Shaq Thompson was a brave leader and a tackling machine for the Panthers. But it was time
Every good NFL team needs a strong, smart linebacker who doubles as one of the squad’s primary leaders. The Carolina Panthers’ best years all correspond with this theory, and that’s no coincidence: Sam Mills in 1996, Dan Morgan in 2003 and then both Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis in 2015.
Shaq Thompson, the linebacker the Panthers parted ways with on Monday, played that role for the Panthers for years after Kuechly and Davis were gone.
Even though the team around him wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs, he often was. Thompson posted four straight 100-tackle seasons between 2019-22 and was a five-time team captain in his 10 seasons in Charlotte.
Thompson was also brave enough to speak up against Panthers owner David Tepper when Tepper changed Carolina’s grass field to artificial turf several years ago.
The artificial turf was easier to maintain in Bank of America Stadium, especially after Charlotte FC began playing there and Tepper began bringing in more concerts. But the turf was and remains widely unpopular among Panthers players, due to its reputation for causing more injuries.
This, however, was mostly spoken about in whispers in the locker room. Tepper, after all, wrote the checks.
Yet Thompson has voiced the complaints publicly and repeatedly about the playing surface, saying in 2022: “Listen to your players. We want to play on grass.” He pointed out that the stadium would temporarily be covered in grass when, say, a famous European soccer team wanted it to be that way for an exhibition, only for the grass to be rolled back up and returned to artificial turf on a daily basis.
Those moments always struck me as some of Thompson’s best here. A great leader is willing to speak up against the boss on behalf of the people around him.
Ultimately the turf war, though, had nothing to do with why Thompson, 30, was told that the Panthers didn’t want him anymore (they announced this Monday) and to just go ahead and enter free agency.
No, this parting simply has to do with Father Time. Thompson played on the Panthers’ Super Bowl team in 2015 as a rookie after being the team’s first-round draft choice that year. He is fourth all-time on the team in tackles. But he has also missed 28 of the Panthers’ last 34 games due to two separate injuries that cost him nearly all of the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
You can’t really blame the Panthers for this one. I would have done the same thing. As fine a leader as Thompson was, he hasn’t produced on the field in the past two years.
The Panthers are trying to get younger at linebacker — hence the drafting of Trevin Wallace in the third round a year ago — and Thompson became expendable. When you’re overhauling a defense on a team that gave up more points than any NFL team in history, you generally don’t keep the guys who are on the wrong side of 30 and have missed 82% of the games over the past two years.
In January, after the Panthers’ 5-12 season ended, Thompson spoke with reporters about wanting to finish his career in Carolina. But he was also honest about the possibility it might happen somewhere else instead.
“I want to end my career here, you know what I mean?” Thompson said. “Be one of the guys in history to play with one team. But it’s up to them.”
Thompson also said in that interview that he thought he had “3-4 years left” in his career. Like Davis before him, Thompson will finish his career in a different uniform. His legacy here will be one of leadership, even when the times got tough, as they so often were.
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 10:51 AM.
