Tetairoa McMillan, Jalen Coker, and a simple balance that has created a complex offense for the Panthers

When he’s covered up, as he was more and more towards the end of 2025 and the season opener last Sunday against the Bears, the Panthers deploy Coker. It’s worked, for a couple of different reasons.

First, Canales and offensive coordinator Brad Idzik move both guys around the field, never making it easy to know where either of them will be on a given play. Against the Bears in Week 1, McMillan (38 routes) lined up wide 68.4 percent of the time and in the slot 31.6 percent of the time. Coker (34 routes) was out wide 58.8 percent of the time and in the slot 35.3 percent of the time.

“It’s mixing and matching,” explained Idzik. “There’s a lot of talk about putting TMac in the slot, putting Jalen in the slot. We asked Jalen to do a lot of the dirty work in the run game, but then you go and watch Jalen’s game against the Bears, and he’s outside, getting explosives one-on-one outside.

“Anytime we’re able to move TMac around to keep the defense off-kilter, and Jalen can be that move piece for us, adjusting on different parts of the formation, someone’s going to benefit, whether it’s TMac not getting the tilt of the defensive coverage or it’s putting Jalen in a favorable mismatch outside.”