The Carolina Panthers have a lot of work to do this offseason. They have already managed to revamp their coaching staff, but now they must focus on fixing up their roster for the 2023 season and beyond. And while there were some signs of encouragement throughout the season, it's clear that Carolina's roster needs a lot of work to go into it if they want to build a winner for the future.

Carolina's quarterback experiment with Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold failed miserably in 2022, and it seems likely they will look to find their quarterback of the future this offseason. They have some talented young players, such as D.J. Moore and Brian Burns, that are already in place, but trading away Christian McCafferey certainly has hurt this team.

Bringing in talent is going to be key, but in order to accomplish that, the Panthers are going to have to move on from some players in order to create cap space. With that in mind, let's take a look at one player on Carolina's roster who could surprisingly get released this offseason and see why this could happen.

Panthers surprise roster cut: Shaq Thompson

Shaq Thompson has been a pillar of consistency at the center of the Panthers defense for the past eight seasons. Thompson is a tackling machine who can hold his own in coverage, and is coming off arguably the best season of his career (135 tackles, 0.5 sacks, 4 PD, 1 FR, 8 TFL, 3 QB Hits), which would seemingly make him a crucial piece of the Panthers defense.

In a sense, that assumption would be correct. Thompson was Carolina's leading tackler in 2022, and they don't really have a direct replacement for him should he leave. Frankie Luvu had a breakout campaign in 2022 in which he racked up 111 tackles and seven sacks, but given his versatile skillset, sticking him in Thompson's position wouldn't make a lot of sense.

If it weren't for financial reasons, releasing Thompson wouldn't be a consideration. But cutting Thompson this offseason would save $13.16 million in cap space for the Panthers, although it would result in an $11.3 million dead cap charge. Considering how Carolina is currently over the salary cap limit, and releasing Thompson would immediately get them back under, this is something that the team would have to consider.

There are different ways that this situation could be handled aside from cutting Thompson. For starters, the Panthers could restructure his deal, which they have already done twice, in an effort to limit his cap charge for the upcoming season. Maybe that's more plausible for the Panthers, but Thompson is going to want to make the money that keeps getting pushed back in his deals at some point.

Trading Thompson could be a possibility as well, although it would require the Panthers to eat some of the money on his current contract, as nobody is going to want to have his 2023 salary on their books. The $11.3 million dead cap hit would also still occur should the Panthers trade Thompson, so aside from the return, which likely wouldn't be much more than a late draft pick, there's not much of a reason to look to trade him.

Getting rid of Thompson's production would obviously hurt, but it's not as if he's the best middle linebacker in the league. You can find guys who can rack up 100 plus tackles a season and play decent coverage for a much cheaper price in free agency, or you could even address this position in the draft. Thompson will be 29 by the time the 2023 season starts, and while he hasn't seen a drop in production yet, that could change in the blink of an eye.

Releasing Thompson, who was one of the team's better players last season, would be fairly shocking, but it might be a move the Panthers have to make. They aren't contending anytime soon, and swapping out veteran players for younger ones to aid their rebuild makes sense. It's not necessarily a move that has to be forced, but you can do a lot with $13 million in extra cap space.

This feels like a decision that could go either way for the Panthers. They really shouldn't be paying Thompson all this money, but if they can find another avenue to pursue, it would make sense to keep him around over another underperforming player. It will be interesting to see how the Panthers decide to create cap space this offseason, but it's looking like they could manage to get themselves under the salary cap with one move, albeit a shocking move, that involves them releasing Thompson.