Carolina Panthers Hidden Gems: 3 Secret Superstars on the 2025 roster

Which underrated players can help the Panthers be competitive again in 2025?

NFL teams are often caught in the quarterback conundrum. While quarterbacks are not the only predictor of team success — that’s why the “quarterback win” is a ridiculous statistic — you’ll be hard-pressed to get where you want to go without a man who understands how to play the most important position in sports at a fairly high level.

Through the 2023 season, the Carolina Panthers were very much on the wrong end of the equation. The franchise traded its ninth overall pick, receiver D.J. Moore, and other draft capital for the ability to take Alabama’s Bryce Young with the first overall selection. And to say that things didn’t go well at the start would be an understatement. Young concluded his rookie season completing 315 of 527 passes (59.8%) for 2,877 yards (5.8 YPA), 11 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and a passer rating of 73.7 that was the NFL’s worst among quarterbacks who played at least 50% of their teams’ snaps. Young was balky in the pocket, more inaccurate than not, and there wasn’t much to go on when it came to second-year improvement.

2024 started off even worse. In his first two games, Young completed 31 of 56 passes for 245 yards, no touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 44.1 — again, the NFL’s worst. New head coach Dave Canales, who got the gig in part because of the work he had done in Seattle and Tampa to help Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield in their development, made the decision to bench Young in favor of veteran Andy Dalton — a situation that kept hold until Week 7, when Dalton injured his thumb in a car accident. Not the most glamorous way to get one’s job back, but Young was finally ready for the rigors of the NFL.

Over the next two weeks, Young held up against the tough Denver Broncos and New Orleans Saints defenses, and really started to hit his stride as the season progressed. In Weeks 16-18 against the Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Atlanta Falcons, Young completed 57 of 88 passes for 612 yards, seven touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 111.6, which ranked seventh-best in the league.

Hopefully, the 2025 Panthers will have that version of Bryce Young from the start. Even so, there’s the matter of the rest of the roster, and the hard truth that there’s a lot to be fixed in that regard. Transcending last season’s 5-11 record, and a franchise history that has no winning records or playoff berths since 2017, will require everybody’s best efforts.

In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we look at one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent acquisition, and one underrated draft pick for an organization that could use a lot more talent overall, no matter how it’s rated.

Underrated Veteran: EDGE D.J. Wonnum

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Young’s continued ascent isn’t the only part of the thing when it comes to the Panthers becoming competitive again. Last year’s Carolina defense was the NFL’s worst in (deep breath) DVOA, points allowed, yards allowed, yards per play allowed, passing touchdowns allowed, opponent passer rating allowed, rushing yards allowed, yards per rushing attempt allowed, and pressure rate. The 2024 Panthers became the fourth team in pro football history to allow more than 3,000 rushing yards in a season. Per FTN’s Mike Tanier, their 179.8 rushing yards allowed per game was the highest figure since the Atlanta Falcons allowed 182.3 yards per game during the strike-impacted 1987 season.

Other than that, no problem!

So the fact that Jadeveon Clowney, who led the team in 2024 with six sacks and 44 total pressures, was released in May to free up salary cap space appears to be yet another harbinger of doom. The additions of Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen in the draft should help a bit in an aggregate sense, but on the surface, outside pass rush appears to be in drought mode to start the season.

Which is where veteran D.J. Wonnum (hopefully) comes in. In four seasons with the Minnesota Vikings from 2020-2023, the fourth-round pick out of South Carolina set an impressive pace for himself as a pass rusher with 25 sacks and 136 total pressures very much under the radar. That led to the Panthers signing Wonnum to a two-year, $12.5 million contract with just $1.25 million guaranteed that looked to be a major bargain if Wonnum could stay healthy.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Wonnum had quadriceps surgery in December 2023, and he didn’t play his first snap for the Panthers until Week 10. When he did get on the field, Wonnum was his usual disruptive self with four sacks and 26 total pressures in just 229 pass-rushing snaps. Now it’s about getting on the field more often, and making more plays like he did in the Panthers’ 36-30 Week 16 win over the Arizona Cardinals, when Wonnum stopped any chance of a Cardinals victory with a 14-yard sack of Kyler Murray on third-and-10 with 5:26 left in overtime. Chuba Hubbard’s 28 and 21-yard runs after Arizona’s subsequent punt sealed the win, but Wonnum set it up.

