🚨Panthers SIGN A Tight End & Receive GREAT NEWS From The NFL

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:07]We got a massive show for you today on this edition of Panthers Today by Chad Sports, presented by Prize Picks. Your Panthers went out and made a roster move. They signed a tight end, a key position of need. How good is that player? We'll tell you in a second.

[00:00:19]Major news from the NFL as far as the salary cap goes. We'll talk about that later on. Then Dave Canal made a big time statement before OTAAS began. Then we'll get some more news on your Carolina Panthers. You're watching Panthers Today by Chat Sports. Let's get right in to this roster. Move the Carolina Maid signing Hinrich Harberg, tight end out of Nebraska, UDFA in 2026.

[00:00:41]He's a former quarterback turned tight end. He's playing that kind of Taesm Hill role in 2023 at the University of Nebraska, but you know, didn't end up playing that for much longer. Transition to a full-time tight end and special teams type of player there. And you know, back in that 2023 season in that Tesa Hill type role, he had like 500 rushing yards. He was kind of an animal out there. But on the Carolina Panthers here, likely to be a special teams asset if he even makes it all the way to preseason. He's pretty far down and already pretty brutal. Car Carolina Panthers tight end depth chart at this point. And it's not like he put up any gaudy numbers or anything like that at Nebraska either. His career best was in 2025 where he had seven catches for 51 yards and a touchdown. So, is he going to be a monster in the NFL? I I'm not so sure. But this is why you guys subscribe to the channel. When the Panthers make a move, we're making a video for you right here at Panthers Today. So, take advantage of all the free Panthers news that we give you all offseason long. And hit that subscribe button right now as we get very, very close to our next milestone of 5,000 subs, less than 150 away. All right, so obviously Hinrich Harber is not the tight end one addition that we had hoped for, right? We had talked uh basically to the beginning of free agency and the beginning of the pre-draft process. The tight end was a position of need on this offense, but it wasn't addressed. Not in free agency, not in the NFL draft, not in really any free agent additions. After the NFL draft, David and Jooku was still out there, but Carolina made no moves. He ended up signing with the Los Angeles Chargers. And now they look like one of the worst tight end rooms in all of football. And it's nothing like, you know, pour crazy hot water on, you know, Javon Sanders and Tommy Tremble. They're fine, but they're both better suited as tight end twos than tight end ones.

[00:02:21]Mitchell Evans, we've seen sparingly, like he's been okay in his time out there. Then beyond that, you got another quarterback turned tight end, Felipe Franks. James Mitchell's okay, whatever.

[00:02:30]And then then Hinrich Harberg out there.

[00:02:32]This is one of the worst tight end rooms in all of football. I mean, it's just it's an objective fact at this point. I also imagine only three of them will end up making the 53man roster. So Henry Carberg has got a lot of uh a lot a lot of ladders to climb before he gets up there. A lot of rungs to climb up the ladder of that depth chart. I would love to see if they can still add another tight end. So like honestly, Hinrich Harber, there's no chance he would make the team. If they were to bring in a guy who could serve as a potential tight end one on this team, there is not many out there though. I'm not going to lie to you guys. The free agent crop of tight ends at this point in the game, it's pretty brutal. You got Jonnu Smith, we talked about on the channel earlier, like last week or like later last week.

