Carolina added another young weapon on offense, selecting Tetairoa McMillan with the No. 8 pick.
Let's examine McMillan's 2025 fantasy football outlook and Dynasty value.
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Tetairoa McMillan 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook
McMillan was the highest-ranked recruit signed by Arizona in their school history.
He reinforced that commitment with front-end production.
As a 19-year-old freshman, McMillan caught 39 passes for 702 yards (18.0 yards per catch) with 8 touchdowns.
He followed that up with 90 receptions for 1,402 yards and 10 scores in 2022 before closing his career with 84 grabs for 1,319 yards and 8 touchdowns this past season.
He has had three games in his career with over 200 yards receiving, including a gaudy 304-yard performance to kick off this past season.
For his collegiate career, McMillan averaged 16.1 yards per catch.
No wide receiver in this class had a higher rate with as many receptions as McMillan.
McMillan closed this season second in this draft class with 3.02 yards per team pass attempt.
He posted 2.87 yards per route run, which ranked seventh in this class.
Against man coverage, McMillan was targeted on 35.9% of his routes (7th in this class) for 3.50 yards per route run (9th).
He was just too physical for most collegiate corners.
Against zone coverages, he dipped to a target rate on 25.2% of his routes(20th) with 2.82 yards per route (11th).
McMillan has a throwback X receiver build (6-foot-4 and 219 pounds with 10-inch hands).
He enters the NFL in an era where that archetype is less prevalent than in previous eras.
This became an issue for Marvin Harrison Jr.’s initial fantasy production.
Harrison was thrown out of the NFL as a full-time X receiver with limited usage diversity, which impacted his fantasy consistency and production.
That also happened to Drake London early in his NFL career before he got that “Power Slot” usage added to his portfolio this past season and took off.
I have McMillan in the same range as Harrison and London entering the league.
McMillan catches some shade for playing linear.
That said, his collegiate profile is not as thin in diverse usage as we saw from Harrison entering the NFL.
It is not up to me, but playing McMillan as a full-time X receiver would be a mistake.
This past season, McMillan forced a missed tackle on 34.5% of his receptions, third in this class.
Harrison was only at 7.5% in his final season.
McMillan did play in the slot for 21.6% of his snaps last year.
He smashed on those opportunities, posting 4.48 yards per route from the slot.
That was good for fifth in this class overall and the highest rate for any receiver in this draft who ran 100 or more routes from the slot.
McMillan was often tasked with winning in the contested catch game.
23.1% of his overall targets were contested catches (10th in this class), where he successfully won, pulling in 60% (18 of 30) of those.
We do not want to see McMillan forced to win that way against NFL cornerbacks solely because the best fantasy receivers earn open targets firsthand.
That takes a step of faith, but Dave Canales has shown he can coach a big-body wide receiver in Mike Evans.
Adam Thielen will turn 35 this August and missed 7 games last season, so there is plenty of fluidity for McMillan to moonlight in the slot as a rookie and have that role expand after Thielen leaves.
Bryce Young 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook
This is another weapon for Bryce Young.
The Panthers hired Canales last offseason due to his involvement in the resurgence of Geno Smith‘s and Baker Mayfield’s careers.
Hoping to max out the same type of development for Young following a disastrous rookie campaign, things got off to a rocky start.
Young was benched after two games into the 2024 season, and it appeared that all hope that the No. 1 overall pick was heading towards being sunk cost.
After a car accident sidelined Andy Dalton in Week 8 (or perhaps divine intervention, since Dalton was also not playing good football at the time), Young regained the starting job and gave Carolina some promise that there is still something Canales can mold moving forward.
Over the final 10 weeks of the season, Young threw 15 touchdowns to 6 interceptions.
He threw multiple touchdowns in each of the season's final three games.
His big-time throw rate (7.7%) per Pro Football Focus was tops in the NFL.
There is still a lot of room to grow.
Over that span, Young was 18th in EPA per dropback (0.07), 27th in success rate (40.7%), 27th in completion rate (61.8%), and 28th in yards per pass attempt (6.6).
His 13.5% inaccurate throw rate was 29th over that period.
Carolina won games against the Saints, Giants, Cardinals, and Falcons, who were hardly world-beaters last season.
However, the team also played competitive football over that stretch against the Chiefs (3-point loss), Bucs (3-point overtime loss), and Eagles (6-point loss).
Young still has a lot to prove, and this overall NFL sample to this point is not highly glowing, but there is at least a spark surrounding how the year closed compared to the dismal trajectory things appeared to be traveling towards.
Xavier Legette 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook
This is a significant blow for Xavier Legette’s Dynasty and 2025 stock.
Legette is a receiver who needed refinement exiting college, and that showed up as a rookie.
He ended his first season catching 49 of 84 targets for 497 yards (10.1 yards per catch) with 4 touchdowns.
He finished 12th among rookie receivers in yards per route run (1.19).
His best season stretch came when Thielen was sidelined and he worked more from the slot.
When asked to win outside, Legette averaged 1.09 yards per route run (13th among rookies).
Thielen leaving after 2025 could help Legette keep some footing, but he will not jump McMillan.
TL;DR Fantasy Impact Notes
- Early to mid-first (1.03-1.06) Dynasty WR and upside WR3/WR4 for 2025