{"id":901069,"date":"2026-05-25T18:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/901069\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:30:27","slug":"rams-bills-steelers-could-have-answer-to-panthers-te-problems-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/901069\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams, Bills, Steelers Could Have Answer to Panthers&#8217; TE Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Carolina Panthers technically do have depth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/panthers\/onsi\/carolina-panthers-miss-out-david-njoku-chargers-isaiah-likely-tommy-tremble\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at the tight end spot<\/a>. They also have three players who could legitimately be the starter when OTAs and the preseason wrap up in a few months. Normally, that&#8217;d be a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of the Panthers, though, it&#8217;s not. It&#8217;s not that they have three starting-caliber tight ends. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/panthers\/onsi\/the-carolina-panthers-unfortunately-just-aren-t-going-to-add-a-tight-end\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">They have zero<\/a>. None of them is worthy of starting, but one of them has to. It&#8217;s a position that&#8217;s been in need of an upgrade for a long time. <\/p>\n<p>Other teams, however, have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/panthers\/onsi\/panthers-could-and-perhaps-should-still-sign-former-steelers-te-jonnu-smith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">multiple starting-caliber tight ends<\/a>, and the Panthers would be so wise to try to call one of those teams to sneak a trade before OTAs begin. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Panthers should call one of these teams for a tight end<\/p>\n<p>              <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779733827_3_01ksfdmbszt6432vbfwn.jpg\" width=\"&quot;700&quot;\" height=\"&quot;393&quot;\" border=\"0\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n                    Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images\n                <\/p>\n<p>Tight end&#8217;s not exactly the strongest position in football. Fantasy managers know that well, but it does translate to the NFL. Not every team has a strong tight end. The Panthers are a prime example, with perhaps the league&#8217;s worst TE room. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/top-five-tight-end-groups-in-the-nfl-which-teams-are-most-loaded-at-a-hot-position-heading-into-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NFL.com&#8217;s Bucky Brooks<\/a> listed five teams doing the best at the position. The opposite of the Panthers, essentially. He listed these teams:<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Rams<br \/>\nBuffalo Bills<br \/>\nLas Vegas Raiders<br \/>\nChicago Bears<br \/>\nPittsburgh Steelers<\/p>\n<p>All five of them would make good trade partners for the Panthers, but the Rams, Bills, and Steelers might make the most sense. <\/p>\n<p>The Rams literally have four tight ends they like to use, and they just used a mid-round pick on Ohio State TE Max Klare in the draft. Brooks mentioned that McVay will find ways to utilize them all in unique formations, but there&#8217;s a limit on what even he can do. <\/p>\n<p>Trading one, likely the older and more expensive Colby Parkinson or perhaps Terrance Ferguson, to make sure there&#8217;s room for someone the Rams just spent decent capital on would be wise, and they&#8217;d land atop the Panthers&#8217; depth chart. <\/p>\n<p> The Bills may end up needing to cut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nfl\/players\/dawson_knox\/640103\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dawson Knox<\/a> due to age and contract status, but trading him to the Panthers would bring them a pretty decent return instead. Knox may also be the best name on this hypothetical trade target list, so Carolina would do well here.  <\/p>\n<p> Finally, the Steelers have one veteran tight end, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nfl\/players\/pat_freiermuth\/648704\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pat Freiermuth<\/a>, and one young and ascending tight end, Darnell Washington. The Steelers probably need to get younger, so trading the veteran to the Panthers wouldn&#8217;t be a huge shock.  <\/p>\n<p>  The Bears have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nfl\/players\/cole_kmet\/627299\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cole Kmet<\/a>, who we&#8217;ve written about as a potential Panther a lot now. He makes sense, too. The Raiders have Michael Mayer behind  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nfl\/players\/brock_bowers\/724850\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brock Bowers<\/a>, but given Bowers&#8217; recent injury struggles, depleting the depth for Fernando Mendoza is unwise, so the Panthers would have to pay a premium.  <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Panthers technically do have depth at the tight end spot. They also have three players who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2075],"tags":[235,260,2567,7,6,236],"class_list":["post-901069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-panthers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116636642665955411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901069","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=901069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}