The Carolina Panthers have spent the last two seasons moving in the right direction under Dave Canales, and the climb has been steady. Canales inherited a team that went 2-15 in 2023, then watched Carolina improve by three wins in each of the next two seasons. That pushed the Panthers to an 8-9 finish and the top spot in the NFC South this past season, even though the franchise still hasn’t posted a winning record since 2017.
A big part of that progress has come from the roster work done by president of football operations/general manager Dan Morgan. Over the last three offseasons, Carolina has mixed younger pieces with veteran help, and the result is a team that looks a lot deeper than the one Canales first took over.
That’s why two names from CBS Sports’ recent look at 50 under-the-radar NFL performers stand out so much: Jalen Coker and Mike Jackson. Zachary Pereles grouped those players into six categories, with the final six labeled “supporting a star,” and both Panthers fit that idea cleanly.
Coker’s rise has been one of the more interesting developments on the Carolina roster. Tetairoa McMillan got the headline numbers in his debut season, leading the Panthers with 70 catches, 1,014 receiving yards and seven touchdowns. But Pereles pointed to the way Coker kept flashing as a big-bodied outside target who can win in contested situations.
“While Offensive Rookie of the Year Tetairoa McMillan got plenty of deserved praise last year,” explained Pereles, “Coker continued to impress as a big, strong outside wide receiver who excels in contested-catch situations. He had nine catches for 134 yards and a touchdown in the Panthers’ wild-card loss to the Rams…”
The late-season surge was real. Coker finished his final six games with 28 receptions for 378 yards and four touchdowns. That was a huge jump from the start of his 2025 season, when the former undrafted free agent from Holy Cross had only 14 catches for 150 yards in his first six games.
The Panthers got similar payoff on the back end from Jackson. Jaycee Horn had a huge year, tying for second in the league with five interceptions and earning his second straight Pro Bowl nod. But Jackson, who arrived from the Seahawks in a 2024 trade, put together the best season of his career and finished as Pro Football Focus’ third-ranked cornerback in 2025.
“The veteran cornerback,” added Pereles, “nabbed four regular-season interceptions (he had 3 in his entire career entering the year) and also picked off Matthew Stafford in the playoffs. Jackson’s 19 passes defensed were tied for the league lead…” Four of Jackson’s five total interceptions came in Carolina’s final seven games, including one pick-six of Stafford in the regular season.
That kind of production matters because it gives the Panthers more than just a couple of bright spots. Coker and McMillan formed an emerging receiving tandem that helped Bryce Young down the stretch, while Horn and Jackson gave Carolina one of the league’s better cornerback pairings. For a team that was short on this kind of talent not long ago, Morgan’s roster-building has started to show up where it counts.
In Other News...
Kenny Pickett Is Putting Carolina In A Tough Spot Behind Bryce Young
Carolinas quarterback room looked different when the offseason began, with the Panthers moving on from Andy Dalton and bringing in Kenny Pickett, Will Grier and undrafted rookie Haynes King to sit behind Bryce Young. Griers retirement already thinned the group, and now the team is getting a clearer look at how the depth chart might settle once camp work starts to matter more than offseason plans.
Picketts training camp has not given Carolina much comfort, and that has opened the door for King to at least make this interesting. The Panthers are still sorting out what they want behind Young, and if Pickett does not steady himself soon, the conversation could shift from simply finding a backup to deciding whether Carolina needs to keep an extra quarterback around at all. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Suddenly Face A Huge Camp Test Up Front
The Panthers were supposed to use the start of camp to get a head start, opening early because of their Hall of Fame Game appearance. Instead, the first real test up front has arrived almost immediately, with the offensive line already being reshuffled before the pads even come on in earnest. Carolina has had to adjust around Taylor Moton and the left side as well, turning what should have been a routine summer ramp-up into a live evaluation of depth and adaptability.
Rookie Monroe Freeling has been thrust into the mix on the right side, while Rasheed Walker was brought in to help stabilize the left tackle spot after Ikem Ekwonus injury. For a team trying to build continuity, the challenge is obvious: the Panthers are now asking new pieces to settle in fast, and the early weeks of camp will tell them a lot about whether this front can hold together when the regular season arrives. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Just Made Their Biggest Pass Rush Bet Yet
Carolina spent the early part of the offseason trying to solve a problem that showed up in plain sight all year: the pass rush never consistently threatened opposing quarterbacks. After finishing last in pressure rate and near the bottom of the sack leaderboard in 2025, the Panthers went looking for a difference-maker and found one in Jaelan Phillips, the former Eagles edge rusher whose arrival instantly changes the conversation around that front.
Phillips move to Charlotte also says plenty about how the Panthers sold the opportunity, not just the money. He pointed to the contract as a major factor in choosing Carolina, and the teams willingness to make him one of the biggest investments of the free-agent cycle shows how urgent the need felt. The question now is whether the Panthers finally have the kind of rusher who can turn a glaring weakness into something much harder for opponents to plan around. [Read more 🡒]