The Carolina Panthers are 5-3 and in the playoff hunt, but they have not scored nearly enough points this season. Yet they just did something a team in their predicament rarely does: They traded away their No. 1 wide receiver Tuesday.
It sounds ridiculous.
But I like it.
Trading Kelvin Benjamin in midseason is the sort of bold move that a guy with the word "interim" in his title rarely makes, and I'm as shocked as anyone else that Panthers interim general manager Marty Hurney actually pulled the trigger on it.
"The thinking for us is just to get more speed on the field and a better diversity of skill sets on the field," Hurney said in our phone interview.
As for whether this "for the future" sort of move means he has been promised he will become the team's permanent GM once this season ends, Hurney said it did not mean that and that he doesn't know what will happen after this season.
"This is not related to the length of time I will be in this job at all, whatever amount of time that is," Hurney said. "You just do the job the best you can while you're in it."
