Reports about QBs nothing new for Panthers

If they’re convinced one of the players in this class can be the quarterback they need, taking him in the first round makes all the fiscal sense in the world, since rookie deals are cheap compared to what it costs to have a veteran star on your roster (or even a mid-priced veteran).

“That’s huge. I mean, ideally, that would be the way you want to go, to have a young quarterback on a rookie contract with a veteran team around him,” Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer said at the Senior Bowl earlier this month. “Once you get up to paying a guy $30 million or $35 million a year, that limits what you can do, and you’re taking from other areas of your team.

“Any time you have a rookie quarterback, it really helps financially. What we did in Seattle, we had a veteran team and we were able to drop a rookie quarterback on a rookie quarterbacks’ contract onto that team. We were still able to have a lot of veteran, talented players on bigger contracts around him. Economically, it’s a smart way to do it, but it’s not always the easiest way to do it, because you have to find that guy, identify him, and a lot of time you’re picking high in the draft if you’re able to do that. We were fortunate in Seattle to get Russell (Wilson) in the third round. That might be the ideal way to do it, but it’s not always the easiest way.”

To do that, you also have to be convinced that the particular quarterback is worth it, as opposed to taking a rookie just to have one. It remains to be seen as they evaluate this class whether they believe any of these guys can be that guy.

So between now and the draft, they’re going to look under every rock. They’re going to be connected to the entire quarry anyway, so they might as well.

While hypothetical trades make for great internet chatter and sports talk radio, there are elements of a lot of these deals which don’t hold up to closer scrutiny, from a football standpoint or the financial ramifications.

But this is the place the Panthers are currently in. Which means for the next two months, there will be many more reports, connecting them to many more quarterbacks. All of them, probably.

Possibly, or eventually, one of them could end up being true.