Why the Panthers Signing a Basketball Player Isn’t Insane
After a middling 5-12 season, the Carolina Panthers have a lot of things to work on and a lot of questions to answer. The chief question the team is desperately seeking to answer is how to unlock the next level for their young quarterback, Bryce Young. Young was touted as the shot in the arm that the franchise needed when he was drafted by the Panthers first overall in 2023, but there have been doubts surrounding him after a particularly disappointing first two seasons. To bring Young’s stats and performances up to the quality that the Panthers have been looking for requires that they get the hopeful long-term franchise QB some help on offense. The latest move the Panthers have taken towards building around Young is going out and signing… a basketball player?!
A month ago, Colin Granger was shooting buckets for Coastal Carolina’s college basketball team. As of a few days ago, he is now a professional football player in the NFL, despite the fact that, by his own admission, he hasn’t played a down of football since he was in the eighth grade. This means that the powers that be in the Panthers front office are hoping to turn someone whose football resume peaks at the words “Middle School” and turn him into a weapon for Bryce Young. That’s insane, right?
Maybe not. Colin Granger didn’t just get lost at a Conway, SC bus station and accidentally wander into the Panthers’ headquarters up north in Charlotte. In reality, he was actually recruited by a man who intimately knows the pathway from collegiate basketball to the NFL: eight-year veteran offensive tackle George Fant. From 2011-2015, Fant played basketball for Western Kentucky, and when a career playing professional basketball domestically didn’t seem likely, he used his last year of eligibility to play for his school’s football team. Despite appearing in only two total games of collegiate football, Fant’s workouts and physical build impressed the Seattle Seahawks, who signed him as an undrafted free agent. Since then, Fant has seen starting roles as a tackle with the Seahawks, New York Jets, and Houston Texans.
Colin Granger and George Fant are hardly the first people to make the jump from college basketball to professional football. Chargers legend Antonio Gates never played a single down of college football. Despite that, he had a 16-year career with the Chargers, eight Pro Bowl nods, five collective First and Second Team All-Pro honors, and is a 2025 Pro Football Hall of Famer. Tight end Julius Thomas, like George Fant, only played a single year of college football at the end of his eligibility but was drafted in the fourth round by the Denver Broncos, eventually earning two Pro Bowl selections and establishing himself as a favorite endzone target for Peyton Manning during the veteran QB’s MVP year in Denver. In the present day, tight end Mo Alie-Cox hadn’t played football since his freshman year of high school by the end of his time at VCU but was signed by the Indianapolis Colts and has produced a solid seven years and counting career there.
The path for someone wanting to make the jump from college basketball to the NFL has been walked a surprising amount of times and produced a shocking amount of success. With the right guidance and coaching, who’s to say that Colin Granger won’t become a well-needed piece of the Panther’s offense? Am I saying that Granger is guaranteed to become the new Antonio Gates? No, but I am saying that the NFL would have never had an Antonio Gates if someone in the league hadn’t taken a chance on signing some college basketball player.
