Panthers May or May Not Move into the First-Round

Will they or won’t they? That’s the question most of us will be considering today, in regards to whether or not Carolina’s GM Marty Hurney will wheel-and-deal to get the Panthers into the first-round of tonight’s NFL Draft.

In years past, Hurney has done a lot of wheeling-and-dealing, whether it was to move the Panthers up in the draft or to trade down. This year, without a first-round pick, don’t be surprised if Hurney makes trade offers to any given team — be it draft picks or players — to move into the first-round.

In 2008, after drafting running back Jonathan Stewart at 13 overall, the Panthers traded their 2009 first-round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles to select offensive tackle Jeff Otah, with the 19th overall pick.

On the other hand, this is a deep draft in the first couple of rounds. There will be a lot of offensive first-round talent slipping into the second round, just because a lot of teams’ needs are on defense.

So if the Panthers don’t trade into the first round, and run with the hand they’ve dealt themselves from the past couple drafts, there will still be some very good talent with the 48th overall pick in the second-round.

But with Marty Hurney, you never know. He did learn from the best about making draft day deals, in former Redskins and Chargers GM,  Bobby Beathard. He made a number of what some considered to be lucrative deals, erring on the side of insanity. But his system worked, and seldom left him looking foolish.

So even if you don’t believe the Panthers will make any moves to get into the first-round of the Draft tonight, I still recommend you tune in. At least have it playing in the background, because you just might hear, the (insert team name) have made a trade with the Carolina Panthers.

The first-round of the NFL Draft starts tonight at 7:30 p.m., eastern time. You can watch full coverage of the draft on ESPN, NFL Network, NFL.com, and CBSSports.com, so you have no excuse to miss the first-round.

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