XL makes a list of sophomore breakout candidates

[Captain Morgan]

Former league executive and current NFL.com analyst Marc Ross recently named his top second-year breakout candidates for the upcoming campaign. Ross includes Legette, who may be helped out by his team's latest first-round selection.

He writes:

Legette had a slow start to his NFL career, catching 49 passes for 497 yards and four touchdowns last season. Some of the struggles can be tied to his own growing pains -- he had eight drops on 81 targets, according to Pro Football Focus -- but he had also had to navigate the quarterback shuffle between Bryce Young and Andy Dalton early in Dave Canales' first season leading the Panthers. Canales recently said he believes Carolina has a DK Metcalf-like talent in Legette, who had foot surgery this offseason but was cleared to resume work in early April, and that having a full offseason alongside Young, who took a significant step forward in 2024, could lead to a breakout result in 2025. I anticipate it will also help that Carolina invested another first-round pick in a wide receiver, Arizona's Tetairoa McMillan, to complement Legette in the pass game.

McMillan's presence, however, could take some pressure off Legette—who may be able to roam around in a more natural playmaking role. With the 6-foot-4 All-American likely to take on the bulk of the volume from Young, Legette should have some cleaner shots to break out downfield and in the box score.

 

 

https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/panthers/2025/05/06/panthers-wr-xaiver-legette-top-breakout-candidates-2025/83475176007/?taid=681a4610ede05d000149b376&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=twitter

[BEASTfromdaEAST]

XL definitely has the talent to breakout and I think now with multiple weapons on offense it will open things up for him.

We ALL know what he has to fix......drops. XL has to get better at that no question. If he can then skys the limit and I know I'm excited to see XL and Mac daddy in Panthers uniforms for years. 

[OneBadCat]

I'd love to see it. I think he got far too much poo for rookie mistakes.

[WhoKnows]

1 hour ago, BEASTfromdaEAST said:

XL definitely has the talent to breakout and I think now with multiple weapons on offense it will open things up for him.

We ALL know what he has to fix......drops. XL has to get better at that no question. If he can then skys the limit and I know I'm excited to see XL and Mac daddy in Panthers uniforms for years. 

WR talent includes hand catching, body control and contested catching/snatching the ball. If you don’t have that at 24+ years old, I don’t think you can say he definitely has the talent to breakout.

Also, it’s highly likely that XL’s snap count goes down. Thielen and Coker only played 10 and 11 games last year. Legette played 16 games and had 50% more snaps than Thielen and Coker. Add in a true #1 WR, a real 3rd down RB, more rookie WRs and a rookie TE and unless Young throws for 4000+ (he and Dalton had 3400 last year), XL’s opportunities don’t look better this year.

Personally, I think the top 3 WRs will be TMac, Thielen and Coker and XL rotates in as needed.

[jfra78]

1 hour ago, WhoKnows said:

WR talent includes hand catching, body control and contested catching/snatching the ball. If you don’t have that at 24+ years old, I don’t think you can say he definitely has the talent to breakout.

Also, it’s highly likely that XL’s snap count goes down. Thielen and Coker only played 10 and 11 games last year. Legette played 16 games and had 50% more snaps than Thielen and Coker. Add in a true #1 WR, a real 3rd down RB, more rookie WRs and a rookie TE and unless Young throws for 4000+ (he and Dalton had 3400 last year), XL’s opportunities don’t look better this year.

Personally, I think the top 3 WRs will be TMac, Thielen and Coker and XL rotates in as needed.

They are not going to limit his plays.  You are way to critical of him.  He is really the only deep threat we have on the team.  He does things well and his only issue last year was drops, which wasn't an issue in college. He caught a lot of passes that were just really bad throws as well

[PNW_PantherMan]

9 minutes ago, jfra78 said:

They are not going to limit his plays.  You are way to critical of him.  He is really the only deep threat we have on the team.  He does things well and his only issue last year was drops, which wasn't an issue in college. He caught a lot of passes that were just really bad throws as well

His piece of the pie is only going to get smaller unless there are serious injuries.  Unless the actual pie becomes that much larger, ie Bryce being Kurt Warner, I don't think there's room for him to breakout.  Just like there's not room for JT Sanders to break out beyond a couple hundred yards receiving and a few TDs.

