Carolina Lost 286 Touches. Jonathon Brooks Is the Cheap Bet to Inherit Them.
Rico Dowdle carried the Panthers to a 1,000-yard season, then left for Pittsburgh. That workload is open, and a 2024 second-round talent is going as RB39 to chase it. The upside is a league-winner. The catch is a double ACL.
The most valuable thing in a fantasy draft is not talent, it is vacated opportunity: a proven workload that suddenly has no clear owner. Carolina just created a big one, and the cheapest way to bet on it is Jonathon Brooks.
The workload that left
Rico Dowdle was the engine of Carolina's 2025 backfield: 286 touches, 1,076 rushing yards, seven touchdowns, and a dominant goal-line role (37 red-zone touches, eight goal-line carries). That is a true lead-back season, and this offseason he signed with Pittsburgh. In fantasy terms, a bell-cow-sized workload just walked out the door.
Who inherits it
Chuba Hubbard is the favorite. He is RB1 on the depth chart, going as RB30, and he already handled 173 touches in 2025. But note the qualifier: even as the incumbent he played just 46% of the snaps last year while sharing with Dowdle, so he has never held a true bell-cow grip. A vacated 286 touches does not automatically flow to one man, and that is where the value hides.
Why Brooks is the cheap way in
Before the injuries, Brooks was the first running back drafted in his class, a smooth three-down profile Carolina spent second-round capital on for a reason. The recent signal is encouraging: the Panthers' own coverage this summer has him back on the field and flashing burst, an ACL-comeback story with real validation. High draft capital, a genuinely open workload, and a last-round price is the exact recipe that produces league-winners.
How to actually use him
This is not a draft-him-as-your-RB2 argument. It is a bench stash and a lottery ticket: the price is a last-round pick, the payoff is a share of a starting NFL backfield with a real goal-line role. You are not paying for what he has done, because he has not done anything yet. You are paying for the capital, the opening, and the health, in that order.