2026 Team Previews: Carolina Panthers
Carolina Panthers 2026 Preview
All ADP data is courtesy of Fantasy Pros.
** = target in drafts at this ADP
Drafted Everywhere
Tetairoa McMillan, WR (ADP: 37, WR15): I wrote recently about my view that McMillan is a candidate to leap into the elite tier of WRs in 2026. He entered 2025 as the top rookie WR in the class, and was drafted to assume immediate alpha status of the Carolina Panthers pass-catching group. That’s no small ask of a rookie to take over an X receiver role in a passing game that was flatlining, but McMillan caught 70 passes for 1,014 yards and seven touchdowns. As an X receiver, we needed to see that he could defeat man coverage and press coverage, and Tet showed that with 72nd percentile and 70th percentile marks, respectively. That alone shows that he’s ready and capable to be a fantasy relevant option. What I look for in terms of can a strong outside receiver become a superstar is the complete package.
We have seen plenty of good X receivers who post very low success rates against zone that still are key fantasy cogs. McMillan wasn’t great vs. zone by any means, but he was competent, posting a 77.5% success rate and placing in the 40th percentile. That suggests that he isn’t far off from being a flat out good zone beater, and the fact he did it as a rookie X receiver with defenses focusing their attention on him is impressive. This ADP does suggest that the entire fantasy community is on the scent of this belief that McMillan is primed for another leap so the value will probably keep diminishing as Draft Day approaches, but I’m not afraid to trust McMillan as a strong WR2 this year with the upside of a low-end WR1.
**Chuba Hubbard, RB (ADP: 72, RB29): Hubbard was a bit of a bust last season after an early injury opened the door for Rico Dowdle to explode and really eat into his snap share all season. Dowdle is gone now, but all the buzz is about Jonathon Brooks returning to action and doing exactly what Dowdle did. There’s no question that Hubbard’s production fell off significantly in 2025, but through Carolina’s first four games he was averaging 77.8 total yards per game including 3.3 receptions. Upon his return Dowdle had blown up, and from Week 7 on Hubbard only saw double-digit carries three times. Hubbard had previously thrived on volume, and so the only games in which he was usable for managers were in two of those games in which he actually saw reasonable volume.
With that said, in this range there’s no issue with volume-needy RBs as long as there’s a path to that volume. Where you land on that is completely determined by the expectations you may have of Brooks, a highly touted prospect whose injuries have prevented him from doing basically anything on the NFL level. Without spoiling too much of my thoughts on Brooks, I will call Hubbard a value at this ADP. There’s a very clear path to his 2024 volume, and in that season he racked up more than 1,300 total yards with 11 touchdowns. At age 28, with only two seasons of heavy wear and tear, that’s a lot of upside in an ascendant offense.
Jonathon Brooks, RB (ADP: 108, RB40): Brooks, a second round pick in 2024, has logged nine NFL carries. The fact he is going this close to Hubbard in drafts is, frankly, insane to me. I was pretty high on Brooks out of Texas, where he put up more than 1,400 total yards and 11 touchdowns in his junior season but he’s battled serious knee injuries in college and ever since. We have no idea how much those injuries have sapped Brooks’ explosiveness, and that’s before considering we never even saw what the old Brooks looked like against NFL competition. And even if Brooks has returned to form, we’re talking about a player who never logged 200 carries in college, and is coming off two full years of injury-related absence. There’s a microscopic chance of Brooks carrying a bell cow workload for Carolina, which already lowers his 2026 ceiling significantly.
Based on the talent he has, or possibly had, I have no issues with taking a gamble on Brooks as a breakout. But the way Hubbard has been discarded after really strong seasons in ’23 and ’24 just reeks of fantasy managers being bored with a steady but unspectacular player. Meanwhile, managers who appreciate their veggies will snap up Hubbard and have quality depth at the most important position.
