Yahoo Finance Ranking all 28 of the Carolina Panthers first-round draft picks, from best to worst
Entering the 2023 NFL Draft, the Carolina Panthers have made a first-round draft choice 28 times in their history. Thursday, they picked Bryce Young with the No. 1 overall pick, ostensibly nabbing their QB of the future.
Here’s my ranking of the Panthers’ 28 previous first-round draft choices, starting with the best and working down to the worst.
This is a totally subjective ranking, of course. But I do have some institutional knowledge to lean on since I’ve covered every single Carolina season, as well as every single Panthers draft, for The Charlotte Observer.
A couple of caveats: These rankings are based on how the player performed in Carolina and not what he did later in his career, if he also played somewhere else. For instance, Kerry Collins doesn’t get extra points for leading the New York Giants team that went to the 2000 Super Bowl after he imploded in Carolina.
Occasionally, I am also factoring in off-field behavior. And this isn’t a list of the “most value” the Panthers have gotten out of a draft pick. So lower-round steals like Steve Smith (a third-round pick who gave the Panthers the most bang for the buck ever for a draft selection) and Josh Norman (a fifth-round Pro Bowler) aren’t a part of this list. This is a ranking of only Carolina’s first-round picks, and the Panthers didn’t have one in 1999, 2009 or 2010, due to trading out of the round entirely.
With that, let’s start with the five first-round draft picks who comprise the…
Best of the best
1. QB Cam Newton (2011, #1). The Panthers’ only recipient of the league’s overall Most Valuable Player award, in 2015, Newton led the team to four playoff appearances in five years from 2013-17 and to a Super Bowl berth in his MVP year. A dual-threat quarterback, he also leads the team in career rushing TDs. For close to a decade, Newton made the Panthers both fun and relevant.
2. DE Julius Peppers (2002, #2). A possible first-ballot NFL Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible in 2024, Peppers leads the Panthers in career sacks by a mile with 97 (the next-closest player, Charles Johnson, is 29.5 sacks behind him). A nine-time Pro Bowler, Peppers played two separate stints with Carolina for a total of 10 of his 17 NFL seasons. If he had stayed at Carolina for his entire career, he would be No. 1 on this list.
3. LB Luke Kuechly (2012, #9). Kuechly was a tackling machine, a film-study geek and a player so good it only took fans about three seconds to realize how to pronounce his last name. The linebacker played at a hall of fame level for eight seasons despite several concussions, then suddenly retired at age 28.
4. LB Thomas Davis (2005, #14). Davis overcame three ACL tears to the same knee to become one of the Panthers’ most decorated and beloved players. He played in 176 games for the Panthers and was also named the NFL’s 2014 Walter Payton Man of the Year for his community service combined with his on-field excellence, becoming the only Carolina player to win that award.
5. RB Christian McCaffrey (2017, #8). Traded to San Francisco midway through the 2022 season, McCaffrey could have edged his way higher on this list had he stayed in Charlotte longer. Still, the running back who could have been a wide receiver makes the top five based on a body of work that includes an extraordinary season in 2019 in which he scored 19 TDs, had an NFL-leading 2392 total yards from scrimmage and delighted his fantasy football owners everywhere.
In the second tier is group of a dozen players who were mostly starters for many years, including a handful who are still active Panthers.
Very good
6. RB Jonathan Stewart (2008, #13). The Panthers’ all-time leading rusher, Stewart was a battering ram who gained more than 750 rushing yards in seven different seasons with the Panthers despite often splitting time. He ranks second only to Newton in Panthers’ career rushing TDs (51). And he was the first Panthers running back who could beautifully play a piano (McCaffrey was the second).
7. OT Jordan Gross (2003, #8). A three-time Pro Bowler, Gross played 167 games for the Panthers and started every last one of them at left or right tackle. He will be a likely inductee into the team’s Hall of Honor one day.
8. DE Brian Burns (2019, #16). After only four seasons with the Panthers, Burns already has 38 career sacks and has made the Pro Bowl in each of the past two years. Given he had 12.5 sacks in 2022 and that he’s only 25, Burns has a realistic shot at breaking the Panthers’ all-time single-sack season record of 15 during n his career.
9. RB DeAngelo Williams (2006, #27). Williams had breakaway speed and was a fine complement to Stewart’s pounding style, giving Carolina the “Double Trouble” dose of run-heavy offense head coach John Fox so loved. In 2008, his best season, Williams ran for 1515 yards and led the NFL with 18 rushing TDs.
10. CB Chris Gamble (2004, #28). Gamble is Carolina’s all-time leader in career interceptions, with 27. His first two seasons were particularly productive, with six picks as a rookie in 2004 and seven more in 2005.
11. LB Jon Beason (2007, #25). Beason’s career started beautifully. In his first four seasons, from 2007-2010, he started 64 of 64 possible games, mostly at middle linebacker, and made the Pro Bowl three times. After that, injuries short-circuited Beason’s career, but those three Pro Bowl appearances are nothing to sneeze at.
12. LB Shaq Thompson (2015, #25). Thompson has never made a Pro Bowl, but he’s been a steady, durable force for the Panthers at linebacker for eight years. He ranks fourth on the team in career solo tackles and has started at least 10 games in all eight of his NFL seasons.
13. LB Dan Morgan (2001, #11). When healthy, Morgan was Luke Kuechly before Kuechly got to Charlotte and was a big part of the Panthers’ 2003 Super Bowl run. Unfortunately, Morgan only played in 59 games during his seven years with the Panthers while missing 53 due to injuries, including several concussions. Morgan later went into pro football administration and now is the Panthers’ assistant general manager.
