We started this review series talking about the Carolina Panthers rushing attack. Now, we move to the other phase of the offense. It’s everybody’s favorite topic to discuss—Bryce Young and the Panthers passing attack.
How it went
Like pretty much every part of this Panthers team, the passing attack could be defined as “just barely good enough to get by.” They were ranked 26th in DVOA and 25th in estimated points added per pass. There were plenty of promising moments and plenty of things that drove Panthers fans
mad.
On the good side is Tetairoa McMillan. The Panthers surprised the NFL world by using their second straight first round pick on a wide receiver, especially given other needs on the roster. But McMillan delivered on his lofty draft status. He’s a finalist for Offensive Rookie of the Year and a heavy, heavy favorite to win it. He had a 1,000 yard season despite inconsistent quarterback play (more on that later) and added a big play threat that the Panthers have been lacking for a long time.
On the bad side, the other first round pick, Xavier Legette, turned into a nonfactor as the season went on, ultimately losing out on the wide receiver two spot to Jalen Coker, an undrafted free agent from the same draft class. His future in Carolina already looks to be in doubt. His awareness and feel were major problems in his rookie season, and if anything they got worse in his second year (see that weird lateral in the Cowboys game and a number of targets where he seemed completely unaware of where the sideline was).
And then there’s the quarterback. After looking much improved to finish his second season, many were hoping for Bryce Young to make a leap in year three. And if he wasn’t going to do that, you’d almost prefer he completely bomb out to make the picture at quarterback. Instead, Young firmly planted himself right in the middle of those two paths. He topped 200 yards passing just five times in 18 games. He had the same number of games throwing for under 150. By just about every metric, he ranks right around the line for the bottom third of quarterbacks that got significant snaps in the 2025 season. While his deep ball was vastly improved over his first two seasons, and he became a virtuoso escaping pressure, he still has some gaping holes in his game that are hard to build around. He can still be hesitant to attack tighter windows down the field. He has moments where he randomly badly misses his target, almost like a videogame that has predetermined an incoming interception even though there’s no defender near the intended target. He badly struggles hitting intermediate targets.
All of that puts the Panthers in one of the more undesirable places you can be when it comes to quarterback. They have a guy that’s not so bad that you feel compelled to upgrade the position immediately, and he does enough good things that you could convince yourself there’s more meat on the bone in terms of development. But he’s also not good enough to warrant a significant long term investment in with the clock ticking on making such a decision. It’s a similar position that the Giants found themselves in with Daniel Jones, the Dolphins with Tua Tagovailoa, the Cardinals with Kyler Murray, and on and on and on. So what do?
The path forward
First, the pass catchers. I didn’t talk about the tight ends in the ‘How it went’ section because there really wasn’t much to talk about. The Panthers would do well to find a dynamic player for that room. As for the receivers, the top two spots are locked down by McMillan and Jalen Coker. Xavier Legette hasn’t panned out so far, and the Panthers might be compelled to find a more reliable burner to complement the size and strength of their top two receivers. A good player in that archetype could really push this group of receivers up towards the better groups in the league.
Now what to do about quarterback. The Panthers have already decided to pick up his fifth year option, which gives them two seasons before they’ll be forced to make a decision on his long term future. They’re picking 19th in a draft that’s suddenly not very strong at quarterback, so that’s not a viable option this offseason. It seems like the most obvious path forward is to replace the veteran presence of Andy Dalton with at least one contingency plan at quarterback in case Young’s shortcomings become too much of a burden. The front office would be wise to some deep scouting on mid to late round quarterbacks and take a flyer on a guy with traits but not the production to match it. Cade Klubnik out of Clemson and Drew Allar out of Penn State come to mind. Along with that, with Young on his rookie deal, the team can afford to throw a little extra money out there to try to entice one of the better free agent backups or reclamation projects to come to Carolina with a chance to compete for a starting job. Malik Willis, Kenny Pickett, Zach Wilson, and others could fit that bill.
There probably aren’t any immediate drastic changes coming to the passing game between now and the start of this season, but the Panthers do need to shore some things up and give themselves contingency plans at the quarterback position. Things will have to change at some point for this passing attack to be good enough to compete. That could come from internal development or from outside help. The Panthers need to start stocking up to make sure both options are on the table.
