{"id":335407,"date":"2026-05-15T23:35:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=335407"},"modified":"2026-05-15T23:35:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:05:04","slug":"panthers-sign-round-2-dt-lee-hunter-wrap-draft-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/panthers-sign-round-2-dt-lee-hunter-wrap-draft-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers Sign Round 2 DT Lee Hunter, Wrap Draft Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Panthers officially have their entire 2026 draft class under contract. Second-round defensive tackle <strong>Lee Hunter<\/strong> signed his four-year rookie deal on Friday, the team announced.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.profootballrumors.com\/files\/2026\/03\/USATSI_27387369-scaled.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Because the forty ninth overall pick, Hunter\u2019s arrangement is price roughly $10.07MM. There&#8217;s likely a major amount of guaranteed money within the pact. Falcons cornerback <strong>Avieon Terrell<\/strong>, who went one pick before Hunter, received a completely guaranteed accord. The fiftieth selection, Jets corner <strong>D\u2019Angelo Ponds<\/strong>, landed $8.95MM in guarantees on a $9.84MM agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Originally set to pick out 51st overall, the Panthers moved up two spots in a trade with the Vikings to secure Hunter. The 6-foot-3, 318-pounder got here off the board early on the heels of a productive four-year college profession divided between UCF and Texas Tech.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter broke out in 2023, his second season at UCF, where he piled up 69 tackles, 11 TFL and three sacks in 13 games. He earned second-team All-Big 12 honors in 2024, a 12-game, 45-tackle campaign, after which transferred to Texas Tech. In his lone season as a Red Raider, Hunter notched 41 tackles, 10.5 TFL and a pair of.5 sacks in 14 contests. Along with picking up a first-team All-Big 12 nod, he was a first-team All-American.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks partially to Hunter, Texas Tech finished first within the nation in run defense last 12 months. That&#8217;s an area where the Panthers will hope to enhance in 2026, as they ranked an underwhelming twentieth against opposing ground attacks last season. They now have Hunter as a run-stuffing option on a <strong>Derrick Brown<\/strong>-led D-line that also features <strong>Bobby Brown <\/strong>and <strong>Tershawn Wharton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Together with Hunter, the Panthers added six other rookies within the draft. Here&#8217;s a refresher on the group:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Round 1, No. 19: <strong>Monroe Freeling<\/strong> (T, Georgia)<\/li>\n<li>Round 2, No. 49 (from Vikings): <strong>Lee Hunter<\/strong> (DT, Texas Tech)<\/li>\n<li>Round 3, No. 83: <strong>Chris Brazzell II<\/strong> (WR, Tennessee)<\/li>\n<li>Round 4, No. 129 (from Bears): <strong>Will Lee III<\/strong> (CB, Texas A&#038;M)<\/li>\n<li>Round 5, No. 144 (from Titans via Panthers): <strong>Sam Hecht<\/strong> (C, Kansas State)<\/li>\n<li>Round 5, No. 151 (from Dolphins): <strong>Zakee Wheatley<\/strong> (S, Penn State)<\/li>\n<li>Round 7, No. 227 (from Dolphins): <strong>Jackson<\/strong> <strong>Kuwatch<\/strong> (LB, Miami (OH)<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Panthers officially have their entire 2026 draft class under contract. Second-round defensive tackle Lee Hunter signed his four-year rookie deal on Friday, the team announced. Because the forty ninth overall pick, Hunter\u2019s arrangement is price roughly $10.07MM. There&#8217;s likely a major amount of guaranteed money within the pact. Falcons cornerback Avieon Terrell, who went [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":335408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[702,5963,1171,2067,9895,6768,14230],"class_list":["post-335407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-class","tag-draft","tag-hunter","tag-lee","tag-panthers","tag-sign","tag-wrap"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335410,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335407\/revisions\/335410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}