The Carolina Panthers are at a crossroads. They're currently still paying Cam Newton and both of his replacements in Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Darnold. Their head coach, Matt Rhule, is firmly on one of the hottest seats in the league, and the team still needs a quarterback. The Panthers hold the 6th overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, and luckily enough for them, none of the teams ahead of them seem likely to choose a signal caller. This means that they'll have their pick of the litter so to speak, and with plenty of buzz pushing Liberty QB Malik Willis' stock ever higher, here's three reasons he would be the perfect fit at number six overall with the Carolina Panthers.

Malik Willis Is Best Panthers Fit In 2022 NFL Draft

1. Arm Strength

One of the Panthers' best qualities as a team right now is the deep threat of their receivers. Robby Anderson is the most notable, but DJ Moore can also fly downfield as well. Willis is widely believed to have the biggest cannon of a right arm in this draft, and that should compliment his receivers well. He's got some work to do in his mid-range accuracy, but that will come with time. If Willis can provide a field-stretching threat with his pass catchers, this also opens up space for Christian McCaffrey to operate underneath in the short passing game.

Willis' arm has been compared to that of Jay Cutler's early career, and if he can develop anywhere near the accuracy Cutler provided, and polish other areas of his game, the Panthers could be very dangerous to face in the future. Being able to spread the ball across the entire field is almost a necessity in the modern NFL, and Willis has the arm strength to do just that, and more, if he can hone in his medium and long range accuracy.

This provides the Panthers with one very promising avenue for success, but it's not the only one that Malik Willis provides.

2. Mobility

Willis not only has a howitzer attached to his right shoulder, he also offers elite mobility not seen in many other prospects in this draft. This offers, for the Panthers, the ability to run a zone read scheme with Willis and McCaffrey, similar to what the Panthers ran to much success early in McCaffrey's career alongside the aforementioned Cam Newton.

In his 23 starts for Liberty after his transfer from Auburn, Malik Willis carried the ball 338 times for 1,822 yards and 27 touchdowns. These stats are comparable, on a per-carry basis, to Cam Newton's time at Auburn. This freedom to expand the offense would be greatly needed in Carolina, as one of the issues plaguing Rhule (and former offensive coordinator Joe Brady) the last two seasons is the predictability of their offense due to the lack of a rushing threat from anyone not named McCaffrey.

This multi-dimensionality confuses defenses, and in a division not well renowned for its defenses, this could prove vital to the success of the Panthers for years to come.

3. Time

As has been mentioned a couple times, Malik Willis is widely considered the most raw of the elite quarterback prospects in this draft. What this does for Rhule and company is offer them time to build out the rest of the roster as they see fit. Assuming they win enough in the short term to keep Rhule in charge, the Panthers are going to be able to use draft and trade capital elsewhere on the roster for the next two entire drafts before Willis truly comes into his own.

This also allows the Panthers' staff to mold Willis into the quarterback that fits their vision of what they want their team to be. A combination of adjusting scheme to fit his talents and teaching him how to play the way they want him to could create a very harmonious coach-quarterback duo that should be able to do well in a relatively weak NFC South.

We've already seen teams successfully do this, in fact. After the Chargers drafted Justin Herbert, and realized just how good he turned out to be, they started throwing draft picks and trades around like candy. Trading for Khalil Mack, signing JC Jackson, the list goes on.

They recognized that the three years remaining of Herbert's rookie contract were, if nothing else, a great championship window to use boatloads of cap space on every other position. The Panthers may be able to profit in the same way if Malik Willis can be even half as good as Herbert has been early in his career.