Being honest, not even the most positive Carolina Panthers fan can be fully excited for this NFL season. The team hasn’t been good for a while now, but if there’s something to salvage, is the fact that Bryce Young showed glimpses of talent last season, and there are good players on the roster, despite it not being stacked.
One of those talented players is Jaycee Horn, cornerback. Horn came to the league as a highly-touted corner but in the Panthers, let’s just say his potential hasn’t been able to fully explode. He knows that, and he is warning the team as a whole know they can’t be bad on defense again.
Last season, Carolina allowed the most points and second-most yards in NFL’s history! Hence, much of the team’s efforts in this offseason has been focused on strengthening this area, bringing five new names in free agency and four defensive player in the draft.
Horn, who was there last year, said via the team’s website, “You kind of want to throw it out of your mind because it’s a new season, but at the same time, it’s on the back of your mind too, because that should be really all the motivation you need to come back to camp. You don’t want nothing like that to happen again.”
Horn himself was the only bright spot in that defense
As mentioned before, the Panthers were historically bad! However, in a historically-bad defense, Horn found himself going to the Pro Bowl. He got one pick, 13 passes defended and allowed only a 53.2% completion on him. This marked the first Pro Bowl selection of his career.
The new names on Panthers can help boost the defense
As you read above, there are nine total new defensive players. Among the most relevant ones, you can find Bobby Brown III, Tershawn Wharton, Patrick Jones II come to reinforce the trenches, alongside second-round pick Nic Scourton.
They brought Tre’von Moehrig and MJ Devonshire as help on the secondary. It will be a whole new roster joining Horn in trying to erase what last season looked like.