{"id":243881,"date":"2025-08-26T07:50:01","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=243881"},"modified":"2025-08-30T10:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:37:09","slug":"fantasy-football-tetairoa-mcmillan-outlook-with-adam-thielen-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2025\/08\/26\/fantasy-football-tetairoa-mcmillan-outlook-with-adam-thielen-trade-rumors\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy Football: Tetairoa McMillan Outlook After Adam Thielen Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update (8\/27\/25): The Carolina Panthers have traded Adam Thielen to the Minnesota Vikings.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Carolina Panthers selected wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan with the eighth-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft<\/a>, and the Arizona product may have a path to fantasy football dominance right out of the gate. Adam Thielen is still a member of the Panthers as of this posting, but reports across the league indicate the Vikings could trade for him<\/a> at any moment. Seeing as fantasy drafts are happening all over the world as we speak, how should you value McMillan given the uncertainty surrounding Thielen’s status?<\/p>\n

Tetairoa McMillan Fantasy Football Outlook With Adam Thielen Trade Rumors<\/h2>\n

McMillan Himself<\/h3>\n

The most important part of finding fantasy football success is actually being good at football, so let’s start this analysis by looking at Tetairoa McMillan himself. While he has yet to play in a regular season game, all signs point to him being a great player at the professional level.<\/p>\n

There is no such thing as a can’t-miss prospect, but McMillan checks just about every box you could hope for. Based on film alone, the Arizona product is a big, physical receiver with the size to win downfield and the versatility to line up throughout the formation. While he’s not the fastest player in the league, his ability to high-point the football and create separation at the top of routes suggests he will succeed at the NFL level.<\/p>\n

The film is good, and the metrics are even better. Draft capital is the most predictive metric out there, and his top-10 draft capital suggests he’ll be a star for years to come. Of course, draft misses happen all the time, which is why it’s important to check his collegiate production. Fortunately, he checks every box you’re looking for there, as his breakout age (19.4), college target share (30.1%), and college dominator (44.4%) all point towards NFL success. Even going back to high school, McMillan was a five-star recruit and a top-five receiver nationally.<\/p>\n

Again, there is no way to guarantee success at the NFL level, but all signs point towards Tetairoa McMillan having a strong career, both in real life and fantasy football. The only question now is how long it will take for him to find professional success.<\/p>\n

Projecting the 2025 Carolina Panthers<\/h3>\n

Tetairoa McMillan is a good prospect, but he’s not an elite one like Ja’Marr Chase<\/a> was when he entered the NFL. There will probably be some growing pains, and while he could earn a 30% target share in the future, he’ll probably hover around the 23-25% range as a rookie. This should make him the top option in Carolina’s passing attack, but there are still other mouths to feed.<\/p>\n

In addition to Adam Thielen, the Panthers have a series of promising young talent in 2024 first-round pick Xavier Legette<\/a>, Jalen Coker, and tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders. While all three players project as role players at this stage in their respective careers, they’re all good enough to demand a certain percentage of the targets.<\/p>\n

Last year, Thielen recorded a\u00a0 20.2% target share. Seeing as he’s another year older, he’ll probably finish around 18% if he remains with the Panthers. If he ends up with the Vikings, Tetairoa McMillan will probably see his target share increase by 2-3% while most of those vacated targets become evenly distributed among the rest of the wide receivers.<\/p>\n

FanDuel currently projects Bryce Young to throw for 3,200 passing yards. If you assume 25% of those go to Tetairoa McMillan, then he’ll finish the year with 800 yards. Personally, I’m taking the over on this and expecting McMillan to finish the fantasy football season with roughly 70 receptions for 900 yards and five touchdowns. This would likely make him a mid- to low-end WR2, regardless of what happens with Adam Thielen.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Troy Taormina – Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do the Adam Thielen trade rumors mean for Carolina Panthers first-round pick Tetairoa McMillan in fantasy football?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":243884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,30],"tags":[1460,349,7661,33031],"class_list":["post-243881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-panthers","tag-adam-thielen","tag-fantasy-football-rankings","tag-panthers-featured","tag-tetairoa-mcmillan"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243881"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244401,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243881\/revisions\/244401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}