Carolina Panthers head coach, GM answer to who they drafted — and who they didn’t
There’s a lot to dissect from all the choices the Carolina Panthers made over the course of this year’s three-day NFL Draft.
That includes players the team decided to select.
As well as those it didn’t.
The seven players the Panthers acquired: OT Monroe Freeling in Round 1; DT Lee Hunter in Round 2; WR Chris Brazzell in Round 3; CB Will Lee in Round 4; C Sam Hecht and S Zakee Wheatley in Round 5; and then ILB Jackson Kuwatch in Round 7.
But there are countless others the Panthers didn’t acquire — and that can speak volumes about how the franchise feels about the state of those respective position groups.
Here are four notes from a post-draft discussion with head coach Dave Canales and general manager Dan Morgan that gets at that very point.
No running back, no problem, Canales says
For the first time since Canales arrived at Carolina, the Panthers did not select a running back in the draft.
They did so in 2024, with the second-round addition of Jonathon Brooks, and then they did so in 2025, with the Day 3 addition of Trevor Etienne. But not this weekend.
Canales said this was a result of the team’s trust in the entire room — not just Chuba Hubbard, Brooks (who’s expected to be a full-go on the field during OTAs) and Etienne, but also free-agent acquisition AJ Dillon and Trey Tyus. The head coach added some more nuance about his process as well.
“We’re excited to see what they can do,” Canales said of his running back group. “When we start with this process, as we’re looking at players in the draft, we kind of look at them compared to our roster, compared to the guys we have. Who’s this guy competing with in this room? Where do we see them being able to try to affect it? And we just have a bunch of guys we’re really excited about.”
Canales addressed Brooks directly as well. Brooks has played in two games in two years and missed 2025 entirely after tearing the same ACL in the same knee in two consecutive football seasons.
“We have high hopes for Jonathon,” Canales said. “He looks great right now. Can’t wait, in the smartest way possible, get him out there and expose him at the right time and get him accustomed to the things that we’re doing.”
Why the Carolina Panthers didn’t add a tight end
Morgan likes his tight end room. There’s no question about that. And despite having the opportunity to upgrade at the position a few times this draft — and maybe go and get a “No. 1” receiving tight end — Morgan deferred.
The reasoning was similar to the running back conundrum; the one difference being, of course, that it was widely believed the Panthers could benefit from upgrading the room.
All three of the Panthers’ tight ends who notched starts — Tommy Tremble, Mitchell Evans and Ja’Tavion Sanders — were out-received by running back Rico Dowdle in 2025. (In fairness, injuries subdued some of those numbers, and the three TEs as a unit notched 610 yards as a collective in the regular season, which could be a serviceable No. 1 tight end output.)
“We have a lot of confidence in the guys that are on our roster, and I said that before,” Morgan said. He added, “If we feel like we need to figure out tight end and bring a different skill set in, then we’ll do that. But right now we feel good about it.”
Center Sam Hecht will ‘be able to compete’ for starting job
When asked about which players he thought could be able to start right away, Morgan didn’t offer much of a hypothesis. He shrugged and added that “it’s up to them” to show up and work hard and prove how valuable to the team they could be.
But while Day 1 and Day 2 players are more or less expected to start quickly, there was one Day 3 addition that Morgan was clearly high on: Sam Hecht, the center out of Kansas State the Panthers took in the fifth round.
He’s joining an offensive line that is need of a center, what with the departures of both centers who started last year in Cade Mays and Austin Corbett. The team brought on Luke Fortner in free agency on a one-year deal, but the need — short-term and long-term — is there.
“He’s going to have a chance to compete,” Morgan said of Hecht. “I think first and foremost, you see his initial quickness. He’s really good with angles. He can reach guys. He’s good with his hands, getting his hands inside, controlling blockers, staying sticky on blocks. …
“He’s another guy who can work to the second level. He can get out in space as a puller. So there’s a lot of things that we like about him.”
Panthers didn’t draft a quarterback, but there was a reason why
Morgan said that there’s “a potential” for adding a quarterback to the roster as the team continues its build to 90 players ahead of training camp this summer. When asked if it’s “likely,” Morgan responded resolutely: “Yeah, I do.”
The quarterbacks the Panthers brought in for visits in the pre-draft process were mobile — Haynes King out of Georgia Tech and Heisman finalist Diego Pavia out of Vanderbilt were among them. And in the minutes after the draft went final, King agreed to terms with Carolina.
So they didn’t draft a quarterback — but they had a plan nonetheless.
The Panthers will now have a QB during rookie minicamp in early May. It’s not unusual for the Panthers to have four quarterbacks on their 90-man training camp roster, either; they’ve had four QBs at training camp both years under Canales.
Carolina’s QB room as of now: Bryce Young, Kenny Pickett, Will Grier, King.
This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 7:38 PM.
