The franchise tag deadline passed this week with nary a whisper of the Panthers making an ill advised move to retain free agent talent such as Daryl Williams or Colin Jones. That leaves free agency and the draft as the two biggest events on the NFL offseason calendar. They are also the only two avenues the Panthers have for improving their roster.
Free agency is a weird process in which the NFL instituted rules to ensure fair and balanced negotiating between players and interested teams. Then, when almost nobody paid a lick of attention to those rules and instead engaged in “tampering” with free agents, the league decided to institute a period of “legal tampering” because they are allergic to doing anything sensible.