Make-Or-Break Year: Xavier Legette

Legette entered the pros with a minimal track record of college success. He played 41 games over his first four seasons with the Gamecocks and caught just 42 passes for 423 yards and five touchdowns. But Legette’s production skyrocketed in a dozen games as a fifth-year senior in 2023, when he hauled in 71 receptions for 1,255 yards and seven scores.

The 6-foot-3, 227-pound Legette followed his breakout year with a stock-boosting performance at the Combine, where he ran a 4.39-second 40-yard dash and recorded a 40-inch vertical jump. Combining his tremendous 2024 output with an impressive blend of size and athleticism, Legette was widely expected to go in the first couple rounds of the draft. ESPN’s Scouts Inc. rated Legette as a the class’ 28th-best prospect, right in line with where the Panthers took him. So, in Morgan’s defense, Legette wasn’t a reach. He has, however, played like one.

Head coach Dave Canales gave Legette plenty of runway during his rookie campaign. With a 65.76% offensive snap share over 16 games, Legette was on the field more than every other wideout on the team. All of that playing time translated to modest numbers: 49 catches on 84 targets, 497 yards and four TDs. Legette registered a below-average 8.3% drop rate in the process. In fairness to Legette, he was stuck with awful quarterback play. Bryce Young and Andy Dalton led a toothless passing game that finished 30th in yards, 28th in QB rating and 27th in completion percentage.

Young showed improvement and kept Dalton on the bench last season, helping the Panthers win the NFC South despite an 8-9 record. But Legette had little to do with Young’s step forward or the team’s.

While he played over 60% of offensive snaps in 15 games, Legette managed only 35 catches on 64 targets, 363 yards and three TDs. His drop rate fell to 3.1%, but Panthers QBs mustered an awful 67.4 passer rating when they threw Legette’s way. That was the 11th-lowest figure in the league among 197 qualified pass catchers, per Pro Football Reference. In terms of overall performance, Pro Football Focus ranked Legette as the game’s fifth-worst receiver out of 128 qualifiers. Only a couple of back-of-roster types (Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine) and a pair of struggling fourth-round rookies (the Raiders’ Dont’e Thornton and the Jets’ Arian Smith) earned shoddier marks.

Fortunately for the Panthers, the emergence of two other young receivers has helped offset Legette’s lack of progress. Morgan took a first-round receiver for the second straight year in 2025, grabbing Tetairoa McMillan eighth overall. That pick looks like a home run. McMillan won Offensive Rookie of the Year honors on the heels of a 70-catch, 1,014-yard, seven-score debut. Meanwhile, Carolina has gotten plenty of value from Jalen Coker, who was in the same rookie class as Legette. One key difference between the two: Coker went undrafted. Nevertheless, the Holy Cross product has been the better pro so far.

While playing more from the slot than on the outside in his first two years, Coker combined for 65 receptions on 89 targets, 872 yards and five TDs in 22 games. Those aren’t gaudy stats, but the Panthers are betting on Coker continuing to ascend. After Coker became eligible for an extension this offseason, the Panthers rewarded him with a three-year, $35MM commitment. He looks like the Panthers’ top complement to McMillan going forward.

The Panthers still have room for a another receiver to carve out a role alongside McMillan and Coker, but Legette will have to earn it. Morgan drafted yet another receiver, Chris Brazzell, with a relatively high pick this year.

Wideouts from the University of Tennessee have had trouble in the pros over the past couple of decades, but the Panthers took a chance on the 6-4, 200-pound Brazzell at No. 83 overall in the third round. As someone who was exclusively an outside receiver in college, he represents a threat to Legette. The 22-year-old has impressed Canales in the early going.

“He’s been working his tail off. (Offensive assistant) Keyshawn Colman has been spending a lot of time with Chris, along with (receivers) coach Rob Moore,” Canales said of Brazzell (via Kassidy Hill of the team’s website). “But he’s up for the challenge, and he’s done a great job so far in the last couple of weeks as we’ve been doing our call-up periods.”

For Legette’s part, he put in the work in the offseason to get in better shape and “bulletproof” his hamstrings (via Joseph Person of The Athletic). Legette has only missed three out of 34 games with the Panthers, but his hamstrings have nagged him since his college days. Hoping that issue is behind him, Legette realizes he has to make a leap this season.

“My main thing is just to have a better year than my first two years,” he said. “I can’t have another year like I did last year. I can’t do that.”

This will indeed be a critical year for Legette’s future. If he continues on a similar or worse path, Morgan and the Panthers will make the easy call to decline his fifth-year option for 2028 next offseason. On the other hand, if he shows considerable improvement, Morgan will have a more difficult decision on his hands.