Carolina Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman speaks his mind and doesn’t seem to hold back much. At the NFL’s Scouting Combine, he made a huge defense of right tackle Mike Remmers and he talked well about free agent fullback Mike Tolbert as well.

On another potential free agent, Mike Tolbert, Gettleman says fullback's like him are hard to find and valuable to Panthers. — Bryan Strickland (@PanthersBryan) February 24, 2016

Tolbert is already on our top-10 plays of 2015 with a crushing blow to the Philadelphia Eagles. The 30-year old is also a two-time All-Pro and Pro Bowl fullback. Coming off a four-year, $10 million contract, Tolbert is set to be a free agent this offseason unless the Panthers can come to an agreement with him to stick around.

Arguably the best fullback in the game right now, Tolbert isn’t likely to be cheap. Oakland Raiders’ fullback Marcel Reece is coming to the end of a three-year, $11 million contract and is the highest average salary for the position. The last guy to sign one of the larger contracts for a fullback was the Buffalo Bills’ Jerome Felton with an average of $2.3 million per season.

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While Tolbert is towards the end of his career, there are few guys at the position with as big of a name as he has. With his All-Pro and Pro Bowl nods, he should still command good money on a short-term deal.

Sadly, Tolbert isn’t the highest priority for the Panthers this offseason. With the team focused on re-signing cornerback Josh Norman and figuring out what to do with defensive end Charles Johnson, they will likely want to extend a few of their other players like Kawann Short before turning to fullback and Tolbert.

With the fullback position slowly being erased from a good portion of the league, Tolbert might not draw much interest on the open market if he gets that far. However, with Gettleman’s comments, it seems that at least one team thinks he is important.