[3] The club's second major sponsorship partner at the beginning of the season was job seekers' services provider CareerOne, which was in the final year of a three-year deal; however, the company withdrew from the sponsorship during May after cash flow difficulties related to a federal government audit of one of its clients.
[4] In late May, the club signed airline Virgin Australia, which was already in a secondary level sponsorship deal with the club, as the replacement for CareerOne, with the Virgin logo replacing the CareerOne logo on the team's guernseys from Round 10 onwards.
[7] Marc Murphy continued in the role of captain for the fifth season; Kade Simpson remained vice-captain.
There was one change to the club's seven-man leadership group, with Dennis Armfield elevated to the group to fill the position left by the retirement of Andrew Walker, and Ed Curnow, Bryce Gibbs, Patrick Cripps and Sam Docherty holding their places.
[47] As in 2016, the team's strength was built on its defence, with the club continuing to build its backline with the recruitment of Caleb Marchbank from Greater Western Sydney, the conversion of Liam Jones from a fringe key forward to a dominant key defender, and the continued growth of rebounder Sam Docherty, who was selected in the All-Australian team.
The John Nicholls Medal, for the best and fairest player of the club, as well as several other awards, were presented on the night.
Matthew Kreuzer's third placing was the best performance of this career, and he also swept the coterie group awards.
Also notable was the ninth-placing of Liam Jones, who in his first season as a defender polled 84 votes from only twelve games – a votes-per-game average which would have been high enough for fourth place had been played the entire season – and the seventh- and tenth-placings of Lachie Plowman and Charlie Curnow, who reached the count's top ten for the first times in their careers.
[76] The following other awards were presented on John Nicholls Medal night:-[76] Levi Casboult was Carlton's leading goalkicker for the season with 34 goals.
In July 2016, Carlton recruited St Kilda Sharks key position/midfielder and former Australian international soccer goalkeeper Brianna Davey and Darebin Falcons full forward Darcy Vescio as its marquee players.
The club drew most of its remaining recruits from the inaugural AFL Women's draft, with Cranbourne forward Bianca Jakobsson taken with Carlton's first round selection at No.
[95] Arnell was made the inaugural captain of the team, with Davey and Madeline Keryk serving as vice-captains.
Numbers in parentheses represent games played and goals kicked for Carlton in the season.
[109] The Northern Blues finished 9th out of 15 in the VFL with a record of 8–10 to miss the finals on percentage by 8.1%pts.