When ESPN's Jenna Laine reported earlier this week that Carolina Panthers offensive guard Trai Turner was being shopped by the team , the assumption was the Panthers would be getting some draft capital for their former third-round pick.

This is what makes the actual trade between the Los Angeles Chargers and Carolina Panthers so odd because the Panthers did indeed trade Turner. But instead of hauling in a mid-round draft selection, the featured piece of the trade return for Carolina is a 31-year old veteran offensive tackle in Russell Okung. Okung, who is in the last year of his contract, is owed just $7 million less than Turner was due over the final two years of his own respective contract, so the Panthers' decision to bring Okung into the picture doesn't even seem to provide much cash relief on the surface level either.

Whether the objective would be pooling 2020 or 2021 picks was up for debate, but the most attractive path for Carolina involved cashing out on their investment for new draft capital to reset their roster and strip down salary cap.

There is sure to be more details on this rare player for player swap, as the NFL Network's Ian Rapoport broke the news late Wednesday afternoon. But what is apparent is the Panthers aren't going to be executing their rebuild to the norms you'd expect from a tear-down.

What motivated the Panthers to take on an aging Okung with his bloated salary and the issues with blood clots that cost him 15 games in 2019? Could this be part of a bigger, more prominent swap of players like we saw last year when the Browns and Giants evolved a trade of Kevin Zeitler for Olivier Vernon into a mega-deal that saw star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. flipped to Cleveland for a first-round pick, former first-round pick Jabrill Peppers and a third-round draft selection in 2019?

With the Panthers building up assets and gearing up for a tear-down, this might be the first domino in a bigger deal to move additional high priced assets to Los Angeles — the team has been rumored to be shopping Cam Newton despite posturing for the past few months that Newton will be a piece of the puzzle in Carolina in 2020. Absorbing Okung's salary would help allow the Chargers to easily take on additional big salaries from Carolina if there are indeed more pieces to be moved.

But for now, the league is left to scratch their collective heads and wonder what in the world David Tepper, Marty Hurney, Matt Rhule and the rest of Carolina's leadership has up their sleeves.

For the Chargers, this is an easy win. The team will welcome a younger, more consistent, healthier player who has a lower cap hit in 2020 and an additional year of control on his current contract in Turner. What's not to like?

Turner joins veteran center Mike Pouncey and former high draft selections in Dan Feeney and Forrest Lamp — neither of which has lived up to their potential but still offers hope of a breakout with more stability along the offensive line. And with the departure of Okung, offensive tackle now becomes the clear favorite for how the Chargers elect to invest their sixth-overall pick in the 2020 draft — especially if this team parlays this swap into a bigger, more earth-shattering swap before the league calendar opens later this month.