When you’re covering an NFL team you never want to be the main story of the day. Sometimes that’s inevitable if you clash with a player or a coach or a team owner. In this case, ESPN’s Carolina Panthers beat reporter David Newton is the main character for this one.
The last time that we heard about Panthers center and pending free agent Austin Corbett, the team had pushed back a critical deadline on his contract so that they could buy more time to work out a deal. Today was the original deadline but now they have until March 11.
In the interim, there was a piece from Newton on ESPN that Corbett wants to play for a team where he doesn’t have to compete for a starting job. Here’s what Newton wrote.
“Corbett has been limited to nine starts the past two seasons because of injuries. He wants to play for a team where there really isn’t a competition for the position. That’s now happening at Carolina, where Cade Mays is a younger and less expensive version who did a solid job replacing Corbett this past season. For a team in rebuild mode it just makes sense to spend money elsewhere.”
Apparently Corbett does not agree with that characterization, because he’s clearly PO’d over it. Here’s how he responded on Friday morning.
Not extending the deadlines for fellow centers/pending free agents Brady Christensen and Cade Mays might indicate that the team prefers Corbett to return as their starting center in 2025, but there’s been no deal announced yet.