The Carolina Panthers turned out to be neither buyers nor sellers at the NFL's annual trade deadline. Their only move saw the front office restructure the contract of right tackle Taylor Moton, saving around $3.5 million in cap space for the rest of the campaign.

That doesn't mean they didn't receive calls, though. A few days ago, it was reported that Carolina was getting inquiries from other teams about potentially trading for star defensive tackle Derrick Brown.

And while we don't really need an NFL insider to tell us how those talks went, we have one anyway. According to Dan Graziano at ESPN, teams calling about Brown were given a simple answer:

With all the defensive tackles moving around, teams called the Panthers about Derrick Brown -- but were told no.

If the Panthers could have gotten the kind of return the Philadelphia Eagles did for Jordan Davis—a first and a second-round pick—a deal may have been worth considering. But otherwise, Brown is too valuable to send away for anything but a bonanza of draft capital.

After having traded away the likes of running back Christian McCaffrey, wide receiver DJ Moore and outside linebacker Brian Burns in previous seasons, it seems the Panthers have finally learned that they're better off keeping their best players rather than trying to get rid of them for assets.