ClutchPoints
It’s the offseason for the Carolina Panthers, who need to make a lot of good decisions if they want to get things turned around in a playoff kind of way. One place they need to fly high is the draft, and here is the Panthers’ three-round 2025 NFL Mock Draft with trades, according to the Pro Football Network simulator.
After a 3-11 start to the season, the Panthers finished with two wins in their last three games. Both of the victories came in overtime, and the victories set the Panthers’ draft position back a few spots.
So instead of being in the mix for a quarterback, the Panthers found themselves in a best-available position at No. 8. A draft-shakeup trade by the Titans made things interesting with the Raiders moving up to No. 1 and grabbing Travis Hunter, in the PFN simulator.
It may not be an ideal selection, but Starks makes sense, according to yahoo.com.
“The Panthers can go in just about any direction with the eighth overall draft pick and it would be justified,” Frank Schwab wrote. “They need help at just about every position. A versatile safety like Starks would help the process of building a defense from the ground up.”
However, the best NFL defenses seem to be built from the front to the back. In other words, getting pressure on the quarterback and that makes everybody else’s job easier. Picking Starks did nothing to affect the pass rush.
“(Starks is a) well-built safety with a large catch radius and the versatility to play across the secondary,” PFN wrote. “His intelligence allows him to thrive in various alignments, and he’s battle-tested as a three-year starter for a blue-blood program. In coverage, Starks has the athleticism to cover a considerable amount of space and the processing skills to act quickly upon his reads. As a solid tackler to add onto his abilities in coverage, Starks should project well as a true starting safety.”
However, this turned out to be a misfire by the PFN simulator. Tennessee edge rusher James Pearce Jr. remained on the board, and the Panthers whiffed on this opportunity.
“Pearce is an explosive edge rusher with the athleticism and the motor to generate consistent pressure as a pass rusher,” PFN wrote. “He’s shown that his combination of hand usage, first-step acceleration, and effort allows him to beat NFL-caliber offensive linemen at the point of attack on a consistent basis. Pearce has the tools to be a solid starter and a high-end pass-rusher at the next level.”
So the rush-first mentality gets passed over. But the Panthers still have a nice player in Starks.
Struggling to effectively stop any NFL offense, the Panthers would like to get defensive weapons in each of the first two rounds. Carter fits that mold, and is an OK grab with the Panthers’ late second-round pick (No. 57 overall). However, he...
