During another lost NFL season in Charlotte, it’s likely time to turn the region’s lonely football eyes forward towards the prospect of brighter things to come, with the 2025 NFL Draft likely being the Panthers franchise’s next chance at success.
Even after Sunday's victory over the equally downtrodden New Orleans Saints, the Panthers’ current win total over/under is 3.5 at bet365 North Carolina Sportsbook. So there’s no better time to look forward in Carolina than the present, which is why the league’s annual draft presents such a silver lining for all involved.
At BetCarolina.com, we used The Football Database to see what draft pick position NFL teams get after a 2-7 start since the 2019 NFL season. We only calculated the teams’ first selection positions, finding the average and median first pick positions for the draft in the year following a 2-7 start. Bookmark this site for the best NC sportsbook promos around.
Outcome | Draft Position |
Average | 17 |
Median | 7 |
Panthers fans will likely hope that this time around, the club will have better luck with a top pick than they did when they selected Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young No. 1 overall in 2023. The second-year signal caller has posted an approximate value of six in 21 career games and was benched this season for journeyman Andy Dalton after throwing for more interceptions (five) than touchdowns (two). On Sunday, Young had a decent game, throwing for 171 yards and a touchdown with one interception. Running back Chuba Hubbard, a fourth-round pick in 2021, had 72 yards rushing and two scores on 15 carries against the Saints, who fired Dennis Allen as head coach on Monday.
According to SportsOddsHistory.com, which uses BetMGM odds, the Panthers are not only 2-7 straight up, they’re also 2-7 against the spread, so they have not been a good North Carolina sports betting play in any way in 2024. Since 2019, a five-year span, 17 teams have started 2-7. Only one made the playoffs: Washington, who won the NFC East in 2020 with a 7-9 record.
Right now, we can look at recent teams that have lost seven of their first nine regular season games and assess where Carolina will likely fall when the 2025 NFL Draft rolls around.
Since 2019, teams that started the season 2-7, such as the Panthers have this year, have picked an average of 17th overall in the 32-team first round.
If that sounds low, it’s because of Carolina’s trade when the team dealt the first-round pick to get Young in 2023 (the Panthers also started 2-7 in 2022). That selection wound up being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 Draft, which the Bears used on QB Caleb Williams. Carolina then traded back into the opening round, eventually netting them wideout Xavier Legette out of South Carolina with the 32nd selection (see our story on Carolina Panthers draft history for some past draft highlights in franchise history).
That deviation ultimately resulted in such a high figure for the average draft spot overall in our chart. The median, the No. 7 overall pick, was a more expected spot, speaking to how hard it is to rectify a rough start to the season in today’s NFL ecosystem.
For first-year head coach Dave Canales and the Panthers, the task at hand is to work at getting better each Sunday. This weekend, the Panthers head to Munich, Germany, to face the 2-7 New York Giants before a bye week. As of Monday, Caesars North Carolina Sportsbook has the Panthers as a 4.5-point underdog against the Giants with a +185 moneyline on Canales’ team.
USA Today photo by Bob Donnan
Author
Christopher Boan is a lead writer at BetCarolina.com specializing in covering state issues. He has covered sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
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