Jaycee Horn is sticking around Charlotte for the long haul.
Horn and the Carolina Panthers agreed Monday to a four-year contract extension, the team announced. Horn, 25, was set to play out the fifth-year option of his expiring rookie contract, worth roughly $12.47 million, this year before agreeing to the new deal.
According to NFL Network, the new deal will make Horn the highest-paid corner in NFL history. Ian Rapoport reported the deal is worth $100 million with $70 million in guaranteed money.
Horn played in 15 games in 2024. He produced 68 tackles, two sacks, 13 pass breakups and an interception during his fourth season, which earned him to his first Pro Bowl invitation.
Along with getting that all-star nod, Horn stepped up as a leader with Derrick Brown and Shaq Thompson sidelined for the majority of the campaign.
“I saw a guy that was just so focused on helping the team, on being out there, on making sure that his body was right,” head coach Dave Canales said at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis last month.
“I wasn’t around Jaycee before (2024), but what I saw was just this professionalism. This way that he went about his week, his body readiness, his mental preparation, his film study, all those habits — I just saw him give us something so solid and stable for other guys to see: ‘This is how you achieve excellence.’ And I love the fact that he was recognized for the Pro Bowl and all that, but I thought that was inevitable if he could just be out there. But he brought that to us, so I thought that was really important for Jaycee to be somebody for people look at.”
Horn, the eighth overall pick in 2021, missed 29 of his first 51 games during the first three years of his career with various ailments.
While a hip injury forced him off the field during the final two games of last year, Canales and general manager Dan Morgan both expressed the desire to reach a long-term agreement with Horn following the season.
The team has watched Horn blossom from a talented, oft-injured playmaker into a true No. 1 cornerback in Carolina. He will continue to lead a room that features the likes of Chau Smith-Wade, Shemar Bartholomew and others. Fellow starting cornerback Mike Jackson is a free agent, and while he could return, Horn still mans the top of the totem pole at the position.
Horn will now be under contract through the 2029 season. The former South Carolina standout is one of the team’s pillar players, and he and Brown are expected to lead the defense for the foreseeable future.
The Charlotte Observer
Mike Kaye covers the Carolina Panthers for The Charlotte Observer. Kaye previously covered the entire NFL for Pro Football Network, the Philadelphia Eagles for NJ Advance Media and the Jacksonville Jaguars for First Coast News. He is a graduate of the University of North Florida.