Bobby Okereke signs with Panthers, Christensen lands on IR

The Panthers spent all of training camp watching Trevin Wallace and Claudin Cherelus battle for the LB2 job next to Devin Lloyd, and neither guy ever pulled away. So Carolina went out and got an answer from outside the building.

Tom Pelissero

@TomPelissero

Veteran LB Bobby Okereke agreed to terms with the Panthers, per source.

Bobby Okereke is a 30-year-old Stanford product who spent his first 4 years starting for the Colts before signing a 4-year, $40 million deal with the Giants in 2023. He was a captain in each of his 3 seasons in New York and put together the best stretch of his career there, including 143 tackles and 2 interceptions last season. He'd been sitting out the entire offseason before this deal, and Joe Person framed the pickup as the same kind of move as the Darren Waller addition — a proven veteran brought in to push a position group that needed it.

Joe Person

@josephperson

Panthers have agreed to terms with veteran LB Bobby Okereke, per league source and as @TomPelissero and others have said. Like Darren Waller, a proven player to add competition to a position group.

It took a couple weeks for the paperwork to catch up to the reports. Wallace got waived and David Moore got released as Carolina trimmed its roster, which left the Panthers with only 3 linebackers on the depth chart — Lloyd, Cherelus and Kuwatch — heading into Week 1. Okereke's arrival was the whole reason that math worked.

Making room for him on the offensive side of the ball took some doing. Tom Pelissero broke the news that Carolina waived guard Chandler Zavala, a 2023 fourth-round pick who'd played in 34 games with 14 starts over 3 seasons — a move that came amid a wave of O-line trades and cuts across the league this weekend.

Tom Pelissero

@TomPelissero

A surprise: The Panthers waived guard Chandler Zavala, per source. Zavala has played in 34 games (14 starts) over three seasons. After eight O-line trades across the NFL over the weekend, another name is now available in the second wave of cuts.

That still wasn't enough. To officially get Okereke's name on the roster, the Panthers also had to place guard Brady Christensen on injured reserve with a hamstring injury. Christensen had been working his way back from Achilles surgery all preseason and reportedly looked sharper in the team's game against the Texans before this setback, which explains the flurry of backup guard activity — Corey Bullock claimed, Torricelli Simpkins in the mix — that's followed.

Joe Person

@josephperson

Panthers sign LB Bobby Okereke and place OL Brady Christensen on IR with a hamstring injury, team announces.

Net result: Carolina gets the veteran linebacker it needed to stabilize a defense that was leaning on unproven depth, at the cost of thinning out an offensive line that just lost its swing guard to IR. With Week 1 against the Bears bearing down, Dave Canales now has a starting linebacker duo in Lloyd and Okereke he can trust — even if the O-line shuffle is one to keep an eye on.