| Projected Record | 6-11 (ACTUAL: 1-3) |
| Weighted DVOA Offense* | 28th |
| Weighted DVOA Defense (2024) | 22nd |
| Early Down Yards | 1st Down – 5.34 (17th), 2nd Down – 4 (tied-27th) |
| Explosive Play Rate* | Offense – 27th (Run 29th, Pass 24th), Defense – 24th (Run 26th, Pass 26th) |
| Red Zone TD Rate | 70% (6th) |
| Turnover Differential | -1 (tied-19th) |
| Key Additions | Rico Dowdle RB, DeeJay Dallas RB, Hunter Renfrow WR, Tershawn Wharton IDL, Bobby Brown IDL, Patrick Jones EDGE, Krys Barnes LB, Christian Rozeboom LB, Trevon Moehrig S, Sam Martin P |
| Key Departures | Miles Sanders RB, Mike Boone RB, Adam Thielen WR, Ian Thomas TE, Felipe Franks TE, DeShawn Williams IDL, Shy Tuttle IDL, Jadaveon Clowney EDGE, Josey Jewell LB, Shaq Thompson LB, Jon Rhattigan LB, D.J. Johnson LB, Dane Jackson CB, Lonnie Johnson CB, Caleb Farley CB, Xavier Woods S, Jordan Fuller S, Eddy Pineiro K, Matthew Wright K, Johnny Hekker P |
| Rookies to Watch | Trevor Etienne RB, Jimmy Horn Jr. WR, Tet McMillan WR, Nic Scourton EDGE, Princely Umanmielen EDGE, Lathan Ransom S, Ryan Fitzgerald K |
Players on IR: Jonathon Brooks RB, Jalen Coker WR, Dalevon Campbell WR, David Moore WR, Chandler Zavala IOL, Austin Corbett IOL, Robert Hunt IOL, Popo Aumavae IDL, Damarri Mathis CB
Quarterback
This is Bryce Young’s year. If you heard about the Panthers (and you probably didn’t), you likely heard tell of a rebound at the end of last season’s putrid 5-12 snoozefest that suggested the kid might have some moxie after an embarrassing start to the 2024 campaign. I’m here to tell you that you heard wrong: Bryce Young is undersized and overwhelmed. Bryce Young is unable to deliver the football on time. But Bryce Young IS better, and his journey through the league remains an interesting one. After an 0-2 start last year with new coach Dave Canales (who used his Rehabilitation Of Baker Mayfield to propel himself into the job), Canales concluded he had seen enough. The team had, after all, invested tremendous resources into their offensive line and saw it come to a 73-13 scoring differential in just two weeks. Every element of the Panthers looked unprofessional. Young would dance around and find nothing downfield, throwing 3 INTs with no TDs and managing just under 240 yards in the 2 starts on 56 PASSES! If you thought Tua was a small and nervous Gen Z type, then Young was the Gen Alpha Super Loser. Canales pulled the plug and inserted Andy Dalton, reportedly shocking Young (who, it must be noted, had 5.5 yards per attempt in 2023 and a 73.7 rating to boot, so it’s not like he had tape to hang his hat on). With Dalton at the helm, the team was immediately on time offensively, scoring 36 in a win against the Raiders and 24 in a loss to the Bengals, quadrupling their point total from the first two weeks. The Panthers, of course, don’t win again after the Raiders, Canales refuses to get Young in the game, and Andy Dalton smashes his car and messes up his thumb. Back to Bryce! For the rest of the year, yes, Bryce Young managed better play. He stopped improvising so much, found his throwing lanes, showcased some nice touch, and looked like a professional. It culminated in the final three games, in which he played the best football of his career: over that span, Bryce was 57/88, 7 TDs, no picks, 612 yards, and PFF charted him with 10 big time throws to no turnover worthy plays. The team went 2-1 in those games, both of the wins coming in OT. It was cinematic, it was a sign of life. But it was fool’s gold.
