Panthers Punditry Check: Six for Six on the Division, and a Field Split Between 6 Wins and 9 | MissedTakes Daily

The single most profitable thing anyone said about the Carolina Panthers last year was also the least fashionable: that they would win the NFC South. Every graded call we have picking Carolina to take the division last season hit — six of them, from five different voices — and because the naive answer was "Tampa Bay again, they won it last year," the correct ones paid out big.

Chris Brockman made it three times, starting back in April 2025: "I think the Panthers are gonna win the NFC South." That April call and Brandon Anderson's July version both scored the maximum — 100 accuracy and the largest skill margin the scoring allows, since nobody else was there yet. Manti Te'o and Rashad Jennings got there in November and still cleared the bar comfortably. It's worth noting Brockman's division picks as a whole are not a strength — 32 graded, 38.7 accuracy — so this was his best subject, not his normal one.

The win-total field was low, and is now all over the place

The same club that won the division was projected at an average of 7.1 wins by the five graded 2025 calls we tracked, against an actual 8-9 finish. Josh Pate was the only one exactly right at eight. Brady Quinn at five and Aaron Schatz at 5.5 both finished below the naive guess of 6.75 wins — in other words, worse than simply assuming the team stays roughly what it was. Rich Eisen, going the other way with 10 wins in October, also landed under that baseline.

For 2026 the field has pulled apart rather than converged:

Chad Millman has twice taken the over on Carolina's 6.5-win number. Simon Hunter expects eight or nine. Nobody has been graded on any of it yet — the season is one week old.

McMillan paid, and now he's the argument

Across everything pundits have said about Carolina, Tetairoa McMillan is the most rewarding subject on the board: 25 graded calls, 83.2 average accuracy, and a skill margin of about +130 — far and away the best of any Panther. The reason is the 2025 fantasy-sleeper wave. Pat Fitzmaurice, Ryan Wormeli and Derek Brown all argued he was badly underpriced; he finished WR13, which is a maximum-value outcome when the cost was a fifth- or sixth-round pick. He then won Offensive Rookie of the Year, an award only five of 29 ballots we tracked got right.

FOX Sports Research made him a Week 1 value play — "everything lines up for Carolina's No. 1 receiver to have a big Week 1." Frank Ammirante listed him among five overvalued receivers to fade, calling him "more like a floor pick." Meanwhile the near-unanimous new consensus is Jalen Coker as the clear No. 2: Ammirante, the Associated Press, Mike Fanelli and FantasyPros all say so within a week of each other. Eight graded Coker calls so far, 84.4 accuracy — a lean, not a verdict.

Cut day went badly for the skeptics

Carolina's roster projections graded out at 86.2 accuracy over 65 calls, but that number flatters everyone: most roster calls just repeat that a player who made a 53 last year makes one again. The calls that actually took a position mostly failed. Carter Bahns twice flagged Darren Waller as a likely cut; Nathan Jahnke twice wrote that Ja'Tavion Sanders was unlikely to make it. Both were kept. All four calls scored zero.

Zach Roberts is the most prolific Panthers voice we track — 53 graded calls, 70.3 accuracy — but his score sits at 0.81, meaning his roster projections as a group were no better than assuming last year's roster returns. Where he did beat it was on rookies nobody else had to guess about: Monroe Freeling, Sam Hecht and Jackson Kuwatch all made the 53 as he projected. He whiffed predicting Haynes King to the practice squad and Princely Umanmielen off the roster.

On the draft, the field had Carolina's pick 19 correct in shape — tackles and interior defenders — and Bucky Brooks had it exactly, Freeling to the Panthers at 19 back in March, scoring a perfect 100. Nick Wright had Freeling to Carolina in his first mock, then moved him to Pittsburgh in versions 3.0 and 4.0 — talking himself from 100 down to 91.7.

Week 1 at home against Chicago is drawing a crowd of Carolina backers: AJ Hawk ("I like Carolina to probably win this one outright"), Brady Quinn taking the three points, Tyler Sullivan's CBS Sports upset list and John Pluym. Rich Hribar is the dissent worth reading: he treats Bryce Young as "only a matchup-based QB2." That one settles itself this weekend.

The league day in brief

• 1,233 calls were graded league-wide in the past week, 1,165 of them roster-spot projections — the annual cut-down flood. Another 462 new takes came in.
• The perfect scores were nearly all Week 1 game picks, led by John Middlekauff taking the underdog 49ers over the Rams in Melbourne. The zeroes were mostly San Francisco roster and depth-chart projections, including Grant Cohn's and Tom Jensen's.
• Lance Zierlein leads the board at 39.1 with 72.2 accuracy over 38 graded calls; Derek Brown and David Harrison follow. Daniel Jeremiah is the only top-ten name with a deep record behind him, 278 graded calls.

Full standings are on the leaderboard.