Dan Morgan "ready for all scenarios" in next week's draft

Apr 15, 2025 at 01:09 PM

Darin Gantt

Carolina Panthers General Manager Dan Morgan is seen on Tuesday, Apr. 15, 2025 during a press conference at Bank Of America Stadium, in Charlotte, NC.

CHARLOTTE — Dan Morgan is ready.

Ready to pick at No. 8 if that's where he ends up staying. Ready to listen if someone calls offering a trade back.

And on Tuesday, the Panthers general manager was ready to talk for about 20 minutes without saying all that much in the way of revealing his intentions for next week's draft.

"Yeah, I feel really good about where we're at right now, excited about the direction that we're heading. I feel like we can really add some good pieces to the roster and continue to add to the front and build out that depth and the competition on both sides of the ball," Morgan said during the annual pre-draft press conference. "We just want to dominate the line of scrimmage, and I think that's the bottom line.

"I think no matter how good this roster can ever get, you can never be satisfied. You've always got to be hungry and always looking for ways to be innovative and getting better."

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The Panthers spent March using free agency to fill in a lot of gaps in a defense that needed filling. When you set an all-time league record for points allowed and finish last in most of the meaningful defensive categories, that is to be expected.

And now, he has a chance to add young and high-end talent to that mix, and the reasonable anticipation is he wants to continue to add on the defensive side of the ball.

There were a lot of questions you could parse the answers to, such as his level of confidence in his current wide receivers (high) or what the biggest needs are ("playmakers on both sides of the ball"), but Morgan got a number of questions Tuesday about the notion of trading back.

They have nine total picks and eight in the first five rounds, but there's a gap between the eighth overall pick and their next one, the Rams' second-round No. 57.

Moving back a few spots could help bridge that gap, and current events offer at least a reasonable opportunity to do so.

With Friday's news that Saints quarterback Derek Carr was dealing with a shoulder injury, which could complicate his timeline for a return, the speculation about what the Saints might do with the ninth overall pick kicked into high gear.

And since the Panthers are one spot ahead of them in order, that created some natural and obvious dot-connecting.

Morgan said there wasn't much of an uptick in call volume yet (that won't start in earnest until next week), but he'd be ready if it started ringing.

"I mean, listen, at No. 8, if we get stuck there and we're not able to trade back if we're not in love with a player there at No. 8 and we can't trade back, then we're going to be ready for all different types of scenarios," Morgan said. "There are some really good players that we like; it's just not one position, but we feel like it's a good draft and there's a lot of talent, so we're going to be ready for all scenarios."

He was then asked if using a word like "stuck" was indicative of his preference.

"No, I was just saying if we do get stuck, we're going to be ready for all different scenarios," he said. "You know, because we don't know who's going to be drafted in those top seven.

"So again, we're gonna be ready for all different scenarios."

And with the talking part of the program over, he's ready to get back to work preparing for next week.