Welcome to the newest season of Player Prowl, where we put the spotlight on a Carolina Panthers opponent by—well—prowling on them. If you’re a fresh face around these parts or just unfamiliar with the series, it’s where we hypothetically claw one player of our choice away from the week’s upcoming challenger to put on the team’s roster.
And a new year brings a familiar foe in the Atlanta Falcons, who actually have a menu of interesting options.
If we start on offense, we could pair rookie quarterback Bryce Young with a young playmaker. Running back Bijan Robinson, wide receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts—all top-ten draft picks over the last three years—are quite appealing.
The Atlanta defense boasts some studs as well. You may not get much sleep passing up on the likes of lineman Grady Jarrett, cornerback A.J. Terrell, safety Jessie Bates
Nonetheless, that’s what we’re doing here. No Robinson, no London, no Pitts, no Jarrett, no Terrell and no Bates. Instead, we’ll look to help our franchise passer by protecting him—with right guard Chris Lindstrom.
Lindstrom is easily amongst the game’s most dominant interior hog mollies. Per Pro Football Focus, he’s allowed just six sacks over his four-year career. PFF has also acknowledged his growth into an elite lineman—grading him out at 66.6 in 2019, 77.1 in 2020, 83.7 in 2021 and 95.0 in 2022.
Now, yes, the Panthers already have themselves a solid right guard in Austin Corbett. But if his injury has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t have enough depth in the offensive trenches—which is almost a non-existent commodity in today’s NFL.
Sticking to our hypotheticals—we can slot Lindstrom in at right guard, move Corbett to the left upon his return and use Brady Christensen as a top-end swing tackle to give us some flexibility.
So, did we get our first prowl right?
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