Carolina Panthers

The Carolina Panthers went 8 and 9, snuck into the postseason as NFC South champions for the first time since 2015, and bowed out in the Wild Card, losing 34 to 31 at home to the Los Angeles Rams. This team wasn't supposed to be here, and the underlying numbers say they probably shouldn't have been — but in a chaotic division, eight wins was enough, and Carolina became the first team in NFL history to win their division twice with a losing record. The franchise finally found a pulse: Bryce Young took a real step forward, rookie Tetairoa McMillan gave the offense a true number one, and Dave Canales's fourth-down aggression unlocked late-game magic. The signature moment was a Week 13 upset of the Rams at home as ten-point underdogs, a 31 to 28 stunner that vaulted Carolina into the division race. The letdown was a pass rush and secondary that got absolutely muffed for long stretches. Incomplete, but alive — that's the 2025 Panthers.

The season in numbers is a split screen. Carolina was outscored across 17 games, with an overall expected points added of minus 27.5 on offense and plus 56.5 allowed on defense — and on defense, you want that number deeply negative, so plus 56.5 means this unit actively hurt the team. The Panthers ran 26 times a game for 117 yards, threw for 194, and finished at 36 percent on third down. Turnover margin was ugly: 22 giveaways against 19 takeaways. And this was a boom-or-bust team — they hung 30 on the Falcons twice and beat the Cowboys and Rams, but got blown out 42 to 13 by New England in Week 4 and 40 to 9 by Buffalo in Week 8. Steady was not in the vocabulary.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. The headline: 194 passing yards a game, and a total passing expected points added of minus 27.5 at minus 0.05 per drop-back — every pass play, on average, slightly lowered Carolina's scoring chances. The advanced math says not good, but it was better than it had any right to be, because Bryce Young took a genuine step forward — 3,011 yards and 23 touchdowns against 11 interceptions, completion percentage over expected of plus 1.3, career highs across the board, and six fourth-quarter or overtime game-winning drives. The offense lived on explosives rather than sustained drives: 52 plays of 20-plus yards all season, and only 16 percent of red-zone snaps turned into touchdowns, a bottom-of-the-league rate. Boom-or-bust is the tag — Young threw for a franchise-record 448 yards in the Week 11 win at Atlanta. That's the identity: feast on the shot plays, starve on the grind.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. Carolina ran for 117 yards a game on 4.5 a carry, with a rushing expected points added of minus 11.7 — efficient on the surface, slightly negative by the advanced math once you account for down and distance. Nine rushing touchdowns on 445 carries is thin, and it ties into that 16 percent red-zone touchdown rate — this team moved the ball on the ground but struggled to punch it in. The bright spot was Rico Dowdle, who took over after Chuba Hubbard got hurt and ran for 1,076 yards and 6 touchdowns on 236 carries while adding 39 catches for 297 yards. Dowdle's three-game stretch against the Jets, Dolphins, and Cowboys — 468 rushing yards — was the functional turning point of the regular season. Steady floor, modest ceiling.

Next up, the pass defense. This is where Carolina got muffed all year: 215 passing yards allowed a game, 20 passing touchdowns, and a passing expected points added allowed of plus 56.5 at plus 0.11 per drop-back — a huge positive number, which on defense is bad news. Pressure was the root cause: 30 sacks all season, 31st in pressure rate and 30th in total sacks, numbers GM Dan Morgan flatly called not acceptable. The one area that punched above its weight was ball production — cornerback Mike Jackson delivered two of the season's signature defensive plays, including a fourth-down pick of Michael Penix in the Week 3 shutout of Atlanta. Nineteen takeaways on the year, about one a game, wasn't enough to offset how often this unit got thrown through.

And the run defense. Carolina allowed 124 yards a game on the ground at 4.6 a carry, with a rushing expected points added allowed of plus 10.6 — modestly positive, meaning opposing runs were slightly efficient against this front. Twenty rushing touchdowns allowed on 463 carries is too many, and it pairs with a 48 percent opponent third-down rate to tell you offenses stayed on schedule. Steady mediocrity, with no single game where the front truly swallowed up a rushing attack outside of the Week 3 shutout of Atlanta. The run defense didn't cost them the season — but it didn't save the pass defense either.