Carolina Panthers insider details painful split for rookie Tetairoa McMillan

The fact that the Carolina Panthers have won five games this year is a credit to their desire to win - because they have an inordinate number of major flaws for a .500 team.

Defensively, the Panthers have one of the worst pass rushes in the league - and their coverage has fallen off pretty bad at cornerback compared to last season.

Offensively, there are too many problems to name, but the biggest one seems to be that they only really have one and a half reliable weapons.

One of those is breakout superstar running back Rico Dowdle, but as we saw in Sunday's loss to New Orleans there's only so much even he can do when a defense is determined to stop him and make Bryce Young beat them.

The half is represented by rookie wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, who is basically Carolina's entire passing game. Going into Week 10 he has nearly 100 receiving yards more than every other pass-catcher on the team combined.

That's a big problem - especially because McMillan has been far less impactful in the second half of games compared to the first. Here's Mike Kaye from the Charlotte Observer breaking down those painful splits for McMillan.

"In the first half of the first 10 games of the season, McMillan was targeted 46 times for 30 catches for 417 yards and a touchdown. That’s a 65% completion rate with a 13.9 yards-per-catch average... In the second half of games, McMillan was targeted 31 times for 16 catches for 201 yards and a touchdown. That’s 12.6 yards per catch on a 51.6% catch rate."

Kaye asked head coach Dave Canales about this problem on Wednesday. Here's what Canales had to say about it.

In a follow up to my analysis piece on the #Panthers’ usage of Tetairoa McMillan in the passing game, I asked Dave Canales about the disparity in McMillan’s first and second half numbers.

Here’s the story: https://t.co/rxoSoWcxbu

Here’s what he said: pic.twitter.com/KrI6HXyZbC
— Mike Kaye (@mike_e_kaye) November 12, 2025

You really can't blame McMillan for this. After all, he is only a rookie.

Canales himself has to be more creative drawing up McMillan's route tree, which consists mostly of verticals, a couple of in-breakers and not a whole lot else.

More importantly, the Panthers' other receiving weapons have to come to life and start forcing opponents to pay attention to them. Xavier Legette has had a brutally disappointing second season so far, Jalen Coker has yet to find his rhythm after sitting out the first six weeks on IR and there have been precious few flashes from everybody else involved.

To some extent it's also on Canales to get those guys going, because his playcalling has been mostly-dismal this season after the opening script.

Bryce Young also has to do his part and throw the ball more accurately and more consistently, but he can only do so much when he's throwing balls like this and Legette can't even be bothered to fully extend his arms to try to make the catch.

#Panthers QB Bryce Young did a really nice job here of stepping up in the pocket and putting some nice touch on this pass that went to the end zone. Unfortunate that it was just out of Xavier LeGette's reach: pic.twitter.com/HuGgokMm1l
— Arye Pulli (@AryePulliNFL) November 9, 2025

Put it another way, McMillan's lack of production in the second half has been a total team failure.

There's still time to turn things around, but the problems for Canales are mounting - and right now he doesn't look equipped to handle them.

We could be in for a brutal finish to the 2025 season given the strength of schedule and the fact that opponents will take what worked for the Saints on Sunday and copy it. Expect defenses to sell out to stop Rico Dowdle and force this very dysfunctional Panthers passing game to beat them.

Unless Canales seriously steps up his game and starts finding solutions on offense, there's a real chance these Panthers have recorded their final win of the season already.

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