The Panthers made no secret about what part of their team they wanted to improve in the draft this year.
Carolina took seven players over the course of seven rounds and all seven of them ply their trade on the defensive side of the ball. They traded up to the No. 64 pick in order to make safety Jeremy Chinn one of those players, although Chinn doesn’t expect to be used solely as a safety once he hits the field for the Panthers.
“I wouldn’t even give myself a position,” Chinn said, via the team’s website. “I think I’m just a defensive weapon. I think I’m just a threat. . . . “They’ve showed me that they want me doing a lot. Just from meetings with me going back and forth between different positions and learning so many positions, and learning what guys are doing all around me from the D-line, to the backend, to the corners, and everything. So I think prioritizing my knowledge as far as what everyone is doing, I think that’ll open up a lot of positions for me that I’ll actually be able to play.”
Any concrete plans for deploying Chinn will likely wait until the team is able to practice together and see how all of the new pieces fit into their scheme. Should he prove as adaptable as the team thinks, however, he should be a building block for head coach Matt Rhule in the years to come.