The Carolina Panthers will face the Atlanta Falcons in Week 18. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Panthers and Falcons skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 18 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Michael Penix Jr., QB
Michael Penix Jr. has looked the part of a future fantasy asset, but we aren’t there just yet. Despite showing some nice poise and patience through two starts, he finished safely outside of the top 20 at the position in both outings.
Fantasy managers should love his willingness to weigh down his top option with targets, as that is an easy box to check and a way to elevate your fantasy floor. There’s a fantasy skill set in his profile, but we just aren’t there yet.
Bryce Young, QB
Bryce Young has multiple touchdown passes without an interception in consecutive games – he had one such game previously on his NFL résumé. There is enough to like in Young’s profile for the Panthers to move forward with him labeled as ”the guy” for this rebuild, and I continue to like the upside of the pieces he has at his disposal.
… for next season.
… or maybe 2026.
Not Week 18. The Falcons are playing for a playoff berth, and their pass defense has looked better lately (even in a loss last week, they held Jayden Daniels to 6.3 yards per attempt).
Andy Dalton threw for 221 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions for Carolina against Atlanta in Week 6, a stat line that I think is on the high end of optimistic for Young this weekend. That’s not going to be enough to pay off starting him in most single-QB formats.
Tyler Allgeier, RB
Tyler Allgeier has 11 single-digit carry games this season and is pretty clearly Robin to Bijan Robinson’s Batman.
At this point, he’s probably less than a “Robin,” but my movie knowledge is very limited, so that’s the best I’ve got for you.
In Week 6’s meeting with the Panthers, this was much more of a committee situation. Allgeier out-carried Robinson and he led the team with 105 rushing yards, a role that is very much a thing of the past. Atlanta has come around to the idea of Robinson being the focal point of its offense, and I can’t imagine that changes in a must-win spot.
Allgeier has caught all 11 of his targets; that’s great, but just 86 routes run through 17 weeks is more concerning than the perfect catch rate is encouraging. He’ll again rank as an elite handcuff in 2025, nothing more.
Raheem Blackshear, RB
It was tough to get a feel for this Carolina backfield sans Chuba Hubbard last week in a 34-point loss, but the final product was about what you would have guessed.
Nada.
As a team, the Panthers ran 13 times for 39 yards. Their longest rush against the Bucs was eight yards; if that is going to be the case, I really don’t care who is getting the work.
Raheem Blackshear led the way with eight carries (20 yards) and projects as my favorite this week, but that still lands him a ways from mattering in most formats, especially with Miles Sanders on the mend.
Hubbard had success in this matchup back in Week 6 (18 carries for 92 yards with five catches for good measure). I’d be surprised if this backfield as a whole got to half of that production.
Chuba Hubbard, RB
It was discovered on Friday that Chuba Hubbard is dealing with a Grade 2 calf strain. With nothing to gain, the team has elected to shut him down.
It’s been a phenomenal season for the 25-year-old back. While he won’t have a chance to finish things, he did enough to earn a raise in addition to our trust in 2025. This season, Hubbard posted seven top-10 PPR finishes, blending volume (19.5 touches per game) with efficiency (4.8 yards per carry and a 79.6% catch rate) and giving Bryce Young a level of balance that allowed him to show signs of upside.
With Jonathon Brooks sidelined for the foreseeable future, Hubbard will enter next season with a clear feature role and thus deserving of a top-20 ranking at the minimum.
I’m going to like him more than that due to my liking of this offense’s upside. I’m mentally prepared to be watching plenty of Panthers games next fall.
Bijan Robinson, RB
Bijan Robinson has four games this season with multiple rushing TD, tied for the most in a season in Falcons history. He’s reached 20 touches in five straight games and is finally being used in the fashion that we’ve been begging for.
Enjoy the ride — it’s going to be expensive to get into the Robinson business again next season.
We need a greater sample before reading too far into these splits, but it’s never too early to start looking:
- Desmond Ridder under center: 2.71 yards per carry before contact
- Kirk Cousins under center: 2.99 yards per carry before contact
- Michael Penix Jr. under center: 3.13 yards per carry before contact
We are looking at a player who was taken with the eighth pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, and I think it’s plenty reasonable to think he goes higher than that in fantasy drafts for the foreseeable future. His shifty nature in space and volume role on the ground puts him on a Christian McCaffrey-like path, a name that I use rarely when it comes to comparing usage.
Miles Sanders, RB
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Sanders is active for today's game
Miles Sanders (ankle) averaged 3.3 yards per carry last season and wasn’t efficient this year in his limited work before landing on IR (3.7 yards per carry on 38 carries) ahead of Week 11.
Chuba Hubbard vacates plenty of volume, but how valuable is this role really? Hubbard has produced below expectations on a per-touch basis, and if the touch distribution is unknown, assigning value to any backup RB is a risk I’m not willing to take.
The scoring equity is limited in this Carolina offense as is, and that certainly doesn’t change when playing a motivated Falcons team looking to win the division. Sanders has scored just twice on 215 touches with the franchise; if he can’t add to that total, you’re swimming upstream to mine top-30 value from anyone in this backfield.
Jalen Coker, WR
Jalen Coker has seen the slot role that he was occupying at points in the middle of the season decline with Adam Thielen healthy and playing well, something that has proven fatal to any projectable fantasy upside.
The rookie managed to earn just two targets on 31 routes last week in Tampa Bay, and I fear that this week could look similar. Through seven weeks, Coker’s aDOT was 10.4 yards, but it has sat at 13.1 yards since. That 26% rise may not seem like much, but in an offense that struggles with consistency down the field, it matters.