Bryce Young is listed as 5’10” and 204 pounds as a QB in this league. This is Kyler Murray’s listed size. No one thinks Bryce Young is as big as Kyler Murray. He just isn’t. Young was listed in his college program at 6 feet tall. He was not that. Scouts believed Young was probably 190 pounds in actuality and he bulked up with all the wrestling tricks to hit 204 for the combine. So why in god’s name is Bryce Young in the top 10 in 2024 for QBs in longest time to throw? The QBs who scored here are either elite scramblers (Hurts, Lamar, Jayden Daniels, and Justin Herbert), guys with insanely good OLs and/or play callers (Bo Nix, Brock Purdy, Sam Darnold), or guys who are Having A Bad Time In 2024 (Young, Caleb Williams, and C.J. Stroud). If you are a guy claiming to be 6’0” 204 and you are actually 5’10” and 190, you need to throw the ball quickly. You need to win the game from the neck up. Despite this, Young still could not process quickly enough to make needed plays. I went to Warren Sharp’s preview to see if he bought into those final three games, and Sharp had the stats to concern you: for one, Young did not improve on his 38% success rate, which he held through 2024 in aggregate. His 82.2 passer rating is propped up by those three games: he got passer ratings of 107.5, 100.7, and 123.5 in his final three games without turning the ball over and STILL ended the year at 82.2. To put that into context, Tua has a 93.2 through four weeks of the season and we all think he’s cooked! Team success? The Panthers led at half in 3 of his 12 starts, and a lead in the 4th in just 1 of his 12 starts. To go 2-1 with two overtime wins is not sustainable. And this year? Young has a lower completion percentage than last year, the lowest yards per attempt of his career, 5 TDs to 3 INTs, and a 77.1 QB rating. Bad. Bad. Bad. In Week 1, the Panthers were down 20-3 at half. In Week 2, the Panthers were down 20-3 at half. In Week 3, they managed to go up 10-0! Then in Week 4, they found themselves down 28-6. The Panthers are not good. Bryce Young is not good. In Weeks 1-3, Miami played against QBs who, through Week 4, have the 4th, 5th, and 8th best passer ratings in the league, all well over 100. By the time you’re reading this, the Dolphins will have beaten Justin Fields, who has a 91.1 rating and is 20th among qualifying QBs (UPDATE: They did). Bryce Young is 5th worst among Week 1 starters, and one of those guys has been out for multiple weeks with injury. The QB mismatch in Week 5 must be won by Miami.
Coaching
Dave Canales was handed a shitshow in Carolina, walking into a job with a broken QB1 (for all I discussed 2024 above, Bryce Young had the worst rookie season in decades in 2023), an owner who poured concessions on hecklers, a defense that basically did not exist, and no WRs. I mean, at all. The first thing for Canales and new GM (and former Panthers standout Mike LB) Dan Morgan to do was to figure out where they wanted to get better and attempt to solidify that position group. They started with the offensive line: the Panthers gave Damien Lewis $53 million over 4 years, Robert Hunt for $100 million over 5 years, and got Yosh Nijman on a 2 year deal. They worked in some less lucrative but still notable front 7 signings with Josey Jewell and A’Shawn Robinson. Otherwise, the name of the game was veteran stopgaps: JaDaveon Clowney, Diontae Johnson, Andy Dalton, Dane Jackson, D.J. Wonnum, Jordan Fuller, Nick Scott, and K’Lavon Chaisson all joined the team in 2024. Because of the trade for Young, the Panthers had no 1st round pick, and they took big swings at playmakers in hopes of landing building blocks, drafting Jonathon Brooks, Xavier Legette, and J’Tavion Sanders. The team jettisoned a whole mess of other veterans. The rebuild was on. As mentioned above, 2024 was a lost cause thanks to a bad QB and a historically bad defense. I’m serious: the 2024 Panthers defense set the all-time mark for points allowed in a season, and the 2nd highest total yards allowed. So the Panthers came into 2025 with a theoretically good OL, a few draft picks, and a few free agents. It was time to spend: the Panthers spent the 6th most money on just 13 contracts for 2025, in hopes of remaking half their team with real starter-quality players. This season, the emphasis was on the defensive line, with Tershawn Wharton, Patrick Jones, and Bobby Brown acquired, and the most money spent on Trevon Moehrig to secure a captain in the back of the defense at safety. Then, they drafted two more edges in the top 100, and spent the 8th overall selection on the Playmaker Scratch-Off strategy. The Panthers have been consistent in team-building: spend in the trenches for decent-to-good play, and aim for stars in the draft. Has the strategy worked? Of course not. Not one of the free agents listed above are even in the top 15 of Panthers PFF grades on offense, and only A’Shawn Robinson and Mike Jackson are even league average on defense. So the money spent during Bryce Young’s rookie deal as insurance for key position groups has yielded a below-average return among ALL starters in the league. The Panthers are in the wilderness, a collection of some hits and misses, but no cohesive team-building vision, generally squandered resources, and seeing the sand in the hourglass fade on their QB.
