On Sunday, the Carolina Panthers actually won a game.
Get this: Not only did the Panthers win a rare game – just their second of the season – but they did so with a solid offensive performance. Even more surprising is that this is happening after Diontae Johnson was traded away And without injured wide receiver Adam Thielen. The icing on the cake: they had Bryce Young back under center after benching him for Andy Dalton earlier this year.
With those pieces in place, you might think the young offense came together to include a young wideout by the name of Jonathan Mingo for the Panthers. After all, without Thielen or Johnson, the passing attack needed someone to step up and as a second-year wideout, this is the ideal time for Mingo to seize that opportunity.
Unfortunately, such expectations are unfounded. Mingo is so far in the Panthers’ doghouse that even without the team’s top wide receivers coming into the year, he still has no way of finding his way into the team’s game plan.
If you’re wondering if the Panthers are ready to trade Mingo, just take a look at his usage. He’s a healthy 23-year-old wide receiver who was just that a top-40 draft pick from a year ago in a loaded wide receiver class. Instead of spotlighting him, however, the Panthers have benched him in recent weeks in a not-so-obvious attempt to prove something to someone — we’re just not sure what that is.
The Panthers defeated the New Orleans Saints on Sunday in a close 23-22 battle in which Mingo earned 1 target and failed to catch it. Through his previous three games, he had allowed just four turnovers and caught just one pass, meaning he has exactly one catch for one yard in his final month in the NFL.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Panthers front office decided to invest the No. 39 overall pick in Mingo during the 2023 NFL Draft. Although Dan Morgan wasn’t the general manager at the time, he was the assistant GM, so it seems odd that the team would sour on someone so quickly when those still in the building are the ones who made the investment – ​​or at least some of them.
Given the apparent lack of playing time or even interest in using him in any capacity, Mingo seems like easy pickings for any team on the outside still looking for a wide receiver. And according to Dianna Russini, NFL insider for The Athletic, it does describes the Kansas City Chiefs today.
According to Russini, the Chiefs are hungry for a new wideout even after trading for DeAndre Hopkins, and that’s due to the number of injuries at the position. Skyy Moore was the latest player to be lost for weeks, and that comes after JuJu Smith-Schuster’s hamstring injury and season-ending injuries to Hollywood Brown and Rashee Rice. The addition of Hopkins helps, but another healthy player would lighten the load for the stretch run.
Enter Mingo, who would be a risk-free flier for a player with a potentially high ceiling. Mingo had 43 catches for 418 yards, so he has at least proven to be more productive than Moore. He came into the league as an enticing mix of size and athleticism, but he has yet to really put it all together in the pros. On the other hand, we’re talking about the Panthers offense – the kind of dumpster fire that costs people their jobs.
With Kansas City, Mingo could serve as ideal insurance for Smith-Schuster’s current role and Rashee Rice’s eventual suspension. He also has a few years left as a cost-controlled asset that could give the Chiefs an intriguing new young player to develop in the future. And again, if it doesn’t work out, it’s hard to believe the Chiefs would have overcome much of anything in the first place.
While Mingo’s price tag was an early second-round pick a year ago, the Panthers aren’t even remotely interested in pitching him to others or developing him for their own use. That should keep costs down and gives the Chiefs a short- and long-term asset that suits the club’s needs.
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