Updated Feb. 9, 2026, 2:34 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Could the Carolina Panthers<\/a> scoop up the star of Super Bowl LX?<\/p>\n Fresh off the Seattle Seahawks<\/a>‘ dominant championship win over the New England Patriots, Bleacher Report’s Maurice Moton has named<\/a> the top five landing spots for the game’s Most Valuable Player\u2014running back Kenneth Walker III. Moton lists five teams for the soon-to-be free-agent rusher, and leads off with the Panthers.<\/p>\n He writes:<\/p>\n The Carolina Panthers’ motto is “Keep Pounding,” but they didn’t do enough of that in the second half of the 2025 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Panthers ran for 110 or more yards in eight of their first nine games, going 5-4 in that stretch. In its last nine contests, which include a playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>, Carolina eclipsed 100 rushing yards just three times and went 3-6. It lost five of its last seven matchups.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rico Dowdle led the Panthers in rushing with 1,076 yards while averaging 4.6 yards per carry. They could lose him in free agency, which would be a significant blow to their ground attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chuba Hubbard regressed after signing a four-year, $33.2 million extension during the 2024 season. He finished the 2025 campaign with 511 rushing yards and a touchdown on a 3.8-yards-per-carry average. The 26-year-old isn’t an explosive playmaker in the short passing game, either. Carolina shouldn’t trust him to handle the majority of the rushing workload.<\/p>\n Walker can provide what Dowdle brought to the Panthers’ ground game with strong ball security. He’s only fumbled\u00a0three times\u00a0in his career and didn’t lose any of them.<\/p>\n Walker is coming off the second-most productive season of his four-year NFL career, having run for 1,027 yards and five touchdowns on 221 carries. The 25-year-old then proceeded to rip through the playoffs, totaling 313 yards and four scores on 65 rushing attempts as well as 11 receptions for 104 yards.<\/p>\n