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Tetairoa McMillan was the lone bright spot in an otherwise typically bad season for Carolina Panthers fantasy players. The rookie immediately stepped into the alpha role and delivered a WR15 season on his way to winning Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. He became just the 17th rookie receiver over the last 15 years (2011–2025) to break the 1,000-yard mark, joining an elite cohort that reads like a who's who of the era's best pass catchers. Entering this season, the fantasy community is pricing in a repeat performance; he's currently coming off the board at WR17.
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Some may be tempted to view that ADP as a value, arguing that he should be even better in Year Two. And while he has a real chance of exceeding his 2025 metrics, I'm more in line with the industry on this one. McMillan is shaping up to be a high-floor WR2 this year that you can safely target at the 3-4 turn in 12-team drafts.
There's a difference between being okay with a player at cost and letting your excitement drive you to reach for him. I wouldn't reach for McMillan. That conservatism isn't driven by any concerns about the player; it's about the reality of how dreadful his supporting cast, most notably his quarterback, appears to be.
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Fighting Gravity
The Carolina Panthers have been searching for an identity ever since David Tepper purchased the team in July 2018.
- 8 seasons
- Zero winning seasons
- 33.1% winning percentage
- Average offensive finish: 24th (Best: 14th in 2018)
- Average defensive finish: 23rd (Best: 15th in 2025)
- 7 head coaches, including three interim stints
- 11 starting quarterbacks
If you want to look at the glass half full, the 2026 team brings more continuity than we've seen before. Bryce Young enters his fourth season as the starting quarterback, Dave Canales enters his third season as head coach, and 18 of 22 projected starters return from a team that "won" the division last year with an 8-9 record.
But the reality is Carolina finished 27th in points and yards last year. McMillan's massive rookie performance was powered by taking on a huge share of that limited workload:
- Target share: 25.4% (122 out of 480)
- Reception Share: 21.3% (70 out of 329)
- Receiving Yardage Share: 30.7% (1,014 out of 3,304)
- Receiving Touchdown Share: 29.2% (7 out of 24)
The key takeaway here is that it's difficult to project McMillan for a larger role because he's already a bona fide, elite-level target monster. His ability to move from a quality fantasy WR2 to an elite WR1 is tied directly to whether Bryce Young can improve and whether the coaching staff will unshackle the passing volume.
Passing Volume Under Canales
On an absolute basis, passing volume under Dave Canales sits slightly below league average. Directionally, it's even more concerning as Canales has shifted the offense to a conservative, ball-control approach, likely in an attempt to maximize Young and mask his deficiencies.
Dave Canales Team Passing Attempts
| Year | Team | Pass Attempts |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | TB | 566 |
| 2024 | CAR | 547 |
| 2025 | CAR | 515 |
| Average | — | 543 |
Is Bryce Young Improving?
If you take a quick look at the year-over-year overall fantasy rankings, it looks damning for Bryce Young:
| Year | Overall Rank | Per-Game Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 23 | 40 |
| 2024 | 20 | 29 |
| 2025 | 19 | 28 |
Any narrative that Young turned the corner doesn't show up in the actual numbers, which is why he's still considered one of the least enticing fantasy options at the position. However, for this discussion on McMillan, we're more interested in whether Young is improving specifically as a passer since his rushing stats aren't germane:
Bryce Young Passing Stats, and Fantasy Ranks on Passing Stats Only
| Rank | Per Game Rank | Year | Gms | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | PaYd | Y/Att | PaTD | INT | Pass FPTs Per Game | Passing Only FPTs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | 39 | 2023 | 16 | 315 | 527 | 59.8% | 2,877 | 5.46 | 11 | 10 | 11.1 | 177.9 |
| 23 | 34 | 2024 | 14 | 234 | 384 | 60.9% | 2,403 | 6.26 | 15 | 9 | 12.2 | 171.2 |
| 17 | 24 | 2025 | 16 | 304 | 478 | 63.6% | 3,011 | 6.30 | 23 | 11 | 14.5 | 231.6 |
If we isolate passing stats, Young clearly improved last season. His raw totals pushed him up to QB17 in overall passing production, supported by career highs in completion rate, yards per attempt, touchdown rate, and total passing yards. But context is everything: on a per-game passing basis, he was still sitting at QB24. He's improving, but moving from QB34 to QB24 per game isn't a dramatic leap, and it's nowhere near a level that should make us think McMillan's target volume or touchdown output can move much higher.
