Tetairoa McMillan wins Offensive Rookie of the Year

Carolina Panthers wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan has been named the Offensive Rookie of the Year for the 2025 season. He beat out quarterbacks Tyler Shough and Jaxson Dart, fellow receiver Emeka Egbuka, and running back TreVeyon Henderson.

With both quarterback nominees missing significant chunks of the season either due to injury, coaching decisions, or some combination of the two, it always seemed like the award would go to someone at a different position that got more consistent playing time all season long. That left McMillan against a couple of fellow skill position players.

With that in mind, McMillan always seemed like the obvious choice. He finished his rookie season with 1,014 yards, the only rookie to surpass the magical 1,000 yard plateau in any one statistical category. That number in of itself was probably enough to win the award, but the seven touchdowns and a team playoff appearance certainly helped at well. And even more bonus points given that the quarterback play wasn’t always great and was significantly worse before McMillan’s arrival.

McMillan was a somewhat surprising selection at the eighth overall pick last April when everyone expected the Panthers to go defense. It didn’t take long for him to endear himself to Panthers fans though. He reportedly made a lot of highlight plays in training camp and then only took two real games to surpass 100 yards for the first time. He’s the most dynamic wide receiver the Panthers have had in quite a while, both at the catch point and running after the catch. And he’ll only get better as he gets stronger and better equipped to handle the physicality of the NFL game. We already saw that improve as the season went along this past year. We could very easily be watching a top 10 wide receiver in the black and blue next season.