The Panthers lost two players on waiver claims after cuts to 53, with the Jets taking linebacker Trevin Wallace and the Vikings grabbing center Nick Samac. It was the first time in four years another team had claimed a Panthers player after the roster was pared down.
For Dan Morgan, the timing cut both ways. He said Tuesday that the Panthers are getting better as a team and that the kinds of players they are bringing in now appeal to a lot of teams around the NFL, but that same improvement made the final decisions tougher. Wallace and Samac were not just names on a list; they were players another club wanted immediately, which is why this round mattered more than a routine cleanup.
That is a sharp change from the recent pattern. The Panthers had not seen a player claimed off waivers after cuts to 53 since 2022, when the Seahawks claimed Darryl Johnson. In 2023, the Patriots claimed Matt Corral off waivers the day after the Panthers released him, but that came in a different context: Carolina had released Corral to make room for three waiver claims of its own. Last year, the Panthers claimed six players off waivers, then two more the year before, and none of those players remain on the roster.
Morgan has spent the past two offseasons building a group that can survive turnover, and he said the original goal was to keep adding depth, competition and quality everywhere. That helps explain why he also kept Claudin Cherelus, rookie Jackson Kuwatch and Devin Lloyd on the 53 while adding veteran Tyrel Dodson to the practice squad. He also said he made Lloyd a priority signing this offseason and added Bobby Okereke late to stabilize the linebacker position, a move that mattered because a roster thin at one spot can force the team to carry more insurance than it wants.
Yet the harder part was personal. Morgan said it was difficult to cut Wallace, that the two had developed a close relationship, and that Wallace had been in his office multiple times while they watched tape together. He said he wished Wallace and his family the best after the Jets claimed him. That is the friction inside a roster that is supposed to be improving: the better the Panthers get, the more other teams notice, and the more often Carolina has to send away players it knows well.
For now, Morgan said the Panthers will keep looking for players and keep churning the roster through the season. The claim on Wallace and Samac suggests the cupboard is no longer empty, but it also leaves the Panthers with the same test they created for themselves: keep building fast enough that the rest of the NFL keeps paying attention.