14. WR DJ Moore (2018, #24). In five seasons for the Panthers, Moore was routinely the best receiver on a bunch of bad teams with a bunch of mediocre QBs. He had three consecutive years of 1100-plus receiving yards from 2019-21, although he scored a modest four receiving TDs in each of those years. The Panthers traded Moore to Chicago in March in their move up to obtain the No. 1 pick.
15. DT Star Lotulelei (2013, #14). The 315-pound Lotulelei was GM Dave Gettleman’s first first-round pick for the Panthers. He helped clog up the middle for five straight seasons in Carolina, including the Super Bowl year of 2015, and started 75 of a possible 80 games in those seasons.
16. DT Derrick Brown (2020, #7). Brown had the best of his three seasons with Carolina in 2022, posting 67 total tackles. That tied Mike Rucker for the most tackles by a Panther defensive lineman in a single season. Considered one of the cornerstones of the Panthers’ current defense, Brown could move up this list with a few more good years.
17. OT Ickey Ekwonu (2022, #6). Ekwonu has a shot at skyrocketing up this list, but the Charlotte product and former N.C. State star has only played one NFL season so far. Still, it was a good one, as Ekwonu immediately started for Carolina at left tackle as a rookie in 2022. The Panthers hope he will hold down the left tackle position for the next decade.
My third tier comprises six players, all of whom had some very good moments in a Carolina uniform but whose career in Charlotte was ultimately hamstrung for one reason or another.
Pretty good, but ...
18. QB Kerry Collins (1995, #5). The franchise’s first draft pick, Collins made the Pro Bowl in 1996 as the second-year QB with a big arm who helped the Panthers get all the way to the NFC title game. However, he flamed out in Carolina due mostly to off-the-field issues in 1998, and the team controversially released him. He would later resurrect his career with the N.Y. Giants.
19. CB Jaycee Horn (2021, #8). Horn has plenty of time to move up this list, as long as he can stay healthy. The son of former NFL wide receiver Joe Horn, Jaycee has the skills to be a shutdown corner, but has played in only 16 of a possible 32 games in his career so far due to injury.
20. CB Tyrone Poole (1995, #22). While Poole had impressive longevity in the NFL, playing from 1995-2008, only the first three years came in Carolina. He had only five total interceptions in those three seasons.
21. OT Blake Brockermeyer (1995, #29). Brockermeyer was a regular starter, mostly at left tackle, for the Panthers for their first four seasons of existence. He was unspectacular, as most offensive linemen are, but steady.
22. WR Kelvin Benjamin (2014, #28). The former Florida State receiver had two productive seasons with the Panthers in 2014 and 2016, but you could make an argument that Carolina was actually better off without him (the Panthers reached the Super Bowl in 2015, the year Benjamin missed the entire year to a torn ACL). The Panthers traded Benjamin away in the middle of the 2017 season.
23. RB Tshimanga Biakabutuka (1996, #8). Biakabutuka did a few remarkable things for the Panthers in his six-year career with the team, but he was too often on the sidelines. Due to a variety of injuries, Biakabutuka played in only 50 of a possible 96 games for the Panthers and averaged only 422 rushing yards per season.
The bottom five on this list were first-round busts. In each case here, I’ve also listed a player who was available at the time that Carolina could have drafted.
The worst Panthers first-round picks
24. DT Vernon Butler (2016, #30). Butler, a defensive tackle, played for four nondescript seasons in Carolina, cracking the starting lineup for only nine of a possible 64 games. The Panthers declined his fifth-year option and moved on from him in 2020.
Also available when Butler was picked: defensive tackle Chris Jones.
25. CB Rashard Anderson (2000, #23). Anderson, a small-school cornerback out of Jackson State, had talent but also had a marijuana addiction at a time when America wasn’t yet moving toward legalization of marijuana. Because he kept getting suspended due to violations of the NFL substance abuse policy, Anderson didn’t play a single NFL game after age 24. In 2022, Anderson died after battling cancer.
Also available when Anderson was picked: Quarterback Tom Brady.
26. OT Jeff Otah (2008, #19). Then-general manager Marty Hurney made one of the worst trades in the organization’s history during the 2008 draft, sending Philadelphia a first-, second- and fourth-round pick for the right to choose Otah. Plagued by persistent knee problems, Otah played in only 29 games before the Panthers released him.
Also available when Otah was picked: Defensive end Calais Campbell.
27. DE Jason Peter (1998, #14). Undersized, unproductive and injury-prone, Peter also had a drug problem. It began in college in Nebraska and continued at Carolina, he wrote in his autobiography “Hero of the Underground.” He never made a dent with the Panthers.
Also available when Peter was picked: Wide receiver Randy Moss.
28. WR Rae Carruth (1997, #27). Carruth was a bit more productive than some of the players here, but I consider him the worst draft pick in Panthers history due to his egregious off-field conduct.
While in Charlotte, he was convicted of masterminding a conspiracy to kill his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams, and was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Shortly after he was released in 2018, I tracked Carruth down in Pennsylvania and rang his doorbell. What happened after that can be found in our eight-part podcast and online series “Carruth,” which tells the full story of Cherica Adams’ murder and the miraculous life of Chancellor Lee Adams, who survived the shooting as an unborn baby and is now 24 years old.
Also available when Carruth was picked: Defensive end Jason Taylor.