Schematically, as a result of the general turnover and struggles to identify key players, the Panthers also look pretty disinteresting. Canales is an offensive-minded generalist: you won’t see the Panthers scheming up the idiosyncratic motions of a Dolphins team. He is a classic Balance Guy, content throwing the ball 50 times or running it 50 times, whatever makes sense within the gameflow. His history is interesting: A California kid who played football at a tiny level, he coached at his old high school after getting a business degree, bumped up to the junior college level, and at some point got to talking with Pete Carroll and got a role at USC as an assistant strength coach. Pete brought him to Seattle, and quickly allowed him to coach the WRs. The Seahawks, if you remember, had a bunch of good and interesting receivers who played well above their skill level during the Super Bowl days. By the time Carroll was nearing the end, Canales was promoted to QB coach and got a lot of looks thanks to rehabilitating the career of Geno Smith. His first play-calling gig was the rehabilitation of Baker Mayfield. From there, Canales was the clear hot name that the Panthers coaxed with an insane 6-year deal. For all of his QB success, there’s little of the secret sauce you see in the actual schemes and play calls. It’s classic take-what-the-defense-gives, with plenty of power runs, pistol play action, bootlegs, RPOs, whatever it takes and whatever makes sense. The issue is the lack of explosives. The Panthers have 10 pass plays of 20 or more yards, but just one of 30+. Only 3 would be categorized as deep passes, and they’re relying on one player (Tet McMillan) for 7 of them. Dalton has thrown two of those passes in garbage time. Most concerningly, 6 of them have come with the Panthers down by multiple scores in the 4th quarter. The Panthers were dead last in YAC per reception last year and are tied for 7th worst this year. If you take out Tet and Brycen Tremayne (who is a hybrid TE type), then no receivers have even a 1.5 yard YAC average. With no one making explosive plays in the pass game, the Panthers are once again leaning on the run. Last year, they had the 10th best explosive run rate in the NFL. This year, they have just 2 15+ yard carries in 4 weeks, tied with a few miserable offenses (Browns, Titans, Steelers, 49ers) and better only than the Bears and the Bengals. One of those runs was a Bryce scramble and the other was the 3rd string RB in garbage time. So the Panthers are a difficult offensive watch: playing the most general version of “offense” in the game of “football” and achieving next to nothing down the field.
Defensively, the Panthers retained their coordinator, Ejiro Evero, blaming injuries and personnel for the defensive output last year. The Panthers have indeed improved, as there’s nowhere to go but up from sheer ineptitude: they are now 22nd in defense DVOA as opposed to the true bottom of the league. The investment in the defensive interior that was once expected to make the Panthers a tough out is coming together with angry plays from Derrick Brown and Robinson, the corners have done a spectacular job limiting completions, and the basic 3-4 defense has been able to hold even when the offense lets them down. The problem here is that pass rush has been difficult for Evero to gin up in his relatively vanilla scheme: the top 3 edge defenders have just 17 pressures between them. To put that in perspective, the Dolphins (who we all agree are not rushing the passer well) have 24. A team like the Broncos who do have quality edge rush have 51 from the top 3 edge players. QBs are having an easy time, even if the coverage is above average from Carolina right now. Outside of their one big win, the Panthers have forced 2 INTs. The defense may not be Miami bad at finding turnovers, but they aren’t any good either. So, as the defense creeps toward average and the offense struggles to find footing, the coaches keep calling generalist gameplans. It’ll make for a pretty boring game from the home team.
