Josh Norman made last-ditch effort to stay in Carolina

— -- CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Cornerback Josh Norman wanted to stay with the Carolina Panthers so badly that he made a last-minute attempt to sign his franchise tag, according to a league source and multiple media reports.

The Panthers rescinded the tag on Wednesday, making Norman a free agent. On Friday, Norman signed a five-year, $75 million deal with the Washington Redskins.

After being informed that the tag, which would have guaranteed him $13.952 million in 2016, had been rescinded, Norman contacted the Panthers, offering to fire agent Michael George and sign the tag, the source said.

By that time the Panthers had filed the paperwork with the league and decided to move on.

Norman signed agent Ryan Williams to handle his free-agency negotiations. He kept George on as a co-representative to avoid having to wait five days to sign with another team.

Norman told the Redskins' official website he was "sideswiped'' by the news that the tag had been rescinded.

"It came out of nowhere. It really did,'' Norman told the team website after signing.

Norman will address the media in Washington on Monday.

The Panthers placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on Norman on March 1. Norman hadn't signed the tag because the two sides were so far apart in negotiations.

George was seeking between $15 million and $16 million a year, which he considered the market value, for Norman, during his negotiations with the Panthers. Carolina general manager Dave Gettleman, according to a league source, offered a long-term deal worth $11 million a year at the NFL combine and never moved away from that offer.

In explaining the decision to rescind the tag, Gettleman said that the team decided it could do more with the $14 million in cap space that Norman would have taken up. The general manager said it was apparent that no long-term deal would be reached with the 2012 fifth-round pick.

"As we got deeper in conversations, we realized there was a significant difference between our thoughts and theirs,'' Gettleman said. "The intervening weeks gave us additional time to evaluate where we are going as a franchise.

"With the realization that a deal was not going to get done, our internal conversations kept leading us to the fact that the one-year deal was becoming less and less attractive."

So the Panthers rescinded the offer, making them eligible for a compensatory draft pick in 2017, which will likely be a third-rounder.