Here at Cat Scratch Reader we have counted down the final 100 days leading up to the Carolina Panthers season opener by for at least the past ten years. We’ve always done this by highlighting the current player on the roster whose jersey number matches the day on the countdown. This year, we decided to change that up a bit by counting down our own list of the Top 100 Panthers of all time. This does not correspond to jersey number, does not need to be somebody who wore a jersey, and will in no way be controversial.
#75. Deon Grant
Grant was a second round pick for the Panthers in the 2000 NFL Draft and fractured his hip in training camp, forcing what was essentially a medical redshirt season. Once healthy, he immediately started at free safety for the team. During his three year tenure in Carolina, Grant would start every single regular season game on the backend of the defense. That Iron-Man status continued during other NFL stops as well, appearing in all 16 regular season games for all 11 seasons of his career. While he was not a starter at the end of his career, that’s still an impressive feat. His time with the Panthers was arguably his most effective tenure. In just three seasons, he accumulated 216 tackles, 11 interceptions, 41 passes defensed, one forced fumble, two fumble recoveries, and even a couple of sacks.
Unfortunately for the Panthers, a combination of a Super Bowl appearance and salary cap restrictions led to the team being harvested by the rest of the NFL once free agency hit. After locking up defensive line stalwarts like Julius Peppers and Kris Jenkins, there was not enough money left over for Grant, who was a restricted free agent. The Jaguars swooped in and offered a sizable three-year, $7.25 million contract ($2.5 million guaranteed), which doesn’t sound like much by today’s standards. For the time, though, it was a huge deal taking up three percent of that season’s salary cap. In today’s NFL money, that would be $9 million per year. In the end, the Panthers just could not (or would not) allocate that much cap space to the safety position, and Grant left Charlotte.
Though his time with the team was brief, he fit right into the culture of the 2003 Super Bowl team. In fact, he still holds the franchise record for most interceptions in a single game by a single player with three. He’s definitely one of the bigger “what if” players that have come through Charlotte over the last 30 years.
