In what was projected as a weak wide receiver class for quite some time, Tetairoa McMillan maintained his place as an elite prospect from wire to wire. McMillan’s combination of size and savvy led to him producing out of the gate at Arizona, putting up big numbers in each of his three seasons in Tucson. While not a flawless prospect, there was still enough to like about McMillan’s profile for the Panthers to select him eighth overall in the 2025 NFL Draft.

After being tied to such lofty draft capital, we should expect McMillan to get every chance to become Bryce Young’s top target in Carolina’s rebuilding offense. However, the team also has a multitude of additional young pass catchers who they must continue to evaluate over the course of the 2025 season. Add in the lingering presence of Young’s favorite target, Adam Thielen, and McMillan’s path to targets may not be as clear-cut as we may want to believe. There is also the chance that we see Young regress after he looked like he was turning the corner at the end of 2024.

With plenty of questions looming, can McMillan rise above his circumstances to become a true alpha receiver in his rookie year?

Tetairoa McMillan’s NFL Comps

McMillan and his high school quarterback, Noah Fifita, both committed to Arizona after graduating from Servite High School in Anaheim, California. While Fifita had to wait to see the field, McMillan’s four-star status led to him playing on Day 1. As a true freshman, McMillan did not disappoint, posting a 25% receiving dominator rating (RDR) and averaging 18.0 yards per reception.

Once Fifita got on the field in 2023, McMillan averaged 3.02 yards per team attempt (YPTA) while breaking out with a 31% RDR. Despite head coach Jedd Fisch leaving Arizona to fill the vacancy left by the departure of Kalen DeBoer at Washington, McMillan and Fifita chose to remain in Tucson together. The coaching change hurt Fifita’s efficiency, but McMillan kept on his upward trajectory by posting a 44% RDR while matching his 3.02 YPTA from 2023.

Diving deeper into McMillan’s advanced stats also paints him as a player who grew in each of his college seasons. As a freshman, he was primarily a deep threat, putting up a solid 702 receiving yards at an aDOT of 15.6 yards. Meanwhile, his 0.039 points earned per route, 1.6 yards per route run (YPRR), 99.7 receiver rating, 75.5 on-target catch percentage (OTC%), and 2.6% evasion rate (EVAS%) left plenty of room to grow.

Over the following two seasons, McMillan’s aDOT settled between 12.5 and 13.0 yards, and his efficiency increased dramatically. McMillan put together back-to-back seasons of 3.2 YPRR, with his 2024 output only trailing Tre Harris and Pat Bryant among the 2025 rookie class. Perhaps the most dramatic improvement came in McMillan’s elusiveness, posting a 15.6% EVAS% as a sophomore. He then went on to more than double his evasion rate as a junior, sporting a balanced 32.1% EVAS% (15.5% broken tackle rate, 16.7% forced missed tackle rate) that trailed only Bryant and Luther Burden III among the rookie class.

Still, a couple of minor red flags stand out. In a development that may seem contradictory to his elite 2024 EVAS%, McMillan has only been average after the catch, never putting up more than 6.0 yards after the catch per reception or 2.1 yards after contact per reception in any of his collegiate seasons. Although he did become a more reliable target over the course of his college career, his high mark of 90.8% OTC% in 2024 is lower than we would expect from a blue-chip prospect.

McMillan chose not to participate at the combine, but it was reported that he ran between 4.55 and 4.58 seconds in the forty at his pro day. When dealing with testing numbers from pro days, it is always better to err on the side of caution. Given his size of 6 feet 4 inches and 219 pounds, using the slower of the two numbers results in a freak score of 62 (77th percentile), aligning him with players like Eric Decker, Allen Robinson, Michael Thomas, and Jalen Royals. Of the cohort, Decker and Robinson are the two players who most closely resemble McMillan stylistically. ^[1]Inputting a forty time of 4.55 seconds results in a freak score of 65 (82nd percentile), similar to Pierre Garcon, Dez Bryant, Torrey Smith, Will Fuller, D.J. Moore, Henry Ruggs, Treylon Burks, Elic Ayomanor, and Matthew Golden.

Even though Travis Hunter was selected before him, McMillan’s score of 87 in the WR Prospect Lab still came out as the highest in the class. Once again, using the 4.58-second forty time from McMillan’s pro day, the comparisons in the Box Score Scout are mostly encouraging; however, the level of correlation in the sim scores creates some uncertainty about how much we should rely on the results beyond the top few players. If we remove McMillan’s forty time altogether, the names on the list remain largely unchanged, but the sim scores actually end up going down in most cases.