Hours after Dontari Poe underwent season-ending surgery, the Panthers agreed to terms with a potential replacement. Carolina will sign former Washington and Oakland defensive lineman Stacy McGee, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets.
McGee has not played this season but was a key interior defender with the Raiders and Redskins. The six-year veteran worked out for the Bears and Jaguars recently but did not sign with either team. He will get a chance to join a Carolina rotation decimated by injuries.
The Panthers entered the season with perhaps the highest-profile group of interior linemen in the game, with Gerald McCoy joining Poe and Kawann Short. Injuries to the latter two have left McCoy alone for the Panthers’ stretch run. Short has been on IR for several weeks, and Poe’s torn quad will sideline him for the rest of the season.
A 2013 sixth-round Raiders selection, McGee signed a five-year, $25MM deal with Washington in 2017. After a 10-start 2017 season, McGee underwent late-offseason thigh surgery. That limited him to 10 games in 2018. The Redskins cut the 29-year-old D-lineman in March, but he will have a chance to make a case for 2020 NFL employment over the final five games of this season.