Carolina Panthers: 5 Most Crucial Training-Camp Position Battles to Watch

Carolina Panthers training camp opens at Wofford College on July 31st.  The defending NFC South champions will be looking for their third consecutive playoff berth and to also get back to the right side of .500 after finishing last season at 7-8-1.

Simply calling them a “7-8-1” team, however, is somewhat deceptive.  The Panthers rolled into the playoffs last year with a four-game winning streak as key position changes sparked a late-season resurgence.

Players such as Mike Remmers, Corey Brown and Tre Boston found themselves with larger roles down the stretch, coinciding with the Panthers’ late-season turnaround.  The team played significantly better down the stretch as those players entered the lineup.  As a result, while the Panthers are not in as good of a spot as your average playoff team, they’re in a better position than your average team that finished last year with a losing record.

Many of the Panthers starters for 2015 are already more or less locked in.  Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis will be forming the backbone of the top linebacking corps in football, Kawann Short and Star Lotulelei will be handling the interior of the defensive line and so forth.

Not every position, however, has an obvious starter lined up already.  Training camp will sort through some of the more contentuous positional battles, as veterans look to hold off rookies, backups try to take the next step forward in their careers and full-on battle royales are held at the very worst positions.

Here, in reverse order, are the five most important training-camp battles to watch this season in Carolina.

5. Cornerback

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Charles Tillman

Josh Norman vs. Charles Tillman vs. Bene Benwikere vs. Melvin White

The Panthers got above-average play from two of their top five cornerbacks last season.  Josh Norman had a breakout season last year, finally settling in the starting lineup for good in Week 8.  He had two interceptions and 11 passes defensed last year, and while he did draw eight flags last season, generally he became the cornerback the team hoped he would be when it drafted him in the fifth round in 2012.

Bene’ Benwikere, last year’s fifth-round pick, missed the middle of the season with a high ankle sprain, but he firmly entrenched himself as a starter when he came back.  Benwikere had eight passes deflected in just 10 games played last season.  He ended the season as a top-20 cornerback, according to Pro Football Focus, and a top-15 cornerback strictly in terms of pass coverage.  That's not bad at all for a fifth-round pick, and Benwikere deservedly was named to Sports Illustrated's All-Rookie Team.

If the Panthers were entering 2015 with those two locked in as the starting corners, they’d be more than set, but they didn’t stand pat during free agency.  They brought in Charles Tillman, a two-time Pro Bowler and one of the key players on Ron Rivera’s Chicago Bears defenses.

The 2012 Tillman would be a shoo-in for a starting spot.  He was named All-Pro that year and led the league in defensive touchdowns with three.  Since then, however, Tillman has struggled with injuries, playing just 10 games in the past two seasons.  It remains to be seen how much of his old form the 2015 Tillman can recover.

Melvin White is also technically still in the mix at the position.  He was a starter at the beginning of last season, but he was benched in favor of Norman.  The smart money has Norman, Tillman and Benwikere, in some combination, filling out the two starting corner slots and the nickel role, with Benwikere possibly the odd man for the nickel job. He had 149 coverage snaps in the slot last season, per PFF, to Norman’s seven and White’s five.

4. Outside Linebacker

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Shaq Thompson

A.J. Klein vs. Shaq Thompson

You don’t draft players in the first round to watch them sit on the bench.  The selection of Thompson surprised many pundits, who thought he would be more of a second- or third-round pick.  General manager Dave Gettleman clearly thought differently, however, and the use of the 25th overall pick on him implies a healthy confidence that Thompson can become a great NFL linebacker.

In the long term, Thompson may be Thomas Davis' replacement—both players are built quite similarly, both played a combination of safety and outside linebacker in college and both, at least as young players, are more natural in coverage than they are in traffic.  Davis isn’t going anywhere for the next few years at least, however, so Thompson will be battling with A.J. Klein for playing time.

Klein’s clearly the weak link in Carolina’s linebacking corps, but that’s not exactly a particularly negative comment when you’re being compared to Davis and Luke Kuechly.  Klein is pretty much an average linebacker at this point, which is good for a fifth-round pick in 2013.  Klein graded out 27th-best among 4-3 outside linebackers in 2014, according to PFF, which is pretty much square in the middle of the rankings.

Klein’s role in the defense last year was as a two-down linebacker, coming off the field when the Panthers went to nickel.  For him to keep his job over Thompson this year, he’s going to have to show the coaches that he’s a better run-stopper than Thompson is at this point in time.  Thompson will get snaps on defense anyway this season, but it’s possible it’s only in sub-packages as a safety/linebacker hybrid, rather than knocking Klein off the depth chart quite yet.

3. Defensive End

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Frank Alexander

Wes Horton vs. Kony Ealy vs. Frank Alexander

The Panthers never really replaced Greg Hardy last season.  In 2013, his last full season with the club, Pro Football Focus charted Hardy with 14 sacks, 25 quarterback hits and 44 hurries.  In 2014, Hardy’s one game plus the rest of the season for Wes Horton, Kony Ealy and Frank Alexander totaled just eight sacks, 10 quarterback hits and 18 hurries, per PFF.  Clearly, someone needs to step up to fill that void.

