The 2025 free agency open discussion period officially kicked off on Tuesday. With it, PLL clubs could begin contacting pending free agents on opposing teams. As reported Tuesday, Rob Pannell is one of those free agents who is entertaining his options on the open market. 

Pannell is hitting free agency for the first time in his PLL career and, per a source close to the 35-year-old attackman, he’s looking for a win-now opportunity in the final stretch of his career. While he’s not ruling out a return to the California Redwoods, there will surely be a number of teams interested in talking to Pannell over the next two weeks before free agency opens on March 3. 

Reasonably, every team should give Pannell a call – he’s too great a player to not check in on. Yet given his priorities and how crucial fit is in a league with plenty of talent, a few teams make more sense than the rest. This is a speculative exercise to project which clubs could be after Pannell.

With that in mind, here are four teams that should be pursuing the former MVP in free agency:

Maryland Whipsnakes

In terms of both fit and championship pedigree, the Whipsnakes make the most sense for Pannell’s potential destination. 

After trading Zed Williams to the Philadelphia Waterdogs, Maryland has a spot open on attack. It could be filled by Matt Brandau – whom the Whips acquired in the Williams trade – or Tucker Dordevic. Yet Pannell would be the best option, ahead of anyone on the Whipsnakes’ roster. He could slot in well alongside TJ Malone and Matt Rambo. 

The Whips have also been the most successful PLL club, winning two championships and appearing in four of the league’s six title games. With the team’s 2024 youth movement, Maryland is poised to stay near the top of the league thanks to a blend of holdovers from the club’s championship rosters and an influx of new talent. 

Pannell could be the missing piece for the Maryland offense, providing another facilitating presence on attack. An offense of Pannell, Malone, Rambo, Dordevic, Brad Smith, Levi Anderson and Ryan Conrad would be a dynamic group. 

The Whipsnakes’ roster isn’t perfect. The club needs help at short-stick defensive midfield in particular. Yet the meshing of opportunity and consistent quality that Maryland presents could make Jim Stagnitta’s club the ideal landing spot for Pannell come March.

Utah Archers

Given Pannell’s interest in finding a destination where he can win, the two-time defending champs can’t be discounted. The Archers’ offense (and roster as a whole) is stacked. Tom Schreiber, Grant Ament, Connor Fields, Mac O’Keefe, Matt Moore, Tre Leclaire and Ryan Ambler are stalwart pieces of the club’s highly powered attack.

Yet the eighth offensive spot on the roster has been in flux over the past couple of seasons. Challen Rogers, Ryan Aughavin, Jack VanOverbeke and Dyson Williams have all filtered through. Only Williams – a 2024 third-round pick – is under contract with Utah for the 2025 season. Especially with additional offensive players including Cole Williams and Jackson Morrill also set to be free agents on March 3, the Archers aren’t tied down to their depth for now. 

That could mean Pannell fits in as the eighth guy in a loaded offense. How he would is more complicated than with the Whips, though. While he’s willing to come out of the box, that’s not where he’d have the most impact. Fortunately for Utah, the club has had success with moving players around between midfield and attack. Take Ament’s All-Pro campaign out of the box last summer as a prime example.

Should Pannell sign with the Archers, the two most logical options would be for him to play attack with Moore bumping up to midfield or for Pannell to come out of the box. Moore played midfield as a rookie in the league and as a freshman at Virginia, so he’s capable above the goal.

For a moment, imagine an offense with elite passers including Pannell, Schreiber and Ament. Any list of the best feeders in the world must include all three of them. Then the dodging heft of Fields, Moore and Leclaire alongside the unreal off-ball presence of O’Keefe and Ambler would present nightmare fuel for opposing defenses. 

Pannell and Ament also have a close personal relationship dating back to Ament’s time playing at Penn State for Jeff Tambroni, who also coached Pannell at Cornell. 

In an Inside Lacrosse story from 2020, Pannell said he viewed Ament as “a great person to mentor and maybe leave what I’m doing in his hands.”

Maybe their connection could be a driving force for Pannell to come to the Archers like Ament and O’Keefe’s relationship was for O’Keefe back in 2023. 

Beyond that, the argument for Pannell to go to Utah is simple: This is the best roster in lacrosse. If he wants to win it all, this is the team most likely to achieve that in 2025. The fit is wonkier than in Maryland, and the Archers may be happy with the team they’ve got. But both parties should at least have an initial mutual interest in one another.

Carolina Chaos

Beyond the Redwoods, the Chaos are the team that needs Pannell the most. 

In their introductory press conference on Sunday, new general manager Spencer Ford and new head coach Roy Colsey were quick to point to their club’s championship-pedigree defense as a selling point for free agents. 

They know they need to augment the offense – which finished last in the league in scoring in 2024 – and bring in more talent around Josh Byrne. So they’re hoping the combination of players including Blaze Riorden, Jack Rowlett and Will Bowen is enough to lure in a difference-making group of free agents on the other end of the field.

“When you have a championship-ready defense and goalie, that makes it a lot easier and takes a lot of pressure off of an offensive team,” Ford said.

Pannell could be the crown jewel of Ford’s return to managing a professional roster. He’d be exactly the sort of stabilizing presence that the Carolina offense needs, and the club would then look to add a few more threats via free agency and the draft. 

The Chaos’ defense is one of the best in the league and, if they re-sign Jarrod Neumann, their close defense and goalie combination is as elite as it gets. Yet Pannell is looking for an opportunity to win now while the Chaos’ offense is searching for answers for the future. Those agendas may not line up.

There are safer bets out there than Carolina for Pannell. Yet, perhaps the vision that Ford and Colsey have for the club is enough to convince him that he should don the Chaos’ classic red this summer.

Denver Outlaws

The Outlaws are the wild card of this group. Unlike the Archers and the Whips, Denver is still climbing the mountain to become a bona fide contender.

The young pieces are there, of course. After what Brennan O’Neill, Graham Bundy Jr. and Josh Zawada did as rookies, there’s reasonably a lot of confidence in Denver. Throw in the offseason acquisition of Pat Kavanagh alongside the return of Logan Wisnauskas, and Denver’s core is looking at a bright future. 

Would bringing Pannell in help grease the wheels via a veteran presence who can take some of the pressure off the young guns? That’s what Eric Law did well in 2024; perhaps Pannell could add to it while bringing more of an on-ball presence. 

Or, maybe Denver wants to ride with this young core and let it mold together unimpeded by any immediate pressure to win now. The Outlaws have a roster built for the future. Adding Pannell would likely bring that reality closer to the present. Yet, with stars such as O’Neill, that may not be necessary. 

The reasoning for not including the New York Atlas, Philadelphia Waterdogs and Boston Cannons among this group is straightforward: All three teams have multiple ball-dominant, elite players at attack. Whether it be Jeff Teat and Connor Shellenberger on New York, Michael Sowers, Zed Williams and Kieran McArdle on Philadelphia, or Asher Nolting and Marcus Holman on Boston, adding Pannell to those offenses would be a bit redundant.  

The Redwoods should, of course, try to bring Pannell back. And that’s an option that he hasn’t turned his back on. Yet California’s chances would, theoretically, hinge more on how appealing Pannell’s options are elsewhere. 

Wherever Pannell does land, it’ll be a treat for lacrosse fans everywhere that that all-time great is suiting up again in 2025 after considering retirement during the past couple offseasons.