He's the best player Lowcountry fans get to root for on Sundays. The question this August is whether he's worth a fourth-round fantasy pick — or a fourth-round trap.
Charleston doesn't have an NFL team, so for most fans down here Sundays run through Charlotte and the Carolina Panthers. And no Panther is more talked about this summer than Tetairoa McMillan, the receiver who was voted the 2025 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year after catching 70 passes for 1,014 yards and seven touchdowns as a rookie — numbers that led every first-year player in the league. He started all 17 games, played 87 percent of the snaps, and accounted for better than 30 percent of Carolina's total receiving yardage on a team that won the NFC South and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
That rookie tape is why fantasy managers can't agree on him. On one hand, he's a 22-year-old former No. 8 overall pick who already commanded a 23 percent target share and doubled the output of the next receiver on his own roster. On the other, he did it inside a passing game that finished 26th in the NFL at 179.3 yards per game, with a quarterback in Bryce Young who has twice posted some of the lowest passing totals of any full-time starter over the last three seasons.
Here is where the draft math matters. On the current fantasy football rankings, McMillan is going off the board around WR18, near the fourth-round turn. That's the crux of the debate: you're paying a mid-WR2 price for a player whose talent screams top-12 but whose situation caps his floor. Project the volume forward and one common season line lands near 78 catches for 1,100-plus yards, which would clear that cost. The risk is a Young step-back, or newly healthy Jalen Coker and offseason addition Chris Brazzell eating into the target share that made McMillan a weekly starter.
"The rookie year wasn't a fluke, it was a workload," one analyst said. "McMillan ran the most routes and drew the most targets on that offense by a mile. Even if Coker takes a few looks back, you're talking about a No. 1 receiver on a team that has to throw more than it did last year. That's a WR2 you can start every week."
The counterargument is just as sharp. "His talent isn't the question, the offense is," one fantasy manager said. "A thousand yards on a passing game that ranked 26th is a ceiling, not a floor. At WR18 you're betting Bryce Young takes a real step forward, and I'd rather let someone else make that bet a round early."
The sensible read splits the difference. If McMillan falls to the fifth round in your league, he's a clear value with league-winning upside. If a rival reaches for him in the third because they watched him win Rookie of the Year, let them — there's comparable production in the same tier without the volume risk. Draft him as your WR2 with WR1 upside, not as the anchor of your receiving corps, and you'll have priced him correctly.
The Panthers open their season Sunday, Sept. 13, at home against the Bears, and McMillan will be the first name on Carolina's game plan. Readers weighing him against the rest of their board can find more local coverage in our Sports section. Whatever you decide, decide it before someone else in your league does it for you.