How worried are the Carolina Panthers about the future of 2024 second-round draft pick Jonathon Brooks? It might be worse than we’ve been led to believe.
Here are three NFL nuggets after the first day of the NFL’s new year:
What is Carolina’s plan for RB Jonathon Brooks this season?
It hasn’t been a secret that the second ACL tear in the right knee of Carolina Panthers running back Jonathon Brooks is extremely concerning. The way the Panthers are tackling it might shed some light on how concerned the franchise is right now.
The Panthers are signing running back Rico Dowdle to a one-year deal, strongly pointing to a plan that appears to be leaning into sitting Brooks for the entirety of the 2025 season. To err on the side of caution and put together a plan over the next 18 months offers Brooks a chance to enter training camp in 2026 both completely healthy and as confident as possible about his right knee.
[Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem is back: Enter for a shot to win up to $50K]
Even taking that approach, a league source indicated there’s a lot of concern about Brooks’ development in all of this. While last year’s 46th overall draft pick is extremely young (he won’t turn 22 until July), he will have played very little high-level football by the time he hits the field for the Panthers again. Brooks had only 54 touches rushing and receiving his first two seasons as a backup for the Texas Longhorns, then another 212 his junior year, before eventually tearing the ACL in his right knee and entering the draft. That was followed by only 12 touches as a rookie for the Panthers before tearing the ACL again.
Jonathon Brooks was a second-round draft pick in 2024. (Photo by David Jensen/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
That’s not a lot of football development over a four-year span. And now there’s a very real question over whether Brooks will ever have access to his considerable ceiling again if his right knee is diminished.
The Panthers are taking the most careful…
..
