Cat Scratch Reader
Cuts are over and NFL dreams have been made or broken this week. The Carolina Panthers are officially down to a 53-man roster for the 2025 regular season. This roster may still move a little bit as the team sifts through other team’s cuts and makes waiver claims and even surprise trades. For now, here is your favorite team. Names in bold are names we did not originally predict to make the roster, while names struck through where players we did not expect to see cut.
Bryce Young, Andy Dalton
Everything here is as expected. This is Young’s year to step up.
Chuba Hubbard, Rico Dowdle, Trevor Etienne
Etienne showed up in the preseason. Despite only having three players, this is one of the Panthers deepest skill groups.
Tetairoa McMillan, Adam Thielen, Xavier Legette, Jalen Coker, Brycen Tremayne, David Moore, Jimmy Horn Jr., Hunter Renfrow
Moore over Renfrow was not a look that many were expecting and is sure to leave more than a few commenters irate. Meanwhile, the order the Panthers listed these guys in looks like a de facto depth chart, which makes Tremayne’s position fascinating compared to the “uncoverable” Horn.
Ja’Tavion Sanders, Tommy Tremble, Mitchell Evans, James Mitchell
Nailed it. This is a solid, if uninspiring group. Sanders has all the room in the world to grow into a consistent threat/safety blanket for Young. We’ll see if he takes it.
Ikem Ekwonu, Damien Lewis, Austin Corbett, Robert Hunt, Taylor Moton, Brady Christensen, Cade Mays, Yosh Nijman, Chandler Zavala
Nothing has changed here. This is the most consistency at offensive line that the Panthers may have ever had, bringing back all nine linemen they had last season with zero changes to the projected starting five. Now to keep them all healthy for 18 weeks.
Derrick Brown, Tershawn Wharton, Bobby Brown III, A’Shawn Robinson, Cam Jackson, Jaden Crumedy, Shy Tuttle
The biggest change here is that the 2024 draft pick Crumedy gets the nod over veteran Tuttle. That should please more than a few arm chair GMs. Tuttle has been whatever the opposite of a fan favorite is since he signed, Crumedy is a relatively new player who gets to play behind outrageously improved depth as compared to 2024.
Patrick Jones, DJ Wonnum, Nic Scourton, Princely Umanmielen, Thomas Incoom, DJ Johnson
This is an incontrovertibly better group than last season’s, not to mention it is starting the season healthier. The only thing anybody could object over is the retention of 2023 3rd round pick DJ Johnson. He has yet to show much on the field, in spite of being a player that defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero apparently pounded the table for in a seemingly ill advised trade up during that draft. I really hope we’re all proven wrong about him in 2025.
Christian Rozeboom, Trevin Wallace, Claudin Cherelus, Bam Martin-Scott, Krys Barnes,...
