Carolina Panthers: Daryl Williams deal before free agency a possibility

Williams and the Carolina Panthers could be on the verge of an agreement

It appears that the Carolina Panthers want to reunite with right tackle Daryl Williams before the latter becomes a free agent. At least that’s how head coach Ron Rivera makes it sound.

The head coach spoke with Kyle Bailey and Darin Gantt of WFNZ on Thursday about a variety of subjects. One of them was whether the Panthers would try to work out a deal with Williams before free agency began. From the head coach’s perspective, a deal would like to get worked out by both sides.

"“Very much so,” said Rivera. “It’s just a matter of being able to sit down, negotiate, and hit the right number for both sides. We’ll see what happens. We’ve still got a couple weeks, and you never really know. Things’ll heat up a little bit, but hopefully things will be positive for us.”"

Williams suffered through a bunch of injury problems in 2018. He suffered an injury during training camp, but appeared to be ready for the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. When he suffered another injury during the game, Taylor Moton came in and took over for the rest of the season.

More from Cat Crave

Moton himself has a ton of momentum at the moment. The latter performed very well in Williams’ absence, and he truly showed what he is capable of. Now, Moton would probably want to build off that and at the very least show that he deserves to be considered as one of the top right tackles in the game.

This in itself creates an interesting dilemma. Who would you rather give the playing time to, Moton or Williams? My vote right now, at least until we can see how healthy Williams is, is Moton. He can only go up from the 2018 campaign. Especially with how good a season he had last year, you would hate to put him back on the sidelines. His specialty last year was pass-blocking. He tallied an 82.7 pass-blocking grade according to statistics from Pro Football Focus. His best game came against the Atlanta Falcons in the second week of the season. He received a grade of 86.2, playing 67 total snaps, 52 of the pass-blocking variety.

Next. Panthers moving on from Devin Funchess. dark

The fact that the Carolina Panthers want to get a deal done with Williams is encouraging. He is definitely a key player on the offensive line. The hardest part of all this will be to see what type of contract he wants and if he would accept a one-year “prove it” deal. My guess is that he would not. In any event, the Carolina Panthers now have two competent players that would strengthen the right tackle position.

For more grades, advanced statistics and more at Pro Football Focus, subscribe
to PFF’s EDGE or ELITE subscriptions at ProFootballFocus.com.

Home/Carolina Panthers News