All-Time Panthers Rushing - Hubbard should leap CMC & Foster this year

[Bear Hands]

Thought this is pretty interesting - time can be a tricky one - it's crazy to really see the all-time Panthers rushing list.  You don't expect much in a 30ish year history (not saying this is impressive), but Chuba has quietly working his way up.  

 

1) 7,318 yards - J Stew 

2) 6,846 yards - DeAngelo Williams  

3) 5,036 - Cam Newton

this is where it gets interesting:

4) 3,980 - CMC

5) 3,336 - Deshaun Foster

*6) 3,175 - Chuba Hubbard

 

If Chuba has a healthy season, we should expect him to easily climb into #4 on the all-time Panthers list.  I don't know for others, but Foster & CMC seemed like they were here longer than they were (or maybe they just played in more impressionable seasons and injury stints made the playing time seem longer).  

I know it's not some impressive history or anything but a fun thing to note.  Also, if we make strides as a team, and he follows up with another strong year, he's probably got 2-3 more in him as he turns 26 next week. 

 

Some questions: 

Does another solid year cement him as our guy at RB? I prefer to keep taking late round stabs as you can cycle RBs, but he could prove to be a top RB this year.  I expect Rico & Etienne to help spell him, but he's our RB1 no doubt.  

If we flirt with our first playoff berth in years, could a top-10 RB type season put him on the map as a more revered Panther?    

He will be touching the ball the second most after Bryce this season, so it's not unrealistic to view him as our top skill position player (pending McMillan's hopeful rise as WR1).  It would be fun to see this actualize and make his mark more widely in the league. 

 

Overall, just adding some perspective.  When you think of eras of Panthers teams, you usually think of a few guys.  And if we can finally crawl back to relevance, maybe Chuba is a guy we think of helped us get out of the rut rather than just being one of many that lived here in the cellar.

[frankw]

Kind of bizarre Hubbard is already on the cusp of surpassing McCaffrey considering how comically overused he was at times here.

As much as I'd like to see Hubbard get over 4k this season the priority should be offensive versatility. We have a nice RB room and it's a long season. Spread the ball around.

[Donald LaFell]

I don’t expect Hubbard to eclipse his play from last year. Glad he got paid. Hopefully he can stay healthy and dependable. You always need someone waiting in the wings. 

[LinvilleGorge]

7 minutes ago, frankw said:

Kind of bizarre Hubbard is already on the cusp of surpassing McCaffrey considering how comically overused he was at times here.

As much as I'd like to see Hubbard get over 4k this season the priority should be offensive versatility. We have a nice RB room and it's a long season. Spread the ball around.

If he stays healthy he should get it. I mean 825 yards over 17 games is averaging less than 50 yards per game. Even if we rotate more at RB I would still expect him to probably account for 60% or so of the non-QB carries (he accounted for nearly 70% last year).

[L-TownCat]

58 minutes ago, Bear Hands said:

If we flirt with our first playoff berth in years, could a top-10 RB type season put him on the map as a more revered Panther?  

This last season made him a player I’ll remember fondly.  I hope he continues to grow and produce.  I see no reason to expect otherwise.  He’s the exact kind of player fans grow to love.

[LinvilleGorge]

Kinda surprising but then again I guess not really. We've had a lot of good RBs but most have either been splitting time or didn't last long... or both. Stephen Davis gave us a great season but we just got the tail end of his career. Foster gave us some good highlights but never had a 1000 yard seasons and split his early years with Davis and latter years with DeAngelo. DeAngelo and J-Stew split carries with each other for virtually their entire careers. Then along came CMC who was tremendous but spent most of his tenure on IR. 

[frankw]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

If he stays healthy he should get it. I mean 825 yards over 17 games is averaging less than 50 yards per game. Even if we rotate more at RB I would still expect him to probably account for 60% or so of the non-QB carries (he accounted for nearly 70% last year).

That is true. Like I said I'm happy to see him get there. I'm just entering the season with the POV that this is really only about the development of our young roster and 2nd year head coach with the possibility of maybe lucking our way into competing for a playoff spot. So with that I'm all for getting everyone their share of looks especially on offense.

[LinvilleGorge]

3 minutes ago, frankw said:

That is true. Like I said I'm happy to see him get there. I'm just entering the season with the POV that this is really only about the development of our young roster and 2nd year head coach with the possibility of maybe lucking our way into competing for a playoff spot. So with that I'm all for getting everyone their share of looks especially on offense.

