Cat Scratch Reader
There are 22 days left until the Carolina Panthers’ season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. With that in mind, today’s countdown piece is centered around Lathan Ransom, rookie safety out of The Ohio State University.
The Panthers ended the long national nightmare of them not drafting a safety by selecting Ransom in the fourth round of this past draft. He spent five seasons at Ohio State and overcame a significant leg injury suffered at the end of his second season. He bounced back to make All Big Ten honorable mention two straight years before making All Big Ten first team and All American third team as a super senior.
Ransom is a physical safety that excels playing downhill but also has the instincts and motor to handle some coverage duty. He seems somewhat redundant with big money free agent safety Tre’von Moehrig, but the Panthers seem to be doing that by design. The only competition in front of the former Buckeye for snaps are veteran Nick Scott and 2024 undrafted free agent Demani Richardson. There’s a very real chance that we see Ransom on the field for a lot of defensive snaps pretty quickly. Even if we don’t, he has real special teams ability (he blocked a couple of kicks in college). Hopefully he ends up being the long awaited solution to the Panthers safety weaknesses.
