NFC Notes: Adam Thielen, Buccaneers, Panthers, Saints

Buccaneers

• According to Jeremy Fowler, the Buccaneers will have a plan to utilize sixth-round WR Trey Palmer this year.
• Fowler specifically mentions that Palmer could pick up some of the slack left by Scotty Miller, who departed for the Falcons this offseason.

Panthers

Panthers WR Adam Thielen felt that moving on to a new team was in his best interest as the vision that the Vikings had for him was not what he thought it should be as a veteran, leading to his release.

“I think there are like two sides of it,” Thielen told the Daily Delivery podcast. “It was a bummer. I didn’t want to leave Minnesota. I wanted to end my career there. Obviously, that would be the perfect fairy-tale way to do it, right? But that’s not reality. I’m so thankful for that organization, (general manager) Kwesi (Adofo-Mensah), and (Kevin O’Connell) and the staff. The way they handled this throughout the process was first-class.”

“You know, it’s really hard to explain the entire situation,” Thielen added. “I don’t think there was ever a point where I was unhappy with what I was doing. It was just pretty clear that they had a different vision for me than maybe I had for a way that I could help the team win games. There wasn’t a wrong thing. There wasn’t disrespect on either side. I think it was just time for both sides to move on. For me, you have to go prove it on the field every single day. You have to show you’re not getting older and slowing down. This was just a great off-season for me. From the day the season was over, I was able to get back to training — get faster, stronger, and more explosive.”

Saints

• ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler mentions that the Saints rated TCU RB Kendre Miller highly among running backs in this year’s draft class and believe he can be a complete player.
• Even so, Fowler expects the Saints to take it easy on Miller early on, given that he’s working his way back from a meniscus injury.