PFF's defensive line rankings has a shocking placement for Carolina Panthers

The Carolina Panthers probably had the worst defensive line in the NFL last year. Derrick Brown's injury destroyed the entire thing, as the rest of the players were bad. Most of them would've been backups on virtually every other team. A lot more goes into it than just that, but the porous defensive line was a huge reason the Panthers' defense was historically bad.

So when one sees a list ranking all the defensive lines in the NFL like this one from PFF, the inclination is to scroll all the way to the bottom for the Panthers. Much to the surprise of perhaps all Panthers fans, the scroll is lengthy, but as long as it could've been.

PFF ranked Carolina's defensive line 28th out of all 32 teams. The Panthers did a ton of work, including drafting two edge rushers and signing two interior defensive linemen, to fix that line, but to see it not in dead last is a bit of a surprise, and a welcome one at that.

Zoltan Buday said, "There is a lot of projection involved in not ranking the Panthers' defensive line last on this list. It was the worst unit in the league by a significant margin in 2024. Carolina generated pressure on only 23.2% of pass plays without blitzing, which ranked dead last in the league. However, the unit is getting back interior defender Derrick Brown, who missed almost the entire season and had established himself as one of the best young players at the position in previous seasons."

Combining a returning Brown with the additions of Tershawn Wharton, Nic Scourton, and Princely Umanmielen in particular means that the entire unit should be better in 2025. The pass rush and run defense was abysmal, but it should be stronger now.

And if Brown can return to borderline All-Pro form and Scourton/Umanmielen break out, then the Panthers might end up with a shockingly decent defensive front. Might.