Since 2014, there have been 29 seasons in which a Quarterback has started at least 12 games and put together less than 6.5 yards per attempt. Bryce Young's 3 NFL seasons are all on this list. If we look back at the leading fantasy receivers on each of these teams, the list looks like this:

Every Leading Receiver for every QB since 2014 to start at least 12 games and produce less than 6.5 Yards Per Attempt sorted Alphabetically by QB. Tom Brady is on here twice as he produced two top 16 WRs that year.

A 6.5 yards-per-attempt season is generally below replacement level. And the seasons on this list have mostly been underwhelming. The Median finish for these top receivers is 28th overall. 32nd in Points Per Game (PPG). There are five receivers in this group to be in the top 16 in PPG, and two of them played with Tom Brady in 2022, the year he led the league with 733 pass attempts. It is unlikely to be a top 16 receiver on an offense led by a quarterback this bad, and even less so if that quarterback doesn’t have a history of being good. No matter who you are. Even cutting this list down to only include receivers that we know are good, the median finish is still 23rd overall and 29th in PPG.

One of those players is DeAndre Hopkins. He finished 34th in PPG in 2016. Sandwiched around that season, the league's 5th highest PPG during his breakout 2015, and the 2nd highest PPG in 2017. He did not miss any games in 2016, and he was not coming off any injuries either. The offense was just bad enough to turn a top 5 receiver into one outside of the top 30. The same can be said for players like Allen Robinson, Larry Fitzgerald, George Pickens, and Terry McLaurin, who all appear here. Being on offenses as bad as these is how disappointing seasons are crafted.

Which is why I'm asking, why is Tetairoa McMillan being drafted as WR16?

Tet finished 2025 as the WR16 overall and 24th in Points Per Game. He had a great year, showing dominance amongst the Carolina receivers that they haven't had in a long time. This isn't about being secretly bad or a player not worth holding onto. Any of his poor stats can be explained away by being a Rookie or being on the receiving end of Bryce Young's passes. It's just that he has the unfortunate circumstance of being on a team led by a quarterback who is not far from being the only quarterback drafted after the start of the millennium to have four seasons of 12 starts and under 6.5 yards per attempt. I didn't even use "consecutively" in that sentence, which would make it even rarer.

It's not all Young's fault either. The Panthers were built on a weak foundation of talent. But the 2026 Panthers are not much better either. Young's team has taken the ball out of his hands year after year, beginning his career at 33 attempts per start as a rookie and landing on 24 attempts per start in his third season. The team put everything into the run game in 2025 after Rico Dowdle's second consecutive breakout, which created space for Bryce to put together his career-best season. That season was still bad. In 2026, they are without Dowdle. They will be hoping that Chuba Hubbard and Jonathan Brooks can recreate the offensive magic they previously had. And as much as they might try to hide him, AJ Dillon is also on the team as their break-glass-in-case-of-emergency player who can be a Hail Mary Dowdle replacement given some similarities between them (fun fact: they're almost the same age).

But that is a recipe for potential failure. If Chuba continues to play as he has in most of his seasons so far, they're not going to move towards scoring a lot. Jonathan Brooks is a wildcard too; he hasn’t been healthy enough to play in an NFL game, and no one knows if he still has any of the talent people projected for him. That could lead the team to throw more. However, the median finish for top receivers on teams that throw a lot (600+ attempts) while being this ineffective is 22nd overall, 30th in Points Per Game. This is where you'll find the majority of the top finishes for these types of teams, but it is still not the likeliest result.

The Panthers will be hoping that Chuba, Brooks, and rookie Chris Brazzell can create enough space to open up the field. However, Brazzell is a limited talent, and a greater role for him (or Jalen Coker) in this offense might limit Tet's ceiling instead of increasing it. Especially if the team stays run-heavy. The upside case for Tet is that the lack of options creates a funnel for him, but even so, the Panthers had some of the worst pass tendencies in the league last year, finishing near the bottom for pass rate over expectation overall and in neutral situations.

So it begs the same question:

Why is Tetairoa McMillan being drafted as WR16?

He finished as WR16 last year, a rare mark to hit for a player in such a situation. And the Panthers have already shown they want to take the ball out of Bryce Young's hands in order to win more games. They are likely going to try it again this year until they can't. And if Bryce Young throws more, those targets are not of high quality. If the offense struggles the way it has in the past when Bryce carried more of the weight, Tet's touchdowns are now in jeopardy. And there’s no savior behind Bryce either because Kenny Pickett is the backup. Another QB where 100% of his seasons have failed to reach above 6.5 yards per attempt. Pickett also couldn’t help Diontae Johnson or George Pickens reach the top 24 despite both of them reaching far higher marks than those in other seasons.

In my opinion, Tetairoa is being drafted near his ceiling. He's being drafted as if this offense can't get worse, as if there is no way for his touchdowns to go from 7 to 4. As if it's impossible for him to put up the 78 catch, 950 yards, and 4 touchdown season that DeAndre Hopkins put up in the middle of his tear as one of the best receivers in the league. It's not that he can't finish better, just a lot has to go in Tet's way, or something completely unforeseen occurs. Meanwhile, the Panthers are already projected to face the toughest slate of defenses in amongst all teams in 2026 by DVOA.

Tangent/Bonus:

If the Panthers are going to be as focused on establishing the run as they were in previous seasons then I don't see why both of Chuba Hubbard and Jonathan Brooks aren't good values in redrafts. Chuba is going at RB27 and Brooks at RB39 in early best ball drafts, and if Hubbard can even recapture some of what he's done in his career then he'll be one of the few zero-RB steals. It's almost a given that he'll start the season as the lead back and that opportunity could be enough for him to establish his presence for the rest of the season.