The Panthers' purge of veterans continues ahead of the new league year, with Carolina releasing all-time leading rusher Jonathan Stewart on Wednesday the team announced.
Stewart, who was a first-round pick back in 2008 by then- and former- and now-current GM Marty Hurney, had a year left on his contract after signing a two-year extension back in March of last year. Even then it was obvious the Panthers could still draft a running back early, and they did just that, selecting Christian McCaffrey with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.
The former Oregon standout was set to have a $5.2 million cap hit for Carolina, and releasing him frees up $3.7 million in cap space.
Carolina, who recently reinstated interim GM Hurney before promoting him to the full-time position, has been busy in the early going of the offseason. The Panthers also released safety Kurt Coleman and defensive end Charles Johnson, opening up $6 million in cap space.
Stewart is not a surprise cut: he's an expensive running back who is on the wrong side of 30 and has not been as effective in recent years as he was early in his career.
But it is the end of an era, because Stewart spent his entire career with Carolina, and it opens up questions about Carolina's depth chart at running back moving forward.
Will Carolina simply trust McCaffrey to be a full-time running back? The rookie out of Stanford almost had as many targets (113) in the passing game as he had carries (117) in the running game last year. Carolina wasn't a great running team until Cam Newton started to run, either. And they might be losing Andrew Norwell in free agency unless they change their mind about how to use the tag.
The Panthers are entering an offseason that will be loaded with change -- these are pretty notable moves and they don't even focus in on the impending sale of the franchise.
Stewart was the leading rusher for Carolina each year from 2014-16, but he only ran for 680 yards year while averaging a meager 3.7 yards per carry on the season. Again, it wasn't all his fault, because the Panthers offensive line did not live up to the expectations based on the personnel there/added in the offseason.
The Panthers experienced a lot of turnover in recent years but now are about to see a situation where there is wholesale change from the older core of players.