Yeah, I think people who are hyping themselves up about a SB run are getting waaaaaaaay ahead of themselves. Let's just try not to earn a top 10 pick first and try to build from there. I'd love to be in the hunt for a playoff spot. Anything beyond that is massive icing on the cake.

[Bear Hands]

33 minutes ago, L-TownCat said:

This last season made him a player I’ll remember fondly.  I hope he continues to grow and produce.  I see no reason to expect otherwise.  He’s the exact kind of player fans grow to love.

Yep - that's kind of what I was getting at by the end of my OP.  He's been a slow burn guy who has really put in the work.  

Started out with balance issues, many people kind of scoffed at him and din't place high expectations.  But then he just seemed to grind his way through the depth chart and produce.  He was never a guy we all thought - "well there's our RB" when we drafted him, but he's carved out his own role and is here with his 3rd HC, now firmly the RB1.  It will be a defining year for him.  If he can near match last, we have ourselves a quality talent we should be happy to have.  Which is possible when you look at touches and all.    

Overall, I kind of dig our RB room Brooks aside.  Dowdle doesn't have a ton of mileage and is a quality slippery zone guy, Etienne has some great pass catching skills and super light on miles in college.  So it's a quality, fresh leg room if Hubbard needs relief from his feature role. 

[Bear Hands]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Yeah, I think people who are hyping themselves up about a SB run are getting waaaaaaaay ahead of themselves. Let's just try not to earn a top 10 pick first and try to build from there. I'd love to be in the hunt for a playoff spot. Anything beyond that is massive icing on the cake.

I think it's more - get us interested and keep us battling until at least week 15/16.  I prefer not to know by week 10-14 that we're firmly out.  That's kind of my line this year.

[kungfoodude]

I am not surprised. I remember looking at all-time franchise rushing in the past couple of seasons and being pretty amazed at how paltry the totals really were.

For CMC, I think people just forget how injury prone he became, hence why his numbers seem low. From 2020 to 2022 he played 16 of a possible 39 games. In fact during that timespan he never again went over 500 rushing yards in a season for us.

The the leaders on that list were far bigger impact players due to their longevity.

[LinvilleGorge]

10 minutes ago, Bear Hands said:

I think it's more - get us interested and keep us battling until at least week 15/16.  I prefer not to know by week 10-14 that we're firmly out.  That's kind of my line this year.

The norm in the Tepper era has been shifting to draft talk by Halloween. LOL 

[kungfoodude]

10 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Yeah, I think people who are hyping themselves up about a SB run are getting waaaaaaaay ahead of themselves. Let's just try not to earn a top 10 pick first and try to build from there. I'd love to be in the hunt for a playoff spot. Anything beyond that is massive icing on the cake.

Yeah, I am not gonna freak out if we have another losing season, depending on how it looks. 

People are really getting ahead of themselves with thinking this is a good roster. It COULD be a good roster, just like it could easily be mediocre or bad again.

When you tear the whole franchise down below the foundation, it's bound to take a considerable amount of time to rebuild it. 

IMO, we still have at least two more offseasons of solid building before we are in a position to be a consistent winner. And that's assuming we have a lot of success this past offseason and some of our potential core players actually pan out(Bryce, Ikey, XL, etc).

[LinvilleGorge]

Just now, kungfoodude said:

Yeah, I am not gonna freak out if we have another losing season, depending on how it looks. 

People are really getting ahead of themselves with thinking this is a good roster. It COULD be a good roster, just like it could easily be mediocre or bad again.

When you tear the whole franchise down below the foundation, it's bound to take a considerable amount of time to rebuild it. 

IMO, we still have at least two more offseasons of solid building before we are in a position to be a consistent winner. And that's assuming we have a lot of success this past offseason and some of our potential core players actually pan out(Bryce, Ikey, XL, etc).

Yeah, for us to be a playoff team we need a LOT of production out of youngsters in key positions - most notably at WR, TE, and pass rusher. If we don't have some big time impact rookies on those units we aren't gonna have a chance to compete for a playoff spot. If we do have some big time impact rookies on those key position groups and Bryce picks up where he left off down the stretch last year then the future is actually going to look bright for the first time in a long time regardless of what the W-L record is.