Offense
A team bereft of offensive playmakers finally seems to have one in the rookie WR out of Arizona, Tetairoa McMillan (often called Tet). McMillan already has 18 catches for 278 yards, including 7 of the 10 plays above 20+ yards as mentioned above. The 6’5” receiver is a back shoulder master with excellent hands, the next of many lengthy WRs who spend years in perpetual Pro Bowls (Mike Evans and Drake London, most recently). He’s a cool kid, attending Arizona with three of his good high school teammates despite offers around the nation and he actually stayed at his school even as he hit All-American status. His 304 yard game against New Mexico last year was purely bonkers. In the pros, he may not be the fastest player on the field, but he’s sudden in his routes and truly great at the contested catch, even if he and Young have failed to find one since Week 1. Bryce simply needs to throw it better to Tet: with 34 targets and only 18 catches (with 2 drops), Tet is inefficient right now. He ranks 30th out of 35 receivers with at least 24 targets in the percentage of targets turned into a catch, and all 5 (save for A.J. Brown) have more drops than him. Outside of Tet, it’s ugly: only Tremayne, an undrafted big man out of Stanford, has substantial targets and more than 1.4 yards per route run. Tremayne was promoted to full-time starter after Xavier Legette’s injury, and has just 8 catches to show for it. Hunter Renfrow mans the slot with 13 catches for only 75 yards in his return to NFL action, David Moore just went on IR, Xavier Legette looks to have regressed, and Jalen Coker will almost certainly not play. None of the TEs offer too much from a receiving angle, with both Ja’Tavion Sanders and Tommy Tremble good for a highlight play, but both have 11 catches for less than 100 yards. Sanders plays the big slot (though he will miss this game) while Tremble mans the traditional TE spot, and neither block well. It’s a limp group outside of Tet. Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard are both backs who have had underrated years, and I truly love watching Hubbard especially make cuts that defy logic yet still work. He will, unfortunately, miss the game. Neither RB is finding much success through contact, with Hubbard at a 4.1 yards per carry average and Dowdle getting just 3 per carry. In the end, neither RB scares you nor have either of them found a 15 yard gain on the ground to date.
The passing ineptitude likely belongs to Young, but the issues in the ground game fall squarely on an overmatched offensive line. FTN noted in their almanac that Young was in a clean pocket on 67.2% of dropbacks last year, which they noted was around what Joe Burrow and Brock Purdy got. This year, Bryce is tied for the 10th most pressures faced this season, which is somewhat his fault, but this is a line that is letting their QB get hit. Young’s slow processing has also led teams like the Cardinals to blitz him with total reckless abandon, and that critical mass of bodies flying at the line of scrimmage can really mess with the heads of an OL. The key culprit is, unfortunately, former 1st round pick Mean Guy Ikem Ekwonu. Drafted 6th overall to start the Panthers 2022 rebuild, Ekwonu has simply never found the juice in pass blocking. He’s now worse than ever, with 15 pressures in 2 games, allowing 8 against the Cardinals exotic blitzes alone. He lives up to his reputation as a mean run blocker, but this will be a game for Bradley Chubb and Chop Robinson to take advantage of poor technique. Only Damien Lewis and Taylor Moton have played all 4 games, and both have nicely avoided pressure (6 for Lewis and 9 for Moton), but Lewis is part of the general step back in run blocking, as the interior just hasn’t gotten push. In Seattle, he had some years as a quality run blocker, and could always return to form. Moton plays RT and is quietly coming off a 14-pressure year last year with just 1 penalty, both of which are excellent numbers. At 31-years-old, the veteran is one of the only bringers of consistency to the offense. RG and C are the trouble areas, as both Robert Hunt and Austin Corbett are on IR. Cade Mays is the center, and the former 6th rounder looks totally athletically overmatched in the run game. He’s a big honking lad at 325 and hard to move in pass protection, so his 2 pressures allowed make him playable. Counting Hunt, 4 players have taken snaps at RG. Hunt was playing below his contract before the injury, and Chandler Zavala took over after and BOMBED. The 2023 4th rounder somehow earned a 0 pass blocking score from PFF last week before leaving with an injury against the Patriots. Former 3rd round pick Brady Christianson entered the game and did a good job, allowing no pressures. He’s Carolina’s Liam Eichenberg: a 3rd round pick who was highly touted from an OL-heavy program that got handed a starting job and fell on his face into a pie. Christenson was signed on a 1-year deal this offseason for depth and has played literally every single OL position including TE for the team since 2021. The instability on the interior has bled out into a pop-gun pass game and limp run game. Miami should be able to control the line of scrimmage, as long as they execute their plan.
