Despite the repeated attempts by DE Julius Peppers to extricate himself from Carolina this off-season, the Panthers front office expressed a strong level of confidence in his return to the team this fall, and are looking forward to watching Peppers contribute in a big way once again, according to the Associated Press.

Carolina GM Marty Hurney addressed the issue with reporters yesterday:

“We’ve known Julius for seven years, and it has been a good seven years,” Hurney said. “I think he knows how we feel, and we feel like he’s been happy here. And again, nothing has changed. We franchised him, and when we did we knew there was a period for the process to take place. When that process goes through then he’s going to be back.”

“If you look, there are a lot of teams that I regard as successful organizations, and successful teams that have followed the same approach and aren’t very active in free agency,” Hurney said. “We’ve kept our nucleus together. We have a lot of starters back from last year. We have some young players who I think can help our depth. We feel good about the makeup of the team. We hope to help ourselves in the draft next Saturday.”

Peppers is reportedly frustrated by his role with the team, and would prefer to play in a 3-4 defense as the rush LB. There would likely be no shortage of interest should the Panthers place him on the trading block, but given Hurney’s comments, it’s doubtful that will occur at this point.

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