[00:03:10]He's 30 years old. Like not too bad of an addition coming off a pretty brutal year in Pittsburgh, but you look a season before that in Miami and he was disgusting. Had over 800 yards and eight touchdowns. Will Dysley, 29 years old, he's been serviceable throughout his NFL career playing for the Seahawks and the Chargers. He ended up getting overtaken out out there in LA by uh Aronda Gadson and he remains a free agent now. There's some injury history for him, too. Zack Z, 35 years old, but I'm telling you right now, Zack Z can still go out there and play football, man. He has been with the Washington Commanders for a few seasons and he's been very serviceable for them, but 35 years old, they decided to make a change at that position this off seasonason. And then Darren Waller, 33 years old, he was out of the league for a little bit, but came back and played with the Miami Dolphins last year and he was really, really good. So, I mean, I don't know if he'd necessarily fit in this locker room, but as far as the talent level goes, these four guys all better than what the Carolina Panthers have in their tight end room right now. If I had to go with one, I feel like Jonnu Smith still got a little bit of juice. I mean, he can he has really good catch and run ability. You could run him in the back field. You can run him split him out wide. He's very versatile player out there. So, for a guy and Johnny, who I think could fit pretty solid in Carolina, it makes sense for Dan Morgan to go out there and make a call. But, we'll see if that ends up being the case. Do the Panthers need to sign another tight end? You let me know with your answer down in the comment section, yes or no. And if your answer is yes, comment who. It could be one of the free agents. It could even be going out there and making a trade for a tight end. you let me know who they need to sign or add down in the comments section. Now, coming up next, we get some major news from the National Football League in terms of what the Panthers may be able to do with their roster moving forward. We'll talk tell you about it in a second. First, a word from our presenting sponsor over at Prize Picks the best place to make your sports picks during the playoff hockey season and the playoff basketball season. If you're a new user, use the code HMA. You're getting $50 in lineups instantly after your first $5 lineup. I love prize picks. I've been playing for years now, long they've even been a sponsor here at Chad Sports and take it from me. Super easy to play. Takes less than 60 seconds to create a lineup. And they're always offering new features to help make it easier for you guys to win real money in real time. They're they're they're never done adding features either. They have a new social feeds feature that allows you to share prize picks with your friends and copy lineups with a single click. You can even follow me on the app, Tyler J. Smith, to see all of my lineups, including this one for Cavs Knicks game two. Donovan Mitchell, I got more than 29 and a half points. That is a uh demon pick there.

[00:05:32]So, it increases my payout, but it's tougher to hit. And then Jaylen Brunson, more than 39 and a half points plus assists. You can take my picks or fade my picks. Just do it at prize picks.

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[00:06:05]Another change from the NFL. NFL teams will no longer be able to protect specific home games from being moved internationally until now. Teams could lock in two guaranteed home stadium games each season. That rule has been eliminated and the NFL can now add move any game they want to a different country. The NFL's global expans expansion push is really aggressive right now. And then we got some more context in the whole situation from Brett Coleman who said this move allows the league to put them true marquee matchups and rivalry games overseas if they want. Those big-time matchups translates to the international package becoming unbelievably valuable. They might get $100 million per game from a streaming partner for it. Caps going up again. Look, I would call this good news. I would also call it bad news though. Let's be honest, guys. How do we like a lot of you guys watch this video, Carolina Panthers fans from the States.

[00:07:01]How many like do we really want more games added internationally? Like I I don't know. It's just too many games.

[00:07:06]This is the National Football League.

[00:07:07]This is a league in the United States, but slowly but surely it is expanding globally. Um and you know what? I'm okay with like a game in a Mexico City, a game in Toronto, but like do we need 10 more games a year in Germany and and in England, like in Australia where a team's got to travel 20,000 miles there and back? Like, it's just getting a little bit excessive. I don't I don't hate international games. Don't hate waking up at 9:00 a.m. with a game on the TV, but it's getting a little bit much if you ask me. But from the NFL teams perspectives, from these GM's perspectives, more cap space, more contracts, the cap's going to go up because these games that are international are going to be paid a pretty penny for. So from the Carolina Panthers perspective, boom, we can spend more money on making this roster better.

