After spending the first four years of his NFL career with the Minnesota Vikings, veteran edge rusher D.J. Wonnum made the decision to sign a contract with the Carolina Panthers last March.
This past Sunday, Wonnum made his official debut in a Panthers uniform after missing the team’s first nine games of the season because of a torn quad injury that he suffered in Week 16 of the 2023 campaign with Minnesota.
The former Vikings draft pick was on the field for 67 percent of Carolina’s defensive snaps during their Week 10 win over the New York Giants, and according to PFF, he was able to accumulate four pressures, two run stops, one forced fumble, one sack, and a pass-rush win rate of 20.7 percent in the contest.
Before his quad injury last year, Wonnum was arguably in the middle of his best season since entering the NFL in 2020.
In 15 appearances with Minnesota (including 14 starts), he finished with 62 total tackles (seven for a loss), 21 pressures, 15 quarterback hits, eight sacks, six pass breakups, and one fumble recovery that he picked up and returned 51 yards for a touchdown.
If not for his quad injury, the Vikings might have attempted to re-sign him earlier this year. Instead, Minnesota decided to let him go elsewhere and they opted to spend their money on edge rushers Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel in free agency.
With the performance of the Vikings defense this season, it seems safe to believe that they made the right choice to add Greenard and Van Ginkel. Minnesota also didn’t have to wait more than half of the 2024 campaign for these two edge rushers to be healthy enough to play, which wouldn’t have been the case with Wonnum if they brought him back.
But after one game, it seems like the former Vikings fourth-round pick has settled in nicely with Carolina, and after his 2023 campaign being cut short by a significant quad injury, he probably couldn’t have hoped for a better debut with his new team than the one he wound up actually having.