Coker is part of an interesting young core of pass catchers that I’m assigning more upside in 2025 than most, but that doesn’t mean getting ahead of things and investing this week.
Xavier Legette, WR
Updated at 11:30 AM ET on Sunday, January 5
Legette is active for today's game.
Xavier Legette is the YOLO option on a team that is routinely falling behind and, thus, pressed into an aggressive game script. The rookie ran just 25 routes last weekend in Tampa Bay, and yet, he finished the game with 142 air yards, a crazy rate for a player who is not typically featured.
In theory, those two sentences should have me recommending Legette this week, especially against a motivated opponent and on a fast track. Carolina should be playing catch-up for the majority of this game, and with a young nucleus of players, should be looking to throw anything and everything against the wall to see what sticks.
Fantasy matchups, however, are not won on theory alone. We just saw A.J. Terrell give Terry McLaurin fits, and I worry Legette could fall victim to a similar fate. Even if he were to get loose on a deep route or two, are we confident that Carolina’s offense pays it off?
The Panthers rank bottom 10 when throwing long passes this season in passer rating, yards per completion, and interception rate. This role that Legette holds may be one we target in the future, but for right now, it offers more risk than reward.
Drake London, WR
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
London is active for today's game
Drake London’s ascent to fantasy stardom may have just needed Michael Penix Jr. to take over. We’ve seen him post bigger stat lines than last week (don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about 7-106-0), but the fully featured role that the Falcons have placed upon him and that the rookie is continuing to execute is what has me excited both for this weekend and moving forward.
Last week, he had two more catches than any two of his teammates had targets. That doesn’t happen by accident and Penix’s willingness to look his way on a variety of routes has me downright giddy.
- Week 16: 6.5 aDOT
- Week 17: 13.7 aDOT
London has a 33.9% on-field target share across Penix’s two starts and posted a 34.5% target share when first meeting with the Panthers in Week 6. I’d be more surprised if you told me this week that London finished outside of the top 20 receivers than inside the top five at the position.
Darnell Mooney, WR
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Mooney is inactive for today's game
Darnell Mooney has cleared 70 air yards in both of Michael Penix Jr.’s starts but with very different outcomes, production lines that weren’t skewed due to a touchdown.
Week 16: 74 air yards, 9.8 expected points, and 13.2 points
Week 17: 78 air yards, 8.0 expected points, and 5.7 points
I think that is what we are going to see as this offense adjusts to Penix (this week and potentially in the postseason should they qualify). The do-or-die nature of this game is nice, but my lack of clarity as to how much work I can reasonably pencil in for Mooney has him outside of my top 35 receivers this week.
Last week, Drake London saw 13 targets while Kyle Pitts, Bijan Robinson, and Darnell Mooney split 15 evenly. Atlanta’s WR2 was running hot coming into the Week 6 meeting with the Panthers and managed only three catches and a 17.2% target share.
There’s just as much risk as reward in this Week 18 profile, and that has me searching in other places to fill my Flex spot.
Adam Thielen, WR
The Adam Thielen experience has been unique over the past two seasons, as it has featured two hot streaks (11 games) and below-average production otherwise (16 games):
- Hot streaks: 21.4 PPG, 25.5% over expectation
- Otherwise: 8.4 PPG, 9.9% below expectation
The Panthers are going to compete in this game and they might cover, but what motivation do they have to weigh down their veteran receiver with usage?
None.
That doesn’t mean they won’t, NFL teams baffle me with their decision-making weekly. However, it does mean we have to tread lightly, as Jalen Coker is a rookie who could use these reps a lot more.
This offense looked different back in Week 6, but Andy Dalton fed Diontae Johnson 27% of the targets, and he turned them into nearly 20 PPR points. That slot role is likely to hold value, and while I have Thielen as the favorite to earn most of that work, I’m not overly confident in the exact rate.
He currently sits as my WR29 this week and is a player I’d rather roll the dice on than a veteran like Calvin Ridley, who doesn’t have a rookie QB to work on developing.
Kyle Pitts, TE
Did anyone else get flashbacks watching Kyle Pitts make big plays against the Commanders last week?
For me, it was less about the plays on the field (we get those from time to time) and more about the sucking us back in. We see a promising young QB come in and bump up the value of a player with elite pedigree and profile – this has all the making of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown again.
Listen, I’m not all the way out on Pitts (he has four top-10 finishes this season and I’m guessing that’s more than you thought), but I’m going to need much more than one data point to undo the damage that Pitts has done to many a redraft/dynasty/DFS roster.
In taking a step back from the Week 17 excitement, you’ll realize that Pitts’ target rate in two Michael Penix Jr. starts (16.3% of routes) is right in line with the rate we were previously complaining about (16.9%).
Pitts had a 52-yard catch in the Week 6 matchup against the Panthers and is playing for a highly motivated team – that’s what has him on the fringe of TE1 status for me this week more than his big play last week.
Ja’Tavion Sanders, TE
Ja’Tavion Sanders showed nice playmaking potential early in the season, but he’s now an afterthought and can be safely left alone this week.
The rookie has been on the field for under 60% of Carolina’s offensive snaps in five straight games and over his past three contests, he’s earned just three targets on his 82 routes. His recent trajectory gives me little confidence that he can repeat the five-catch performance he gave us against Atlanta back in Week 6. I’m keeping Sanders on my radar for 2025 sleepers at the position, but that breakout doesn’t appear likely to start on Sunday.