Pete Prisco’s latest NFL player rankings once again left the Carolina Panthers with very little company.
The CBS Sports analyst put only one Panthers player on his list of the league’s top 100: defensive tackle Derrick Brown at No. 90.
Prisco’s note on Brown read, "He is a force against the run and returned from injury in 2025 to show that again. He also posted a career-high five sacks."
That was the extent of Carolina’s representation.
The omission stands out even more because the NFL’s own top 100, which is voted on by players, already has Bryce Young at No. 98.
That means several more Panthers are expected to appear as the list is rolled out over the offseason. Jaycee Horn, Jaelan Phillips, Devin Lloyd, Tetairoa McMillan, and Derrick Brown all look likely to land somewhere on it, which would leave Carolina with about six players in the top 100.
Prisco, though, sees it differently. In his version, Brown is the only Panther who made the cut.
That creates an obvious disconnect. Brown may well be Carolina’s best player, but ranking him 90th suggests Prisco still isn’t giving him enough credit.
Young being left out could be defended, given his 98th-place spot on the player-voted list barely sneaks him into the conversation. But leaving out the rest of the group is another matter entirely.
Horn may not be perfectly rated by some, but he still belongs in the top 100. Lloyd’s résumé is even harder to ignore after his second-team All-Pro season last year. And McMillan, whom Prisco would seemingly be inclined to favor if anything because of how he performed with what the analyst views as a bad quarterback, didn’t appear at all.
The Panthers are not an elite team, but they are also not a one-player operation. As the league’s list continues to unfold, Prisco’s version looks increasingly hard to defend.
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