Trading your best offensive lineman for one who’s five years older doesn’t make much sense on the surface for a team that’s supposedly rebuilding. For the Panthers, dealing Trai Turner to the Chargers for Russell Okung is difficult to justify from a football perspective.
While Turner isn’t the player he was when he signed his big contract extension, he’s still one of the top guards in the league and has at least several good years left in him. On the other hand, Okung has been a solid left tackle most of his career but he’s nearing the end of his time in the NFL. He also missed 10 games last year and not just due to any ordinary injury. Okung suffered a Pulmonary Embolism in June caused by two blood clots.
The cap implications don’t make the deal any better, either.
By trading Turner, the Panthers only saved about $3.3 million in salary cap space for the 2020 season. Meanwhile, the move is going to cost them another massive dead money penalty: $9.6 million. That brings their total to $37.56 million for the year, over three times as much as the team with the second most – Jacksonville is currently at $12.46 million.
The only benefit here is that Okung has just one year left on his contract, so he will be coming off the books in 2021, opening up more room for year two of the Matt Rhule era.
Meanwhile, Turner has two years left on his deal, but the Chargers should be giddy about getting a guard of his caliber who is still in his prime, especially with a deep draft class at offensive tackle coming up. This was a fleecing.
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