Fair warning, this will be one long read.   Part 1: The Core and the Cap The Panthers will go into the offseason with only 36 core players under contract for 2019 and beyond. Those players currently carry cap hits totaling just shy of $164 Million. We carry just shy of half a million in dead cap from past players, so the Panthers are sitting just over a $164 Million cap number. The projected cap for 2019 hovers around $187 million, which gives us about $23 Million in space to work with