Thompson was not re-signed by Carolina in March<\/a>\u00a0after spending his first 10 seasons with the Panthers. He joins the Bills, where he\u2019s reunited with coach Sean McDermott, who was Carolina\u2019s defensive coordinator during Thompson\u2019s first two seasons with the team after being selected in the first round of the 2015 draft.<\/p>\nThompson is also familiar with Bills linebackers coach Al Holcomb and general manager, Brandon Beane, who have previous ties to the player\u2019s time in Carolina.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a young pup back in the day, now 11 years, seasoned vet, so time is coming around,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cYou never thought it would happen to yourself, but everything is a blessing. Everything happens in God\u2019s hands and fortunately I came here and I\u2019m happy here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson was a starter in Carolina from his rookie season, and enjoyed a stretch from 2019-2022 in which he topped 100 tackles each year, before being slowed by injuries. He\u2019s appeared in just six games over the past two years after breaking his ankle in 2023 and then tearing his Achilles tendon in Week 4 the following year.<\/p>\n
Thompson did not practice Tuesday, and said he expects to be ready to begin for the start of training camp next month.<\/p>\n
He then dismissed the notion of his body beginning to wear down.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly me and myself know my body and my mindset. And one thing about me I would never end my career on an injury,\u201d said Thompson, who appeared in 123 games Carolina.<\/p>\n
Thompson fills a veteran depth role on a Bills defense featuring a two-linebacker system, and behind returning starters Terrel Bernard and Matt Milano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shaq Thompson #54 of the Carolina Panthers runs onto the field before the game against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[53,235,260,2567,7,6,236,4859,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-120894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-buffalo-bills","9":"tag-carolina","10":"tag-carolina-panthers","11":"tag-carolinapanthers","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-shaq-thompson","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114663791282164507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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