whirlwind of a 48 hours for the organization. For one, the team got dismantled by the New Orleans Saints in its season-opener, and the lack of a pass rush loomed large in the 47-10 shellacking. Saints quarterback Derek Carr was sacked once for one yard, according to the box score, but regularly operated without pressure. The Panthers’ defensive front was also overpowered in the run game — with the Saints rushing 37 times for 180 yards and two touchdowns.
For another, less than 24 hours after the dismantling, the Panthers confirmed that Derrick Brown — the team’s Pro Bowl defensive lineman and one of the best run-stoppers in the NFL — had sustained a potentially season-ending meniscus injury during the game. The news downgraded a dreadful loss to a season-changing one and reverberated across the locker room and the league.
Harris alone won’t replace Brown, who notched an NFL-defensive-lineman record of 103 tackles in 2023. He alone also won’t solve all the Panthers’ problems along the EDGE rusher position — a group that has been in the offseason spotlight because it didn’t have an adequate answer to the question: Who is starting on the other side of Jadeveon Clowney?
But Harris is a good place to start nonetheless. The group Harris will be joining at outside linebacker in Ejiro Evero’s 3-4 system includes Clowney, DJ Johnson and Eku Leota. Johnson (34 snaps) and Leota (30) played the most opposite Clowney on Sunday — with Leota notching a team-best three tackles for loss.
Panthers also plan to add Mike Boone to Panthers’ 53-man roster
In addition to the news about Harris, the Panthers also made a flurry of other moves on Tuesday. Here’s a look at them. The team...
▪ Promoted running back Mike Boone and cornerback Lonnie Johnson to the 53-man roster. The two players are vested veterans, and thus if they were on the Week 1 roster, their contracts would’ve been fully guaranteed. This gives the team roster/fiscal flexibility, in case they need to put Boone or Johnson back on the practice squad during the season.
▪ Placed defensive end Derrick Brown in the injured reserve list; the team announced Brown will not return the rest of the season.
▪ Added defensive end DeShawn Williams and defensive back Azizi Hearn to the practice squad.
▪ Waived OLB Jamie Sheriff.
These moves indicate that the Panthers have one roster slot still open, which was made available by the team’s waiving of tight end Feleipe Franks on Monday. The team will presumably fill that spot with Harris, the aforementioned EDGE rusher.
Mike Kaye contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 9:06 AM.