I don't think a lot of people understand the volume that XL got last year.

[BEASTfromdaEAST]

If anyone snap shares are going to go down I think will be AT.....or at least I hope.

We should be rolling out Mac, XL n Coker IMO at this stage of the game 

[jfra78]

50 minutes ago, PNW_PantherMan said:

His piece of the pie is only going to get smaller unless there are serious injuries.  Unless the actual pie becomes that much larger, ie Bryce being Kurt Warner, I don't think there's room for him to breakout.  Just like there's not room for JT Sanders to break out beyond a couple hundred yards receiving and a few TDs.

I don't think a lot of people understand the volume that XL got last year.

He got alot of volume in targets but there was a lot of bad targets thrown his way because they used him a lot on deep routes

[Icege]

I'm so jacked for this WR room. Can't wait to see XL take the next step!!

[jfra78]

21 minutes ago, BEASTfromdaEAST said:

If anyone snap shares are going to go down I think will be AT.....or at least I hope.

We should be rolling out Mac, XL n Coker IMO at this stage of the game 

This is what i think.  ATs role will be  diminished this year 

[csx]

1 hour ago, BEASTfromdaEAST said:

If anyone snap shares are going to go down I think will be AT.....or at least I hope.

We should be rolling out Mac, XL n Coker IMO at this stage of the game 

I was about to post the same thing.

[WhoKnows]

2 hours ago, jfra78 said:

They are not going to limit his plays.  You are way to critical of him.  He is really the only deep threat we have on the team.  He does things well and his only issue last year was drops, which wasn't an issue in college. He caught a lot of passes that were just really bad throws as well

I’m not too critical, he was close to 100 targets. I don’t know if drops weren’t an issue but he had one season so it’s hard to extrapolate. He had 7 games of 94+ yards his only big season. He did that against Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Furman, UNC, Florida and Jacksonville St. he had 71 yards or less against Georgia, Tennessee, Clemson, Texas A&M and Missouri. Basically, good games against teams under .500 in the SEC and the meh OOC teams and meh games against the .500 or better in the SEC and Clemson.

I wanted McConkey so maybe I am jaded a bit but we have 3 WRs better than him right now on the roster and maybe more if another rookie flashes. I don’t think they will limit him as much as he’s got to step up his game to earn anywhere near the targets he had last year. 

[jfra78]

4 minutes ago, WhoKnows said:

I’m not too critical, he was close to 100 targets. I don’t know if drops weren’t an issue but he had one season so it’s hard to extrapolate. He had 7 games of 94+ yards his only big season. He did that against Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Furman, UNC, Florida and Jacksonville St. he had 71 yards or less against Georgia, Tennessee, Clemson, Texas A&M and Missouri. Basically, good games against teams under .500 in the SEC and the meh OOC teams and meh games against the .500 or better in the SEC and Clemson.

I wanted McConkey so maybe I am jaded a bit but we have 3 WRs better than him right now on the roster and maybe more if another rookie flashes. I don’t think they will limit him as much as he’s got to step up his game to earn anywhere near the targets he had last year. 

He had 84 targets but I wonder how many were catchable. Bryce threw him a lot of shitty balls

[WhoKnows]

35 minutes ago, jfra78 said:

He had 84 targets but I wonder how many were catchable. Bryce threw him a lot of shitty balls

His YPR was about 10. He got tons of short passes. Thielen and Coker had much higher YPT and also had much higher catch %s. The numbers don’t reflect what you are asserting.

It would be awesome if XL just snapped and was amazing. I just don’t think it will happen because I don’t think he’s going to get as many opportunities or get passes for drops. We’ll see how it goes. I’m not expecting playoffs this year. Too many IFs and a lot of still very young players we are counting on to be good.