Of the three, Ealy was the leader in quarterback pressures, with 18.  What’s most interesting about that is the fact that nine of those pressures came in the Panthers’ last four games, per PFF—Ealy was almost invisible on the field before that point. 

Last year’s second-round pick struggled significantly over the first three quarters of the season, but his play over the last four games of the regular season and the playoffs flashed some of the potential that caused the Panthers to draft him in the first place.  The best-case scenario for the Panthers is that Ealy shows up again in 2015, with most of 2014 written off as rookie struggles.

After all, they weren’t expecting Ealy to have to play such a large role as a rookie. Frank Alexander was likely to be Hardy's primary replacement, but he was hit with two separate substance-abuse suspensions last season, missing 14 games in the process.  The Charlotte Observer's Joseph Person reported that Coach Rivera is “most bullish” on Alexander, though he adds that he "needs to develop consistency."

It was Wes Horton who ended up replacing Hardy for most of last year, but with Alexander's return and Ealy's continued emergence, he might be the odd man out.  I’d project the Panthers to use a rotation at the position in 2015, with Ealy and Alexander, in some combination, getting most of the work.

2. Wide Receiver

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Devin Funchess

Jerricho Cotchery vs. Devin Funchess vs. Corey Brown vs. Ted Ginn vs. Jarrett Boykin vs. ...

Kelvin Benjamin will start at wide receiver for the Panthers in 2015.  After that, it’s a wide-open field.

Jerricho Cotchery was third on the team with 48 receptions last season, but he didn’t exactly light the world on fire.  Cotchery was plodding, providing slightly below-average production week in and week out.  He has solid hands and a veteran’s presence, but he’s far from an exciting option.  Finding an upgrade over him was one of the team’s top priorities this offseason.

In the long term, that’s Devin Funchess.  Funchess is really more of a hybrid receiver-tight end type of player, presenting a size mismatch for players in the slot at 6’4” and 232 pounds.  He doesn’t have the world’s softest hands, and he’s, in all likelihood, going to be far more inconsistent than Cotchery will be in 2015, but he has a much higher ceiling at this point. 

Funchess will likely receive more and more snaps as the season goes on, and he adapts to the Panthers’ scheme and NFL speeds, but Cotchery might hold on to the starting role at the beginning, until Funchess gets his feet underneath him.

Whether it happens in training camp or halfway through the season, when Funchess slips past Cotchery, Cotchery will fall more than a spot or two on the depth chart.  The Panthers brought back veteran Ted Ginn to fill their speedster role as a third or fourth wideout, but he’ll have a battle on his hands against last year’s undrafted surprise, Corey Brown.  Brown finally got an opportunity to see significant playing time after last year’s bye and responded with 14 receptions for 197 yards over the last seven games, including the playoffs.

The Panthers four-receiving-threat lineup by the end of the season would ideally be Benjamin, Funchess, Greg Olsen and the better speed threat of Brown and Ginn, leaving Cotchery on the outside looking in.

1. Right Tackle

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Daryl Williams

Mike Remmers vs. Daryl Williams vs. Nate Chandler

Perhaps it is coincidence that the Panthers’ improved performance coincided with Mike Remmers entering the starting lineup for Nate Chandler, and perhaps it isn’t.  What’s indisputable is that Remmers, after bouncing from practice squad to practice squad over his NFL career, performed better in run blocking and pass blocking than Chandler did.  Remmers wasn’t recorded as giving up a single sack all season long and only averaged one quarterback pressure a start during the regular season, according to Pro Football Focus.

Was it a case of a player finally getting the opportunity to show what he can do and making the most of it, or was it a run of good luck aided by playing teams with a combined 29-51 record over the last five starts? 

In the playoffs against Seattle, Remmers struggled against Michael Bennett and the Seahawks defense.  He didn’t allow a sack, but he allowed seven pressures, keeping Cam Newton on the run.  Was it just one bad game, or was he finally being exposed for his true level of talent when playing against a good team?  That’s the answer the Panthers need to find out before the 2015 season starts.

While Nate Chandler is still on the roster, the most likely alternative to Remmers at the position is fourth-round pick Daryl Williams out of Oklahoma.  After the draft, I called him the team’s most intriguing selection. The first-team All-Big 12 right tackle last season, Remmers brings a massive frame and a punishing drive-blocking skill set to the field, especially in the run game.  He also allowed no sacks and only 10 quarterback pressures last season, according to College Football Focus data, per Steve Palazzolo of Pro Football Focus.

Don’t be shocked if Williams wins the training-camp battle, though Remmers’ experience and play down the stretch at the end of the season should give him the initial lead in the race.

Bryan Knowles is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Carolina Panthers.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.