[00:07:54]And it it's really great news specifically for the teams who are now win now ready. And as this kind of, you know, gets finalized and into the works over these next couple years, Panthers are going to be a win now team. I already think that they are, but they're a young team that's only ascending. More from Bret Coleman here on the NFL salary cap potentially going up. The salary cap is going to explode again, and it's all because of this change in how Neielson measures ratings. Starting this year, they're leaning into using data directly from smart TV manufacturers to measure viewing habits in addition to the traditional at home panel method. This means NFL ratings in particular from Sunday Sunny Ticket on YouTube are going to be more accurately measured. And that number is going to be way bigger than you think because of just how many Gen Z and millennials consume football on streaming services. More accurate ratings mean the league's next broadcast rights negotiation in 2028 and 2029 is going to be way more expensive, which ultimately means massive jumps in the salary cap after we've already seen massive jumps over the last 5 years. Now look, a smart general manager would now, right now, like as of today or maybe free agency 2027 and the contract extensions you can make right now, sign backloaded deals. So when those big time numbers pop up later on in the contract, the cap's already exploded and they're making, you know, a fraction of the cap that would be lower than it would be right now. So like that that would be awesome or, you know, lower than it would be at this current cap number. And like look, just don't care about the math. Push it all down the road. it will all be better off uh if you make these deals now and backload them later. Now, in terms of the salary cap increase by year across the National Football League, I mean, it has tripled since uh since 2013, man. Like, it's crazy. You were at 123 million. Then, you know, by 2017, it goes up $40 million. By 2018, in in a fiveyear stretch, it's up $50 million plus. But then five years later from that, it's $30 million more. And then over the past, you know, four seasons, four years, it's only gotten bigger. $70 million increase from 2023 to 2026.

[00:09:58]That's That's insane. It's nearly $80 million, I should say. Like, that is ridiculous. I mean, a 30 million jump from 2023 to 2024, a 24 million jump the next year, and then another $22 million jump. That's crazy. I mean, over $100 million in the last 5 years. That's ridiculous.

[00:10:17]$80 million in the last three. It's the NFL truly is king and it is only getting bigger. Look, I'd expect something pretty similar over the next five seasons. Like by the time we're in 2030, if it grows the same rate as the last five seasons, we're going to see in the year of 2030 about a $440 million salary cap. That is ridiculous. Now, of course, it's going to just turn into the things balancing themselves out eventually, resetting of the market at certain positions and what have you. But man, this is good news for a guy like Dan Morgan who is a smart, savvy general manager who is not afraid to open up the checkbook. He will spend the money. He made sizable investments this off seasonason. Jaylen Phillips, Deon Lloyd, like those are big time investments on the defensive side of the ball. So, I am pumped to see what he does in the future for this franchise. Now, coming up next, well, what have we seen and heard before OTAAS are underway? Panthers OTAAS get started on Tuesday the 26th. So, what have we heard before they get underway?

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[00:12:17]That's 10% off any tickets with promo code chat 10. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. Thank you to SeatGeek for sponsoring today's show. So Dave Canales went out there and made a statement on the Panthers early buy. The Panthers week five buy is a lot different than they had last year in the week 13 or 14, whatever it was. It's early certainly, but Dave Canales just kind of doesn't really care. He's actually throwing a whole spin zone on the Panthers having a week five buy, which you know, historically we we we hear every year teams absolutely hate. Dave Canales saying this on it, the early by week for us, looking at it from a positive lens, it's after you get a couple of games under your belt, you start to see the things that you were practicing and hoping to emerge coming out of training camp, the emphasis and all your different phases. Sometimes there are injuries that happen and having an early bye-week kind of gives you an extra week to get somebody back if somebody ends up on pup or something. It gives you a window to be able to get them out of there, move them around before you launch into the meat and potatoes of the season. And look, the Panthers, they have an injury on their books right now.

[00:13:18]A guy like Turk Wharton who's got a neck surgery going on and slowly but surely coming back. We don't have a timet on yet, could benefit from the week five buy. you know, he could have an extra game under his belt this season if, you know, he's ready to go by week six of the NFL season like that. This could be the case for a guy like him or anything else that pops up in OTAAS or training camp, any of these early season injuries, you could see a benefit with having the Panthers, you know, not playing one of the weeks early on in the season. Like that glass half full mentality for Dave Canal, this entire Panthers organization has been pretty constant um over these past few years since he has led this team. So, I'm not surprised by, you know, Dave Canales not poo pooing on uh, you know, the early season buy for Carolina here. He's always going to take it with a glass half full approach. With that being said, which Panthers game are you most excited for in 2026? We just tell you about going and getting your tickets at Segeek. Which Panthers game are you most excited to potentially go to this season? Let me know down in the comments section. That will do it for today's show. Make sure you subscribe to the channel, youtube.com/pantherstoday for the latest and greatest on Carolina Panthers all offseason long. See you guys next time. And as always, keep pounding.