The biggest concern Carolina Panthers fans have over rehiring Marty Hurney as interim general manager is salary cap management. Now, for the first time, we are hearing that in 2018 the Panthers could be over the salary cap. Did Hurney just tip his hat to more moves on the way? Could be. This information comes from Chuck Howard who interviewed Marty Hurney recently.

“Well it’s funny, cause I cam in yesterday and I had a short meeting about the salary cap and found out we may be over in 18” Hurney said. “I said oh great, thanks a lot, I’m not even here yet and it’s going to come back.”

According to Over the Cap, the Panthers look to be 20 million under the salary cap in 2018. This calculation does not account for the Trai Turner signing. Still, even with the Turner extension, the Panthers should be comfortably below the salary cap. Unless, of course, more contract moves are in the pipeline.

Should the Carolina Panthers attempt to extend Thomas Davis, Greg Olsen, and Andrew Norwell that extra camp room would quickly disappear. All three of these players play very important roles and deserve to be extended ASAP. The bad news? Doing so now would limit the Carolina Panthers ability to sign future free agents like Kelvin Benjamin and Star Lotulelei. Take from Peter to pay Paul, such is the way of salary cap management.

Tough decisions will need to be made very soon, well within Hurney’s interim role as general manager. Below is a video of the Hurney interview.