Last year’s price probably won’t be this year’s price for Bradley Bozeman—and the Carolina Panthers know it.

This past week, Pro Football Focus salary cap analyst Brad Spielberger highlighted one indispensable free agent from every NFL team. He settled on Bozeman for the Panthers, who got the rock-solid center on a steal of a deal last spring.

But now, they can’t afford to lose him. Spielberger writes:

The Panthers had the fewest snaps in 2022 played by pending free agents, resembling one positive the team can build on heading into 2023. A good chunk of those snaps came from Bozeman once he became the full-time starter in Week 7. Bozeman’s return would be particularly helpful because the loss of right guard Austin Corbett to a torn ACL in Week 18 will likely knock him out for a portion of the 2023 season.

Bozeman’s 53.3 pass-blocking grade in 2022 was a career low since his rookie season, but he snapped the ball to three different starting quarterbacks over 11 weeks and earned his fourth straight overall grade above 63.0, buoyed by a 67.3 run-blocking mark. Even if Bozeman returns as a depth option at center, he’s shown he’s a reliable backup who could perhaps settle in if he does earn the starting job and works primarily with one signal caller.

Bozeman stepped up in place of an injured Pat Elflein beginning in Week 7, when the Panthers ran wild for a 21-3 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. From there, the fifth-year hog molly played in every single offensive snap to close out his impressive campaign.

So if Carolina hopes to keep him, he’ll likely be valued for more than the $2.8 million he got in 2022.