NFL Player News

Henderson was injured while making a tackle on Jonathan Taylor in the second quarter. He’s Carolina’s top cornerback, so it would be a big loss regardless, but the Panthers are also without top safety Vonn Bell. That could create some issues in the second half against Gardner Minshew, Michael Pittman Jr., and the Colts offense.

He made all four extra points. The rookie kicker finishes his season 24-of-29 on field goals, with three of his five misses coming from beyond 50 yards. He did miss three extra points on 30 attempts. The Panthers could choose to bring in competition for the 2025 UDFA kicker this offseason, but they never did at any point in the regular season.

Horn often played the shifty, speed receiver role for the Panthers — he was actually used fairly often in Weeks 5-7 before Jalen Coker returned. The rookie wideout dropped the final ball Bryce Young threw in this game, but figures to challenge for a roster spot in 2026 and could eventually bump up against Xavier Legette’s role once the Panthers get tired of watching Legette targets.

Topping out at 3/48 in Week 2’s loss to the Cardinals, Tremayne was mostly a part-time receiver and enters 2026 as an exclusive rights free agent after finally seeing real playing time in his third post-college year. He’ll likely compete for a roster spot this offseason.

Evans was relegated to the background on the rare occasions when Ja’Tavion Sanders was healthy, finishing his rookie season with a 19/171/2 receiving line. He enters 2026 third on the Carolina tight end depth chart, but showed some flashes and wouldn’t be a bad TE2 flier if he had a non-trivial role in this offense.

Outside of Legette’s 9/92/1 game against (of course) the Jets in Week 5, the Panthers’ “No. 1 receiver” per Dave Canales’ NFL combine interview did absolutely nothing of fantasy note this season. He cleared 50 yards just one other time and managed receiving yardage totals of 3 yards, one yard, zero yards, and minus-2 yards (on eight targets!) in four of his 15 games. Legette’s fantasy stock in 2026 is at “A Chipmunk Christmas in a thrift store bargain bin” levels.

McMillan against light Rams cornerback Emmanuel Forbes was an instant smash hit for the Panthers whenever they could manage to create that matchup. The big-bodied receiver won over the middle and had 20 yards after the catch. He’s an interesting receiver heading into his sophomore season — the flashes are obvious and he clearly looks the part of a future Drake London-type. McMillan also failed to really spike a huge target week in Carolina’s low-volume passing attack, managing just four games over nine targets and maxing out at 12. There’s also the (admittedly remote) possibility that Jalen Coker makes a real move on some of his volume after his breakout game in the Wild Card. We’d bet on modest improvements, perhaps enough to hit the WR1 line, in McMillan’s second season.

The Panthers failed to establish a full-time TE1 for most of this year, with Tremble only going over 75.4 percent of the snaps in the final two games of the regular season. He played 54-of-67 snaps versus the Rams. Tremble caught more than one ball in six of his 18 games played this season. He’s low-end TE2 fodder at best entering the final year of his contract.

Coker did have one previous 100-yard game, against the Cowboys in 2024, but this is a career-high in yardage, catches, and targets for the second-year receiver. He even caught the go-ahead touchdown with a little over two minutes left in the game. Almost makes you think the Panthers should have tried to make him the No. 2 option sometime before the Wild Card game. Coker will get plenty of offseason fantasy helium based on this game, perhaps enough to get him in the WR4 range, but the volume in this passing game could barely support Tetairoa McMillan this year. Two receivers might be a big ask. Coker finished the regular season with a 33/394/3 line in 11 games after missing most of the early part of the season with a hamstring injury.

His most important contribution against the Rams was letting one punt return clank off his helmet to be recovered by the Rams, then nearly losing a second one later in the exact same way. Etienne never truly entered the backfield derby in Carolina, topping out at 7/33 against the Patriots in a 42-13 drubbing where he mostly played late. The 114th overall pick in last year’s draft, Etienne could wind up as Chuba Hubbard’s No. 2 back this offseason if the Panthers don’t add anyone else to the room, but this year’s usage doesn’t exactly demonstrate a commitment from the Panthers that leads us to think they want him to be that player.