The Carolina Panthers may not have a three-of-a-kind.
On Wednesday, NFL.com Next Gen Stats analyst Keegan Abdoo dealt out his rankings for the league’s 32 triplets—stacking each team’s combination of their starting quarterback, running back and No. 1 wide receiver. Unfortunately for Bryce Young, Miles Sanders and Adam Thielen, they’re at the very bottom of the deck.
Buy Panthers TicketsAbdoo writes of their No. 32 ranking:
Short quarterbacks not named Drew Brees have almost always struggled to target the highly valuable middle of the field. Listed at 5-foot-10 and 204 pounds, Young will have to be a historic outlier, both in durability and play style, if he is to justify the war chest the Panthers gave up to draft him first overall. The good news is that Frank Reich has assembled an all-star coaching staff to help develop Young. The bad news: The Panthers could struggle to surround Young with talent after sacrificing so much to attain him. Young’s top target is the 33-year-old Thielen, whose last 1,000-yard season was in 2018. And it remains to be seen if Sanders has the juice to thrive outside the near-perfect rushing environment he enjoyed while in Philadelphia.
Well, he’s not exactly wrong.
It does remain to be seen how well Thielen and Sanders will hold up in their new environments. The former hasn’t been in Pro Bowl form for a handful of years while the latter just missed the entire preseason with a groin injury.
But with Sanders being confident in his Week 1 status and Thielen having ended his summer on a beautiful note with Young, things can only shuffle on up for this trio.
