Written by Mike Rodak at ESPN.com
In a deal that was completed minutes before the NFL’s trade deadline Tuesday, the Carolina Panthers dealt top wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin to the Buffalo Bills for a third-round pick and a seventh-round pick in the 2018 draft.
The third-rounder is the Bills’ original selection, not the one the franchise acquired from the Philadelphia Eagles in a separate deal. The seventh-rounder was acquired in a July trade with the Los Angeles Chargers for quarterback Cardale Jones.
“You’re always looking to make a move to win today and to win tomorrow, and I think this answers both of those,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said in a news conference Tuesday evening.
Panthers interim GM Marty Hurney told ESPN’s David Newton that the Bills reached out to Carolina and expressed interest in Benjamin. Beane and Hurney have a long-standing working relationship that began when both joined the Panthers in 1998 and continued through 2012, when Hurney was fired by Carolina and replaced by Beane as interim GM.
“Marty and I talk every so often,” Beane said Tuesday. “We spoke a little bit [Monday] and then this morning via text. But I really didn’t sense at practice [Tuesday afternoon] that anything was going to go down. And then we did circle back up around 2 [p.m.] and again around 3:25, and it got serious by 3:40, knowing we had 20 minutes to agree on the deal.”
The Panthers were willing to part with Benjamin because it eliminates some redundancy on the field with Benjamin, who is 6-foot-5, and Devin Funchess, who is 6-foot-4 with a similar skill set and now moves into Benjamin’s role as the No. 1 receiver. The Panthers also want to get faster receivers such as Russell Shepard, rookie Curtis Samuel and Kaelin Clay on the field more.
Benjamin provides the Bills with a big, deep target for quarterback Tyrod Taylor as they look to end a 17-year playoff drought and advance to the postseason for the first time since the 1999 season. At a surprising 5-2, the Bills entered Week 9 with a 61 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.
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