Carolina Panthers take step toward retaining offensive lineman who came up big in 2024
The Carolina Panthers are planning on retaining a key member of their offensive line.
The Panthers are placing a tender on restricted free agent center Cade Mays, a league source confirmed to The Observer on Friday. This means that Mays will stay in Charlotte for the 2025 campaign if he signs onto the deal. An original-round tender for him — he was a sixth-round pick — is worth $3.4 million.
This move by the Panthers now means Mays will need to obtain an offer sheet from an opposing team to leave his current squad. He is still eligible to do so if he doesn’t sign the tender. If this happens — as restricted free agency rules stipulate — the Panthers will then have the right to match the offer and retain him.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported the news first.
The 2022 sixth-round pick out of Tennessee was cut following his third training camp with the Panthers in September. He joined the New York Giants’ practice squad from there before being called back to Carolina after starting right tackle Taylor Moton sustained a triceps injury and starting center Austin Corbett experienced a season-ending biceps tear in Week 5.
From there, Mays stepped up as starting center in Corbett’s absence. The 6-foot-6, 325-pound, 26-year-old versatile lineman played in 11 games and started eight.
His best game came in Week 18 against the Atlanta Falcons, where he played 100% of the team’s offensive snaps and finished with a Pro Football Focus offensive grade of 81.4, a run-blocking grade of 79 and a pass-blocking grade of 84.8 — paving the way for one of the Panthers’ best offensive performances of the season.
The retaining of Mays marks one decision the Panthers needed to make along the offensive line. The team will need to figure out what to do with the contracts of three veteran linemen.
One is Moton, the team’s iron-man right tackle whose cap number is $31,347,918 in 2025, according to Over The Cap. The team could elect to restructure his contract to free up some salary cap space ahead of the free agency period, which in many other years would make sense. However, as general manager Dan Morgan alluded to at the NFL combine in February, the league’s increased salary cap makes it feasible — and in some ways, advantageous — to eat up big contracts and stop “kicking the can down the road” in certain situations, so to speak.
The other two contracts in question deal with free agents. The first is Corbett, the starting center who Mays admirably replaced. Morgan, when asked about Corbett and Mays, said at the NFL Combine that the team is “working on things right now and trying to get things hammered out and get them back as Carolina Panthers.”
The second is Brady Christensen, another reserve lineman who played well when opportunity arose in 2024. He is expected to test free agency, per Morgan.
The rest of the line is relatively secure — which includes last year’s high-profile free agents Damien Lewis and Robert Hunt. Hunt participated in his first Pro Bowl Games in February.
Panthers also place tender on defensive lineman LaBryan Ray
The Panthers made another move Friday. The team announced they have placed a tender on exclusive rights free agent LaBryan Ray. This means that Ray will remain with the Panthers in 2025, as the Panthers held exclusive rights toward retaining the player.
The defensive lineman started nine games and recorded 41 tackles and a sack in 2024. He did so with a broken hand for part of the year.
The expectation is the rest of the restricted free-agent class — WR Deven Thompkins, RB Raheem Blackshear, WR Velus Jones Jr. and WR Dan Chisena — won’t be tendered following the announcement of Mays and Ray’s deals.
This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 9:54 AM.
