The Beginning of a holdout? 😬

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• Panthers beat writer Joe Person reports that rookie WR Jalen McMillan is set to ‘get the majority of the work at X’ in 2025

  • He continued dropping nuggets on how the Panthers WR room could shake out come Week 1, suggesting that former 1st round pick Xavier Legette would play the role of flanker opposite McMillan and that Thielen would occupy the slot. A few noteworthy takeaways: Legette seems to be getting the benefit of the doubt as Dave Canales’ first ever draft pick despite a disappointing rookie year riddled with drops in 2024. Despite flashing in limited action down the stretch last year, Jalen Coker still seems to remain behind Legette on the depth chart and is unlikely intrude on Thielen’s role in the slot or take away significant snaps from McMillan, who joined the team as a first-round pick himself just a month ago. Also worth mentioning: the Panthers ran 11 personnel (3 WR sets) at one of the highest rates in the NFL last year, ranking fourth among all teams. With the big three at each receiver position seemingly established early in OTAs, we could see plenty of McMillan, Legette, and Thielen in the Panthers offense in 2025. Jalen Coker could reasonably mix in at some point down the stretch due to injury or a coach’s decision, and the most likely crack for Coker to exploit would be at the flanker role he played last year opposite Xavier Legette. Regardless, it sounds like Carolina is planning to continue to run plenty of 11 personnel moving forward, especially having used each of their last two first round picks on wide receivers for Bryce Young.

• Patriots WR Stefon Diggs could ‘reasonably’ return to action in Week 4 of the 2025 season, per the Athletic’s Chad Graff

  • Diggs continues to recover this offseason from an ACL tear he suffered in Week 8 of the 2024 season, and as time goes on, a more specific timeline for his return to action is coming into view. While there’s still no guarantee that Diggs isn’t able to ultimately take the field with the rest of the team in Week 1, Graff has identified Week 4 as a more feasible target for the veteran to get back on the field. Given that timeline, it’s possible that Diggs could wind up on the early season PUP list that would make him inactive for the team’s first four games, though he has yet to be placed on it and there has been little mention of the team going that route at this still early point in the offseason. As long as Diggs is out to begin the year, though, the door to opportunity will be open for rookie second-round pick Kyle Williams. Williams has reportedly been impressing early on in camp, and with little target competition around him besides relics of the Jerod Mayo/Bill Belichick regime in Demario Douglas and co., he could play a significant role in New England’s passing game on day 1. Even with Williams impressing, though, Diggs profiles as the clear no. 1 receiver once he’s back on the field and should be treated as such in drafts. As always, monitor this injury situation in the coming weeks – it is an ACL injury Diggs is recovering from, after all.

• Bills RB James Cook reportedly misses the first day of Bills OTAs as a result of his ongoing contract dispute

  • After a season that saw James Cook increase his career rushing touchdown total fivefold, the Bills running back backed up his words from this offseason about a potential holdout with action (or a lack thereof) – he was the only Bills player missing from the team’s first day of OTAs on Tuesday. On paper, the holdout makes sense: Cook had a career year in his third season as a pro and looked good doing it. But his hyperefficiency didn’t net him anything close to a bell cow role, something he’s insisted upon getting from the Bills going into 2025. Through his career so far, Cook has yet to take on anything close to a clear lion’s share of overall opportunities in Buffalo’s backfield, and as a result, the Bills could be reluctant to give a market-price contract to a running back who was splitting snaps with not only Ray Davis, but also Ty Johnson throughout the 2024 season. This will be a situation to monitor as the offseason grinds on – the closer we get to the regular season without a resolution to the situation, the lower his ADP in drafts will likely dip. Cook is due for touchdown regression in 2025 and landed on our early avoids list at his top-15 ADP in drafts right now, so any plummet in price for the former Georgia Bulldog would be a welcome one.

Before the draft, there was skepticism around Chase Brown and what his role would look like with the Bengals after an extremely strong finish to the 2024 season. I had it myself… but there were signs pointing me to buy before the draft, and I shared those signs with you. And now after the draft, Chase Brown still has his doubters.

Last offseason (all summer long, really), I was saying that Kyren Williams was going to continue to be the guy, while blocking all of the noise, all the hype, and the Blake Corum army. Kyren Williams went on to finish as a top-8 fantasy running back, and Blake Corum was just a handcuff, after all. I was not aware of Tahj Brooks army I now have to go up against this offseason, but I’ll fight this battle in defense of Chase Brown.

Now, I do agree the Brown isn’t the most stable asset in dynasty - 5th round pick, relatively undersized, and he’s relatively risky to hold and to buy, but this is a calculated risk I’m willing to take to say that he’s going to have a very similar role to what he had last season. With Zack Moss healthy, and the addition of Tahj Brooks, the Bengals will have two guys to potentially spell Brown, but that’s really all I see happening – just spelling him.

As a prospect, Brooks is pretty similar to Brown when it comes to skill in the run game - there isn’t anything about Brooks’ game that makes me think he’s ready to beat Chase Brown in camp or during the season. They both showed they can handle a big workload in college, they both had similar efficiency metrics in the run game, but Brown is a much better athlete, and he was way more efficient in the receiving game in college than Brooks - Brooks’ YPRR rate was actually dead last in this year’s draft class - and on THE most pass happy offense in the NFL, which do you think matters more?

Speaking of that, since Week 9 on after he got his full-time role, only one RB averaged more receiving yards than Chase Brown, and that was Alvin Kamara. Only one RB averaged more targets/game than Chase Brown - Alvin Kamara.

He had the most expected fantasy points/game during that span, and as a result was the overall RB3 in fantasy points/game only behind Saquon and Bijan.

There’s trust built in to Chase Brown after what he was able to do last year. Even if his snaps diminish a bit with Samaje Perine taking some of the passing down work for protection purposes, Brown still had 75% of his targets and catches come on early downs. 

And when the Bengals do run the ball, Chase Brown had the 7th highest success rate among RBs in zone concepts.

He’s going off the board as the RB11 - which is his floor. He’s a RB1 going into the year, no doubt - and you have a ton of room for upside without paying a premium price.