The Carolina Panthers are no strangers to trading their best player, and on Monday, they went back to that well. After turning down opportunities to move him in the past, Carolina sent standout pass rusher Brian Burns to the New York Giants for a 2024 second-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick, along with a swap of fifth-round selections in 2024. Burns then cashed in, getting a $150 million deal from New York with $87.75 million guaranteed.
The Panthers were the worst team in the NFL last year, so seeing a player of Burns’ quality leave for a relatively meager return is a tough pill to swallow. And one of the most prominent Carolina football fans out there, country star Luke Combs, got so upset about the whole thing that he actually tweeted his frustration at the team, calling their process “slow torture.”
.@Panthers WHAT ARE WE DOING?!?!? No first round pick for McCaffrey a few years back and now none for Burns?!?! Are we just fire bombing the whole team here or what? I usually don’t comment on these kinds of things but it’s just becoming slow torture at this point.
— Luke Combs
(@lukecombs) March 12, 2024
Getting as early of a pick as possible in the 2024 NFL Draft was certainly important for the Panthers in this deal, as the team doesn’t have its first-round pick this year — they gave that up last year to acquire the No. 1 pick and select Bryce Young. If there is a silver lining, it’s that the pick the team got back for Burns is 39th overall, which should put Carolina in prime position to grab a highly-regarded player in the second round. Whether that player is part of a rebuild that makes Combs a little more optimistic about the team going forward remains to be seen.