Losing Luke Kuechly to an early retirement is an undeniable bummer for the Carolina Panthers defense. The team signed Tahir Whitehead in the offseason, but that won’t do much to mitigate the loss of the best off-ball linebacker of his generation.
The silver lining is that some of the younger linebackers on the team will get an opportunity to show what they can do. Watch backup Andre Smith training on his footwork.
Phil Snow may change things up. For now, we are projecting Smith as the No. 4 linebacker on the depth chart behind Whitehead, Shaq Thompson and Jermaine Carter Jr..
