Coming off a Super Bowl loss, the Carolina Panthers were about salary-cap discipline. General manager Dave Gettleman preached patience and measure. And when it came to making roster decisions – like letting All-Pro cornerback Josh Norman walk away – everything was about the overall financial design.

“You have to balance the needs of the team now with the needs of the team in a couple of years,” Gettleman told Yahoo Sports in June. “You have to plan. I’m very methodical and intentional about what I do [and] about the decisions we make. You have to be that way with the salary cap, because it’s going to cost you.”

Nearly four months later, Carolina is sitting at an inexplicable 1-3 start and there are key phrases that resonate from that moment:

The needs of the team now, versus the needs of the team in a couple years.

It’s going to cost you.

View photos Julio Jones lit up the Panthers for 300 receiving yards on Sunday. (Getty Images) More

The Panthers have needs now. And the conservative offseason has been costing them. Not just against the Atlanta Falcons. Not just against Julio Jones, who caught 12 passes for an absurd 300 yards. No – there have been a handful of other problems, too. And their existence has plenty to do with the strict financial design that has left the Panthers with weak spots.

Start with Norman, the flawed but aggressive cornerback who thrived on facing elite players and coming up in pressure situations for the Panthers. The same Norman who allowed a touchdown to Cleveland Browns wideout Terrelle Pryor on Sunday, but made amends by sealing the Washington Redskins win with a late fourth-quarter interception deep in Cleveland territory.

In the eyes of the Panthers, Norman was an imperfect match. He lacked elite speed. He had a colorful disposition and attitude. He was expensive. At the end of the day, the argument was they couldn’t give a player like that a franchise cornerback deal. So the Panthers and Gettleman deemed Norman expendable and saw other ways to use his salary slot. They let him go and then extended offensive tackle Michael Oher. They tried (and failed) to get a long-term deal done with Kawann Short. Mostly, they planned for the future – 2017, 2018, 2019 – because in Gettleman’s book, you can’t deviate from the long-term outlook.

But the Panthers should be built to consistently contend for the Super Bowl right now. And teams sometimes have to sacrifice a little down the road to maximize a championship window in the immediate future. After all, what’s the use of stretching out a Super Bowl window if you don’t occasionally take an over-the-top shot to win a title within it?

The Panthers could have taken some more shots this offseason. They could have made a few more moves, spent a few more million and not left anyone second-guessing about the imperfections that are becoming more apparent on the roster. Instead Carolina is grappling with this: a 1-3 team that is looking like an inconsistent facsimile of the Super Bowl edition; a pair of subpar offensive tackles; a thin and mediocre set of running backs; a franchise quarterback in Cam Newton who is getting hammered; and a defensive secondary that is seemingly only as good as the front seven makes it.

And lest we forget the plan – a roster that is almost $19 million below the salary cap. That’s great for later, but it isn’t paying big dividends right now.

None of this is meant to completely skewer Gettleman’s approach. He’s not the first general manager to stick to his guns when it comes to the overall health of his salary structure. Particularly considering some absurd contracts being doled out last offseason, including the $75 million deal the Redskins gave Norman. Gettleman certainly wasn’t the only spendthrift general manager in the league this offseason. His discipline in that respect is admirable, as is his penchant for always keeping an eye toward the future.

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