“D.J. got a good jump on the snap count, had a really nice speed rush up the field, beat the tackle, turned the corner and really was in position to try to get Kyler down,“ Canales said of the play. “Kyler had to step up, so I thought it was just a great effort in a critical situation. At the end of the game, where the work that you put in throughout the season, but also throughout the week to be able to be that fresh and that explosive in that situation and just executing the plan was what I loved about it. It just goes back to talking about the finish, for guys to be able to play and do right, rushing your pass lanes and execute all the way to the finish was great.”

Hopefully, the back issues he’s been dealing with in the preseason won’t stick around, because this defense REALLY needs the best of D.J. Wonnum in the final year of his current contract. Without it, 2025 will be a rough go on that side of the ball.

Underrated Free-Agent Signing: RB Rico Dowdle

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

The good news for the Panthers’ run game is that they still have Hubbard and the 1,195 yards he gained last season, and the addition of Georgia’s Trevor Etienne in the fourth round of the draft as a change-of-pace back. But the big upgrade here, especially with Miles Sanders off to Dallas after two disappointing seasons with the team, is the one-year, $2.75 million, fully guaranteed contract given to former Cowboys back Rico Dowdle. The Panthers were able to shake Dallas’ best running back loose, as Dowdle gained 1,079 yards and scored two rushing touchdowns on 235 carries, with 45 forced missed tackles, and nine runs of 15 or more yards, despite the fact that it took far too long for ex-Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy to figure out that Dowdle should have been the main man all along.

From Week 12 through the end of the regular season, Dowdle, the 2020 undrafted free agent out of South Carolina, had the NFL’s fourth-most rushing yards with 677, behind only Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Taylor, and Derrick Henry. Not that we’re putting Dowdle in that same group from an overall traits perspective, but it’s certainly true that when Dowdle was given the runway he deserved, Dallas’ run game went from nonexistent to problematic for opponents.

In that stretch, Dowdle made my “Secret Superstars” team twice — for Week 13, when he jumped through the New York Giants’ stacked boxes for 112 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries…

…and for Week 15, when he doubled down against the Panthers’ aforementioned atrocious defense for 149 yards on 25 carries.

“Yeah, we’re obviously really excited for Miles [Sanders] and his new opportunity,” general manager Dan Morgan said in March. “It also bought us Rico Dowdle, who we’re super-excited about as well. I think he’s going to bring a physical run style, similar to Chuba. That’s kind of the DNA that we want on that side of the ball. We’re excited about both those guys, kind of a one-two punch. They both can catch the ball out of the backfield, they can both pass-protect, and they’re both obviously really good runners that we’re excited about.”

Underrated Draft Pick: DB Lathan Ransom

Photo by CFP/Getty Images

When targeting Panthers safeties last season, opposing quarterbacks had a fairly free ride with an opponent passer rating of 107.2 (fourth-worst in the NFL) and a Passing EPA Per Play of +0.12 (only the Jacksonville Jaguars were worse at +0.16). The hope is certainly that former Las Vegas Raiders defender Tre’von Moehrig can shore things up, which is why the team gave him a three-year, $51 million contract with $34.5 million guaranteed this offseason. That could pay great dividends, if defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero plays to Moehrig’s strengths… which the Raiders didn’t always do.

Beyond that addition, there was also the selection of Ohio State’s Lathan Ransom with the 122th overall pick in the fourth round. In 2024, his fifth season with the Buckeyes, the 6’1. 210-pound Ransom allowed 21 catches on 30 targets for 272 yards, 94 yards after the catch, one touchdown, one interception, one pass breakup, and an opponent passer rating of 95.4. Ransom also had 63 solo tackles, 25 stops, seven tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles for the national champs.

Ransom played 76% of his snaps in the deep third last season, while Moehrig played 49% of his snaps back there for the Raiders. Were I Ejiro Evero, I might flip those rates to give Ransom more opportunities as a mid-field enforcer, because while he’s good in coverage, he’s even better at demolishing people over the middle with Kam Chancellor swag, and a Charles Tillman-level knack for the Peanut Punch.

“Combination of both, it’s just our system,” Canales said on June 10, when asked what he’s seen from Ransom so far, and where he envisions him playing. “Our guys are kind of interchangeable playing up and back, and for Lathan, I can’t think of a guy that represents this rookie class better than him. The way he prepares, he’s really taking to the coaching, Ejiro has said great things about him just in terms of his understanding and really grasping the scheme, the coverages, the run fits and all those things, so he’s somebody we’re really excited about.”

Well, at least there seems to be a better Safety Dance for the team at this point.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions).