Bottom Three? Carolina's Defense Receives Interesting Ranking

In 2023, the Carolina Panthers' defense finished in the top ten and even top five in many defensive categories. The unit gave the team a chance to win every week despite the offense's extreme shortcomings.

Ejiro Evero hopes his group can stay near the top of the league but will have the challenge of doing it with several new faces occupying starting roles.

According to Matt Holder of Bleacher Report, the Panthers enter the 2024 season with the third-worst defense in the league. Hear him out and then see my counterargument at the bottom.

"The Panthers opted to trade their best defensive player, Brian Burns, in the offseason. Burns is an excellent pass-rusher who led the team in sacks with eight last season and accumulated 46 sacks over the last five years. While the front office replaced him with Jadeveon Clowney, who got to the quarterback 9.5 times in 2023, that was with a much better supporting cast in Baltimore. A similar statement could be made about D.J. Wonnum, who is coming off a strong season but won't be on the other side of Danielle Hunter anymore.

"Additionally, Carolina let linebacker Frankie Luvu go, and Luvu was a tackle machine over the last two campaigns with 236 total takedowns, including a team-leading 125 a year ago. He also ranked second on the club with 5.5 sacks, and the guy who was third in the category, Yetur Gross-Matos, is now in San Francisco.

"That's a lot of production to replace, and it doesn't even include do-it-all safety Jeremy Chinn's contributions, who signed with the Commanders in the offseason. So, it's hard to see the Panthers getting much better defensively in 2024."

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T PANIC

Let's work in reverse order here.

First, Jeremy Chinn was not a 'do-it-all' safety in Evero's scheme. In fact he was the exact opposite. He didn't have a role where he was on the field regularly due to his struggles in pass coverage and it was their decision to let him walk. As talented as Chinn is, he just does not fit and you can't force a square peg into a round hole.

Frankie Luvu was a tackling machine, yes, but there were several games where he'd be out of position or have issues in pass coverage himself. He's more of an outside backer that was playing inside. Josey Jewell, in my opinion, is a more complete player and is a much better fit for this scheme.

Gross-Matos had his best season despite playing a position he had never played. That being said, he's not irreplaceable. The Panthers more than made up for his departure by adding several outside linebackers.

And as far as Burns is concerned, I get it. You can view it however you want, but I believe they took the Moneyball method of re-creating Burns in the aggregate by signing Jadeveon Clowney, D.J. Wonnum, and K'Lavon Chaisson. That's a much better situation than paying Burns $30 million and having no depth behind him or having enough cap space to add some of the players they did this offseason.

I'm not sure this defense will finish in the top five again, but I don't see a major decline incoming.