The Panthers added to their receiver room in the third round, selecting Chris Brazzell with the No. 83 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Let's look at the fantasy football outlook for Brazzell in Carolina, both for seasonal leagues and Dynasty formats.
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Chris Brazzell II Fantasy Value With the Carolina Panthers
Despite landing Tetairoa McMillan in last year's draft, the Panthers still had holes in thier pass catching group.
Xavier Legette is looking like a miss, and while Jalen Coker broke out at the end of last season, he does not have an extended track record of production.
Brazzell has the skill set to be a field stretcher (see below), a needed element for an offense that was in the bottom half of the league in explosive pass rate last year.
Even so, he is not landing in a great spot for immediate production.
McMillan is the clear No. 1 target, Coker will want to build on his late-season run, and the Panthers were 24th in neutral dropback rate last season.
Chris Brazzell's Fantasy Scouting Report
Rich Hribar wrote a comprehensive fantasy profile for Brazzell before the 2026 NFL Draft:
Brazzell is a four-year player who spent his first two seasons at Tulane.
After a soft breakout in 2023 at age 19, catching 44 passes for 711 yards and 5 touchdowns, Brazzell transferred to Tennessee.
He spent 2024 playing a limited role behind D’Onte Thornton, but after Thornton went into last year’s draft, Brazzell stepped in and produced.
He caught 62 passes for 1,017 yards and 9 touchdowns.
His 2.30 yards per team pass attempt ranked seventh in this class in 2025 while producing a first down or touchdown on 48.8% of his targets (6th).
Brazzell is tall (6-foot-4) and fast (as reinforced by his 4.37 forty in Indy), which is an exciting profile.
I will come right out and say that I have a hard time with all the receivers who come out of the Josh Heupel system and projecting them to the NFL because of what they are asked to do in college.
Tennessee has consistently taken advantage of the wide hashes and extremely wide splits to design one-on-one matchups and open space for perimeter playmakers.
From Cedric Tillman to Jalin Hyatt to Thornton and now to Brazzell, all of these lead targets have posted gaudy yards per reception metrics and generated a ton of explosive plays in college, but they have struggled to play the position with nuance in the NFL.
Gabe Davis has been the most successful NFL product to come from the Heupel system.
Now, I also do not want to dismiss Brazzell because of his offensive attachment (eventually, another Tennessee wideout is going to hit). It just makes the evaluation much tougher.
Brazzell is entering an NFL ecosystem built around two-high coverages to limit explosives, so he will be tasked with playing stronger than he did in college.
Brazzell played 93.2% of his career snaps out wide, the highest rate in this class.
His 15.7 air yards per target were the fourth highest in the class.
His play strength will be challenged more in the NFL.
When tasked to play against man coverage, his production dropped off.
Brazzell posted 2.05 yards per route run against man coverage (25th) compared to 3.1 yards per route run against zone looks (4th).
He also had a high rate of muddy catch points and struggled to win in the contested game, which comes back to his leaner, lighter frame (198 pounds) and smaller hands (9 inches).
His adjusted catch radius for size is the fourth lowest in this class.
22.8% of Brazzell’s career targets were contested catches (14th highest), which is high for a player with his speed profile.
He also pulled in only 40.8% of those (35th).