Video: Did the Panthers back out of a big draft day trade with the Seahawks?

The Seattle Seahawks were not short of offers to move down from their No. 16 spot in the 2024 NFL Draft. ESPN’s Brady Henderson reported last month that the Seahawks discussed trade-down offers with five teams, but perhaps there could’ve been a sixth if they made the phone call.

The Carolina Panthers recently released the second episode of “Panthers Blueprint ‘24,” which takes a behind the scenes look at Carolina’s offseason. With no first-round pick due to the trade that landed them Bryce Young, the Panthers were in spectator mode, waiting to pounce on any opportunity to trade into the first round.

If you’re not up to speed on the Panthers, they’re basically Seahawks East. Former Pete Carroll assistant Dave Canales is the head coach, several former Seahawks assistants were hired to Canales’ staff, and Carolina’s new general manager is longtime Seahawks executive Dan Morgan.

In the video (which starts at the relevant timestamp of 24:56), Morgan can be seen on the phone and talking to “John.” The only other GM named John is the San Francisco 49ers’ John Lynch, and since this call was made with the New England Patriots on the clock, we can safely assume that it was Schneider he was on the phone with.

“What’s up, John?” Morgan said. “Ah, not much. Good, how you doing? Oh yeah, sitting here just watching all these guys fly off the board.”

The video transitions to Brandt Tilis, executive vice president of football operations, who says, “We’re going to wait and see what the first several picks looked like and just enjoy watching the process unfold. When it was time to act, we would act if it was necessary.”

Now the fun part begins. Tilis talks to Morgan about a trade offer, but the team is not specified.

“First of all, they’re on the clock,” Tilis said. “So we should either offer this or not.”

“I don’t think we should,” Morgan replied. “I just feel like somebody’s going to fall.”

Morgan rips up the sheet of paper in his hand, and the next scene is the Seahawks selecting Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy II at No. 16. The Panthers draft room then reacts to the Minnesota Vikings trading up to No. 17.

“We’re coming up to the danger zone,” Morgan said.

Tilis emphasized that, “So much of the draft depends on when the quarterbacks go.”

“Once six quarterbacks went in the first 12 picks, we thought, ‘Okay, there’s a chance that we may have an opportunity to trade up here.’”

Carolina did eventually trade into the back-end of Round 1 to take Xavier Legette from South Carolina at No. 32 overall. They moved up one spot in a deal with the Buffalo Bills to get that fifth-year option on the speedy wide receiver.

Piecing the video together, it seems like the Panthers were considering a huge move way up to No. 16, although I doubt it would’ve been for Legette, who wasn’t projected to go that high. They could’ve been looking at a defensive player like Dallas Turner to replace Brian Burns, who was traded to the New York Giants earlier in the offseason.

Carolina had its native second-rounder and No. 39 overall from the Giants as part of the Burns trade, so if the Panthers were thinking about sending an offer to the Seahawks, it very well could’ve involved both of their seconds and given Seattle substantial Day 2 draft capital.

Alas, the offer was never sent, so we’ll never know what the result would’ve been.

Besides, it’s more fun to know that what actually happened ended up making Sean McVay a bit perturbed.