{"id":905262,"date":"2026-05-30T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/905262\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T12:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T12:00:22","slug":"panthers-playmaker-poised-for-breakout-season-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/905262\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers playmaker poised for breakout season in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Carolina Panthers<\/a> used first-round picks on wide receivers in two of the last three drafts. It seems they swung and missed badly on Xavier Legette<\/a>\u2014but so far, Tetairoa McMillan<\/a> has been a home-run selection.<\/p>\n

In his first NFL season, McMillan carried a heavy load\u2014serving as Carolina’s top receiving option and the go-to guy for starting quarterback Bryce Young<\/a>. He answered the call by registering a rookie franchise record of 1,014 receiving yards and seven touchdowns en route to the organization’s first AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award<\/a> since 2011.<\/p>\n

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Not too shabby, huh?<\/p>\n

And while that’s a great way to start a career, some analysts believe that McMillan is just scratching the surface of his full potential.<\/p>\n

According to Garrett Podell at CBS Sports<\/a>, McMillan is one of five Year 2 players around the league who are poised for a breakout campaign. Podell writes:<\/p>\n

Tetairoa McMillan\u00a0exceeded all expectations as a rookie in 2025. The draft’s eighth overall pick led all rookies in receiving yards (1,014) and receiving touchdowns (7) last season, and he was also responsible for 30.7% of his team’s receiving yards, the sixth-highest rate for any player in the NFL.<\/p>\n

Impressive as McMillan’s rookie season was, there’s still a lot of room for improvement\u2014and on film, he left plenty of yards and points on the field. The biggest issue McMillan had was completing grabs through contact\u2014contributing to a relatively low 57.4-percent catch rate to go along with eight dropped passes.<\/p>\n

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The good news is that McMillan has bulked up this offseason, telling reporters<\/a> that he has added 10 pounds of muscle since we last saw him in a live game. That should help McMillan secure more of those tightly-contested catches going forward.<\/p>\n

So, the sky may be the limit for Carolina’s talented 6-foot-4 star.<\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0@ThePanthersWire<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter\/X for more Panthers content<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers WR Tetairoa McMillan tabbed as 2nd-year breakout candidate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Panthers used first-round picks on wide receivers in two of the last three drafts. It seems…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[1476,235,260,2567,7,6,236,3866,8345,1453,1505],"class_list":["post-905262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-bryce-young","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-panthers","tag-receiving-yards","tag-rookie-season","tag-tetairoa-mcmillan","tag-xavier-legette"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116663420403993634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}