Interesting Players
Jalen Coker, WR (ADP: 156, WR59): Coker’s stats last year sucked because he missed a bunch of time with injury and then got off to a slow start once he returned. 33 receptions for 394 yards and three touchdowns will depress a guy’s ADP, especially when across two seasons those numbers have just been who he is as a player. It’s worth nothing, however, that some of the veteran impediments to his playing time – Adam Thielen, Hunter Renfrow – are out of the picture and the world seems to have come around to the acceptance that he’s a better player than Xavier Legette. Coker fits the mold of a big slot receiver who can also line up as a flanker and be a very nice complement to McMillan. The biggest issue for Coker is that while his size makes him difficult to handle in the short and intermediate game, he and McMillan both lack downfield sizzle which does somewhat limit the Panthers overall and crowd the areas where they thrive at times. When I see Coker, I see valuable fantasy depth, and a credible bet for useful production in any given week. I don’t really see a breakout star or someone with WR2 upside though, so drafting Coker may not really work for every kind of build.
Deep Cuts
Bryce Young, QB (ADP: 223, QB25): Young has steadily improved year over year, and while he’s fallen very short of my initial expectations that he’d be a special player, he’s quietly showing that he may well wind up as a perfectly competent one. Last season he made big strides under Dave Canales, throwing for over 3,000 yards for the first time and leaping from 15 touchdown passes in 2024 to 23. Of course, he’s still not even getting to 200 yards per game so we’re a long way from fantasy relevance, but his sack rate was the lowest of his career (5.3%), his touchdown rate creeped toward five percent, and he sneakily adds a little value on the ground as a rusher/scrambler. He’s not even close to a weekly starting option, but there’s a little bit of upside here in two-QB/SuperFlex formats.
Chris Brazzell II, WR (ADP: 256, WR85): Brazzell is fairly interesting as a late, late option because of what I wrote earlier about McMillan and Coker’s shortcomings down the field. McMillan is a ball-winner who can make plays, but he has a deficit of long speed that just doesn’t allow him to consistently take the top off a secondary. That’s Brazzell’s whole thing, so while he’s your typical raw WR project out of Tennessee there could be a role for him right away.
Brazzell put up over 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns as a senior for the Volunteers, so production was there. His route tree was funny, because 20.3% of the routes he ran were nines. That’s a ton, and even with a 50% success rate on them that’s a fair amount of splash plays. Brazzell pretty much just ran nines, digs, curls and slants, with digs being the only route of those four that was in the green per Reception Perception. That suggests to me that he’s really a project, and even if the Panthers have him on the field running streaks it’s hard to translate that to meaningful fantasy production. But he does have blazing speed, and Tennessee didn’t utilize him whatsoever in the screen game, the flats, or other short layup routes. If he finds himself on the field a ton, it’s possible Carolina finds unforeseen ways to deploy him a la Rashee Rice in Kansas City. He’s physically gifted enough that it shouldn’t be ruled out.
Ja’Tavion Sanders, TE (ADP: N/A): Sanders is a player we should be leaving on waivers because TE is quietly chock full of players who have been more productive in their careers who are paired with better QBs. It’s smart to be aware of Sanders though, because he’s physically very talented, the Panthers are on the rise, and because aside from McMillan and Hubbard, the touch hierarchy here is far from established.
Xavier Legette, WR (ADP: N/A): Legette is a player who has every athletic tool possible, but entered the NFL incredibly raw in terms of his craft and remains so while being used in ways that don’t let him flourish. Legette has the look of an X receiver, but he just wasn’t that guy in college nor has he shown a lot of growth at the NFL level. Legette is a physical beast though, and when he’s given the ball in space or on designed trick plays where he can use his superior traits he can be a big time playmaker. That can be a very useful real life player, and I have no doubt the Panthers will get a lot of exciting plays from him. For our purposes though, he’s completely unreliable and not someone I’ll be rostering.
Trevor Etienne, RB (ADP: N/A): Etienne did nothing of note last season, but is here because he’s a Brooks injury away from being Hubbard’s handcuff. In fact, he could beat out Brooks for the backup role if Brooks’ injuries have taken too great a toll. Again, we seem to be penciling in Brooks for a certain role and assigning volume to him that there is absolutely no guarantee for.