The Carolina Panthers had defensive lineman Lee Hunter rated inside their top 50 prospects. As options in that group kept coming off the board, the urgency in the room grew.Â
Those in power asked their analytics staff about the likelihood that specific players would still be there when Carolina picked at No. 51. Hunter kept coming up in those conversations.
So they made calls. Not everyone bites on mid-round trade offers, but the Minnesota Vikings did. Carolina flipped a fifth for a sixth and moved up two spots to No. 49 to land the Texas Tech nose tackle.
Carolina Panthers trading up for Lee Hunter was much more than value
And this was much more than just trading up for the sake of it.
Was Hunter going to be there at No. 51 anyway? Probably. General manager Dan Morgan even acknowledged as much. But that's not why they moved.
After Hunter, there was a clear tier break among interior defensive linemen. Morgan liked the class at the top. He didn't trust what was below it.
Brandt Tilis framed the thinking in the draft room afterward: "Take a guy like Lee Hunter. We're not going to try to get too caught up in, we've got to make sure our fifth-round pick is great. We're not going to lose sight of value."
Hunter lined up as a nose guard in Texas Tech's 4-2-5, which pairs well with what Carolina already has. Derrick Brown is the anchor. The incoming rookie slots in beside him. Suddenly, there's no soft spot inside.Â
Opponents either run into two very talented interior linemen or they pass into Jaelan Phillips and Nic Scourton. This may just be the best defensive line the Panthers have had in years.
The positional data backs up why Morgan moved when he did.
Interior defensive linemen experience an 85 percent drop-off in retention between first- and later-round picks. The talent concentration at the top of the class is real, and the falloff is just as real. Morgan knew what he was looking at.
Carolina did not get robbed on the trade, but they also did not get a steal. What they did was identify a top 50 player at a position they needed, saw the class thinning out in front of them, and paid the price to make sure they got him.
That's not value. That's positional value.
Morgan knew the difference and acted on it. And now, Hunter will get a chance to start next to Brown.
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