Ian Hartitz presents the team needs for the Carolina Panthers ahead of the NFL Draft and 2025 season.

The start of 2024 was nightmare fuel for Panthers faithful. Back-to-back blowout losses featured Bryce Young somehow looking even worse than he did during his horrendous rookie campaign, leading to Andy Dalton taking over for the next month and a half of action.

Then something funny happened: Young got the starting job back and played well! His flurry of clutch late-game moments helped reimagine the ceiling here, and a pair of entertaining overtime wins over the Cardinals and Falcons in Weeks 16 and 18, respectively, helped build some legit momentum entering the offseason. The team's future under center is stable for the moment with head coach Dave Canales publicly backing Mr. Young as the Panthers' "guy" moving forward.

Of course, the Panthers' reigning league-worst -193 point differential reflects the reality that this team is still quite a few pieces away from truly resembling a contender in 2025 and beyond.

Today we'll recap some of the good and bad of 2024 before getting into potential offseason injuries to monitor as well as team needs ahead of the 2025 offseason.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

CAROLINA PANTHERS 2024 RECAP

  • Record: 5-12 (5.5 preseason win total)
  • Points per game: 20.1 (23rd)
  • EPA per dropback: -0.041 (26th)
  • EPA per rush: -0.040 (11th)
  • Points per game allowed: 31.4 (32nd)
  • Leading passer: Bryce Young (2,403 pass yards, 15 TD, 9 INT)
  • Leading rusher: Chuba Hubbard (250 carries, 1,195 yards, 10 TD)
  • Leading receiver: Adam Thielen (48 receptions, 615 yards, 5 TD)

Biggest surprise: RB Chuba Hubbard

Hubbard managed to rack up 1,135 total yards and 5 TDs in 2023 on his way to yanking the starting job away from high-priced free agent addition Miles Sanders. Thus, the former fourth-round pick didn't exactly enter 2024 as a mystery man, but expectations also weren't exactly sky high after the Panthers took the first RB of the draft in Jonathon Brooks.

Unfortunately, Brooks' extended recovery timeline and ensuing re-tear prevented him from making any noise as a rookie. Of course, this gave Hubbard the opportunity to run away with the starting job—and the fourth-year back didn't disappoint.

Overall, Hubbard's average of 79.7 rush yards per game ranked seventh among all RBs, and his +1.16 rush yards over expected per carry trailed only Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, and Jordan Mason. Pretty, pretty, pretty good—and accordingly the Panthers made their starting RB of the present and the future a rich man at the end of 2024.

Biggest disappointment: WR Xavier Legette

Legette was viewed as a bit of a raw prospect coming out of South Carolina, but he landed on a soft enough depth chart to snag a near full-time role from Day 1 anyway. Throw in Diontae Johnson being traded by the end of October and Adam Thielen missing seven games, and there was more than enough opportunity for the 2024 NFL Draft's 32nd overall pick to make some noise as a rookie.

Unfortunately, Legette's NFL debut was more so defined by his quirky interviews and Sheesh of the Year drop than on-field accomplishments. The counting numbers largely speak for themselves (49 receptions, 497 yards, 4 TD), but the underlying efficiency metrics were REALLY rough even relative to past rookies.

Legette among 96 rookie WRs with 50+ targets since 2015:

  • Yards per route run: 1.19 (81st)
  • Targets per route run: 20.1% (50th)
  • Passer rating when targeted: 86.3 (60th)

Further complicating matters was the reality that Legette was straight up outplayed by the 34-year-old Thielen as well as teammate Jalen Coker, who is awesome and everything, but yeah, not exactly ideal when an undrafted free agent is looking quite a bit better than the team's first-rounder.

Legette just turned 24 at the end of January (Happy belated!) and was playing through a wrist injury, so don't close the book on him just yet; just realize he's not in good company when looking at first-round WRs who failed to reach 500 yards as a rookie over the last decade.

Key injuries

Chuba Hubbard's season-ending calf/knee injuries won't require surgery, meaning the Panthers' RB1 should be perfectly fine for offseason activities and 2025.

Sadly, the same sentiment is not true for Jonathon Brooks, who underwent a second ACL surgery on his right knee in January. Panthers beat reporter Joe Person is on the record stating Brooks is expected to miss the entire 2025 season. Ugh.

 

What Are The Biggest Needs of the Panthers Ahead Of 2025?

Team Need No. 1: Pass rush

This Panthers pass rush was hilariously inept in 2024. Now only were they easily the worst group in the league when it came to raw pressure rate (25.1%) and slowest time to pressure (2.8 seconds), but they were blitzing at the league's eighth-highest rate along the way!

 

These struggles didn't exactly come as a huge surprise after they traded stud EDGE Brian Burns to New York in the offseason; either way work needs to be done in order to improve the league's 31st-ranked defense in EPA allowed per dropback. Adding a Day 1 or 2 draft pick to the group could certainly help matters—Carolina hasn't used a top-75 pick on the defensive line since 2020.

Team Need No. 2: Pass Catchers

The Panthers join the Chargers, Giants, and Packers as the only four teams with under $20 million 2025 dollars devoted to their WR and TE rooms. Another high-end WR certainly wouldn't hurt, while some depth is needed at TE with Tommy Tremble, Ian Thomas, and Feleipe Franks all set to hit free agency.

Ultimately, Panthers WRs and TEs ranked dead last in average "Open Score" in 2024; it's imperative the offense finds ways to create easier throwing windows for Young in 2025 and beyond. Figuring out a way to gain more after the catch also might be a good idea: Panthers pass catchers as a whole ranked dead last in yards after the catch per reception (4.2 yards) last season—and the WRs in particular were ROUGH.

While big-bodied contested catch artists like Tee Higgins and Tetairoa McMillan have been common matches to the Panthers, I'd almost prefer to see them go after someone with a bit more juice after the catch like Matthew Golden or Emeka Egbuka, if possible.

Team Need No. 3: Secondary

Four of the Panthers' five safeties on their 2024 roster are entering free agency, as is starting corner Mike Jackson and backup Caleb Farley. Add it all together, and the Panthers join the Raiders, Giants, Chiefs, and Jets as the only defenses with fewer than $25 million in 2025 dollars devoted to their cornerback and safety rooms.

Ultimately, just like with the pass rush: More resources are needed in order to hopefully get this horrific pass defense a bit closer to average. Only the Jaguars were worse in 2024.

This Panthers defense has ranked 18th or worse in scoring for seven consecutive seasons; doing anything to help improve their performance against the pass would be a godsend for the group as a whole.