Defense
As stated above, the unit is better in key spots, namely at corner and within the defensive interior. After getting knocked out 60 plays into 2024, Derrick Brown has returned to All-Pro level form that is expected from the former top 10 pick out of Auburn. His 5 pressures and 8 stops so far this year don’t pop out necessarily, but he is playing with violence that really shows up on tape. He has yet to miss a tackle this year, had 2 batted passes at the line that helped the Panthers stay with the Cardinals in Week 2, and has gotten skinny to penetrate and redirect plays all year. New England really struggled to block him in a game they otherwise dominated. A’Shawn Robinson, meanwhile, has ripped off at least 2 pressures in each of the first 4 games, and it is really fucking scary to have a 320 pound dude chase you once let alone twice. Robinson is now 30 and his age has shown with fewer snaps leading to more success, but the guy seems to be having another peak season late in his career. He also has no missed tackles. It’s a clinic down low for the Panthers. You also have to respect the secondary: Mike Jackson and Jaycee Horn have played nearly every snap on the boundary, and are allowing a 47.3 and 26.3 QB rating respectively. That is INSANE. Both have allowed less than 50% of passes to be completed, both have a pick, and neither has allowed a TD. In fact, the Panthers have allowed just 4 pass TDs all year. 3rd corner Chau Smith-Wade is allowing more catches, but tackling well and contesting the inside stuff as the slot corner. He will be out with a chest injury, so the slot will likely be manned by the safeties. The starting three corners have one penalty between them. Tre’Von Moehrig and Nick Scott are a little less impressive, which is a bummer given Moehrig’s contract, but corners need safety support and they’re getting okay help. Moehrig needs to figure out why he’s letting 14 passes be caught on 15 targets, that is quite bad. Secondary and IDL: check.
The bad starts with the edge players and moves to atrocious LB play. Princely Umanmielen and Nic Scourton were both added in the draft to help, but neither are big or experienced enough yet to stop the outside runs. Panthers are getting gashed there: Scourton also has yet to hit the QB while Princely has been involved in 1 sack. In hopes of finding some success on the edge, Carolina has played 7 edge guys this year, and none have impressed at all. DJ Wonnum, a former Vikings starter known more as a steady run player than a pass rusher, had 8 sacks in both 2021 and 2023, but has had just 4 sacks since being signed in Carolina, all of which were last year. His former teammate Pat Jones II was signed to help this year, but also has yet to record a sack after a mini-breakout with 7 last year. Between the free agents and draftees, true starters have yet to emerge, with difference-makers even further out. We close with the LBs, who have been dreadful. Because of the heavy investment in safeties and edge players who do LB things, just two LBs have gotten snaps, Trevin Wallace and Christian Rozeboom. Wallace is a 3rd round pick from last year out of Kentucky that the team is trying to make happen and it just isn’t happening at all. He’s out there to help a bit with coverage, but has allowed a QB rating of 115.7 after last year’s awful 138.2. He takes bad lanes. He makes stops way further down the field than he should. It’s painful to watch the DTs cause a 5-car-pileup then watch Wallace slam his car into it with plenty of time to break. Robinson and Brown deserve better. Rozeboom, a guy the team picked up from the Rams after two below-average years there, has been so much worse. He missed 18 and 19 tackles in all of ‘23 and ‘24 respectively, a fairly bad rate. This year, he’s one of just 5 players with 9 or more missed tackles, and only Lavonte David (who is ancient) has fewer actual tackles than him. It’s ugly. Does he make up for it in coverage? Nope! He has allowed the 3rd most yards to opposing receivers, and has allowed QBs the highest passer rating when targeted of all LBs with more that 7 targets (he has NINETEEN!) Look for the LBs to again play like lost doofuses this week: they’ve yet to show any better football in their career. With edge and LBs struggling to play competent ball, while corners and interior defense are stout and hard to move the ball on, what do you do? Screen and sweep a team to death. Look for Miami to test the middle with Ollie Gordon, but make most of their yards testing those LBs across the middle and the ends outside. It may just feel like 2023 again.
