5 Carolina Panthers players on the hot seat this offseason

Shaq Thompson – Carolina Panthers OLB

Shaq Thompson came into the 2020 season with plenty of responsibility on his shoulders. The outside linebacker made his intentions of replacing Luke Kuechly’s leadership at the second level before competitive action got underway extremely clear and if this was his objective during the campaign, it’s one he failed to accomplish.

The former first-round pick started off poorly and clearly missed Kuechly putting him in the right spot on almost every down. Things did start trending on an upward curve once Tahir Whitehead was removed from the starting lineup. But considering the bumper pay increase coming Thompson’s way in 2021, it might see the Carolina Panthers think twice about keeping him around with this sort of financial outlay.

Thompson made $4.4 million in base salary last season. This will go up to $10.18 million in 2021 and increase to a whopping $12.36 million in the last year of his contract in 2023.

Giving him such a lucrative deal was just one of many errors from recently fired general manager Marty Hurney from a contractual perspective, proving that drafting the right players is only a small part of being a success in the role. Thompson did finish with 114 tackles, but it’s hard not to look at his production overall and not be disappointed.