Will the Carolina Panthers regret passing on QB Justin Fields?
By Dean Jones
Why the Carolina Panthers passed on Justin Fields
Some may not like it, but passing on Justin Fields was something the Carolina Panthers were always likely to do. Not picking up Sam Darnold’s fifth-year option before the draft was nothing more than a smokescreen in a bid to get another team to possibly trade up for substantial capital, which didn’t eventually materialize.
Although they did reportedly get calls from the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings, this didn’t come with the sort of offer that Carolina felt was worthy of such a jump up the board and they took someone they thought a substantial amount of in Jaycee Horn.
Realistically speaking, if the Panthers were high in any of the quarterbacks outside of Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson, they’d have been aggressive and moved up in a similar fashion to what we saw from the San Francisco 49ers.
Instead, they scoured the veteran trade market and eventually got their hands on Darnold, who is still just 24-years-old and might just be able to turn things around in a more structured environment.
That’s not to say Fields cannot go on to have a prolific NFL career. He enters the next level with a huge chip on his shoulder after being mercilessly picked apart during the evaluation process, which saw him go from the consensus No. 2 overall selection to someone who dropped out of the top-10.
He is someone the Chicago Bears have simply been crying out for after they inexplicably traded up to draft Mitchell Trubisky ahead of Deshaun Watson, and having Andy Dalton as a one-year rental takes some of the pressure off Fields during his transition.