Special Teams
Ryan Fitzgerald, who does not look anything like Ryan Fitzpatrick, kicks for the Panthers, and he is a 25-year-old rookie who unseated Matthew Wright for the job. He’s 6/7 on PATs and 5/6 on FGs. They have not let him kick from long much, and he hit once from 57 but sliced one bad last week. He posts a lot of Bible quotes on Instagram. Where he is insanely cool is that he can kick a beautiful knuckleball that bounces insanely, and the Panthers have done a ton of awesome kickoffs. Two returners muffed bad in the first 3 weeks, so the Dolphins need to keep their eyes on that strategy.Sam Martin has an insane 27 yard net average on his punts, which is certainly terrible but far from his fault: Marcus Jones housed one punt and took another into the red zone last week despite both punts actually being good. Half of his 12 punts have landed inside the 20. Rico Dowdle is the kick returner and Travis Etienne’s brother, Trevor, returns punts. Neither are good, with Etienne especially bad, returning 5 punts for 18 yards (ew) and muffing one. Tremayne may be the other outside receiver right now, but he’s going full Mack Hollins with the most special teams tackles. Him and Thomas Incoom are the core special teams players.
Game Prediction
Well, you saw me trash the team for many, many words, so my pessimism toward the Panthers won’t surprise you. This is a bad team returning to play down to their level, with no innovative answers from coaches to overcome a major talent gap and clear shortcomings in their ability to evaluate talent. This is exactly the type of team Miami beat up on in 2023 to their league-leading offensive output. A team with LBs who fall badly for misdirection, can’t find ways to put consistent pressure on a passer, will struggle to get (or stop) explosives, and won’t bully you upfront much offensively. Miami is in a true must-win situation again, because letdowns are unacceptable for this fan base. Plus, they may be more comfortable now on the road, as they’re less likely to face skywriting about how Mike McDaniel should eat shit. Florida does have pilots, if nothing else. The matchups I will be watching:
- Moton and Ikwanu will have their hands full, with Moton taking on Jaelan Phillips as he looks more explosive off of his knee injury (9 pressures the last two weeks) and Ikwanu struggles with anyone, so Chubb and Chop should put a bit of the pressure on. Dolphins edge pressure can keep Carolina in a hole, and will be most terrifying for Young in the red zone, where his decision-making is rarely as quick as it must be and his RB security blanket is out.
- The Dolphins are blitzing at the highest rate in the league, can Young beat those blitzes with on-time intermediate throws, and can the run game hurt Miami as other teams have? The Cardinals demolished the Panthers with big blitzing, but Miami has yet to see blitzes pay real dividends. We’ll see.
- I like the Panthers corners matching up with Miami receivers. Waddle is quite good, but teams can now focus on him exclusively. That puts a target squarely on other playmakers to get something going, with Darren Waller and Malik Washington huge pieces moving forward after Tyreek Hill’s injury.
- If the Dolphins do truly have some of the worst guard play in the league as PFF suggests, can they prevent calamity with the big interior rushers? The Dolphins kept themselves from negative play calamity last week, but that should not be mistaken for playing well: the Jets standouts Quinnen Williams and Jamien Sherwood dirted a few runs, and the operation still looked sloppy. You have to remember that the Colts and Patriots both had big boy tandems that are best in the league, and Robinson and Brown have that level of talent. If there’s any reason the Dolphins lose, it is finding themselves in a game where they lose all semblance of a run threat and start finding themselves needing to beat corners or else.
Even after the trashing of the Panthers, who deserve all of it and more, it’s not going to be a pretty Miami win because it isn’t 2023 anymore. Larry Borom and Cole Strange should still create a really creaky right side of the OL, and the rookies have not shown the requisite bite yet. I lean Miami, perhaps because I can find more sense in our chaos than theirs, but it could be anywhere from 14-10 to 35-32 with these teams’ level of inconsistency. More unwatchable football coming your way!
Score Prediction: Dolphins 21-17
Taylor Record: 3-1
Next Up: Los Angeles Chargers
