The Panthers may not be perfect, but Dan Morgan is at least making one point very clearly: this roster is no longer easy to ignore. When Trevin Wallace and Nick Samac were claimed after Carolina trimmed to 53, it was the first time since 2022 that a Panthers cut-down list produced a waiver claim from another team. That is not nothing. In a league that prides itself on scavenging every usable body, it says the Panthers had players on the edge of the roster who were still viewed as worth taking.
That is also why Morgan’s Tuesday assessment deserves to be taken seriously. “I mean, I think we're getting better as a team,” he said, and the evidence is not hard to find. The Panthers claimed six players off waivers in 2024, then claimed two last year, and Morgan’s message was that the process is still moving in the right direction. In other words: this is not a finished product, but it is a more competitive one. Or, to borrow from the wider NFL mood around roster building, it is the sort of churn that keeps forcing teams to ask themselves harder questions, much like the discussion around Saints have not talked with Taysom Hill, Kellen Moore says.
Why the claims matter
Trevin Wallace going to the Jets and Nick Samac landing with the Vikings matters because it breaks a pattern. The Panthers had not had a player claimed off waivers after cuts to 53 since 2022, when the Seahawks took Darryl Johnson. Before that, the Patriots claimed Matt Corral off waivers the day after Carolina released him in 2023. Those are the kind of small but telling transactions that reveal how the rest of the league views your depth.
Morgan’s explanation was blunt enough to cut through the usual roster-cut sentimentality. He said the players the Panthers are bringing in are appealing to teams around the NFL, and that both Wallace and Samac fit what their new clubs were looking for. He also made the larger point: “I think they're getting harder every year.” That is really the crux of this. If the roster is stronger, more competitive, and more useful to other teams, then the Panthers are not just filling out a sheet of names. They are building something with actual value.
There is, of course, a difference between losing players you wanted to keep and proving your roster is improving. A claim off waivers does not make anyone a star. It does, however, suggest someone else saw enough on tape to take the player immediately. And Morgan leaned into that reality rather than trying to dress it up. He said the goal has been to keep building depth, keep building competition, and get better in every area. That is the right language for a team still trying to become more than a collection of placeholders.
What Morgan is really saying
There is also a human side to this that Morgan did not hide. He said it was difficult with Wallace, noting their relationship and the time they spent in his office watching tape together. He wished Wallace the best, called it a new start and a new direction, and said he knew Wallace was excited about it. That is a fair reaction, but it does not change the underlying football truth: the Panthers are now in the business of creating a roster strong enough that useful players can be lost and the team still keeps moving forward.
Morgan was equally direct about the ongoing work. “We're going to be looking for players, even today, all through the season,” he said. “We're going to be looking to churn the roster and find players that could potentially help us.” That sounds obvious, but the difference with Carolina is that there is now a hint of actual substance behind the churn. The club is not just turning over the bottom of the roster for the sake of it. It is trying to make the bottom of the roster matter.
So yes, the headline is about Trevin Wallace and Nick Samac being claimed by the Jets and Vikings. But the bigger story is the one Morgan wanted to tell: the Panthers believe they are getting better, and for once the rest of the league’s behaviour does not look like an accident. It looks like acknowledgement.
