Pieces to the Puzzle: Jonathon Brooks

Now that the Panthers have new pieces for their 2024 puzzle, how do those pieces fit?

With the 2024 NFL Draft behind us, we now have the opportunity to look forward and predict how this draft class will fit into the current regime’s plans. Obviously the coaches and scouts believe these players fit in some form or fashion into at least one of the three phases, but let’s try to look at past trends from this coaching staff and guess what type of usage we can expect from the newest Carolina Panthers.

The Panthers traded down, then back up to select RB Jonathon Brooks out of Texas with the 46th pick in the Draft. While halfback was considered a need by most, grabbing the first one off the board came as a bit of a shock, especially considering he tore his ACL in November. Still, that was the pick that was made, so let’s take a closer look at Brooks’s game and head coach Dave Canales’s scheme to see how they fit together.

The first thing that jumped out at me while researching for this article was how eerily similar Brooks is to Tampa Bay’s RB Rachaad White, who was the bell cow for Dave Canales last season. They have almost identical height, weight, arm length, and hand size. Then there were these two nuggets, courtesy of NFL.com’s draft profiles for the two players:

Second-team All-Conference, almost identical numbers of carries, similar touchdown production, missed time due to a leg injury their last seasons in college. Despite the small sample size, Brooks seems to have better short area quickness and quicker feet than White, as well as better contact balance. Both of their draft profiles mentioned a prolific ability to stack defenders before making cuts, allowing them to gain good yardage even when the blockers are outnumbered. Brooks has good top speed overall, but lacks true breakaway speed. That level of speed doesn’t appear to be required in the offensive system Canales prefers to run. Let’s look at how Canales used the very similar White in his lone season as Bucs offensive coordinator.

Tampa Bay had a true one back system for the most part, with White taking over 60% of the total team carries (75% of the running back carries). He averaged just over two yards before contact, which is near the bottom of the league. This basically means that the offensive line was not very effective in run blocking, leading to White getting hit relatively early in the carry. He finished the year with 990 yards with six touchdowns on the ground (just 3.6 yards per carry). Canales implemented a wide zone scheme that Seattle liked to run under Pete Carrol, which you can read more about in this great article on Pewter Report.

White also featured heavily in the passing game, with the third most targets, receptions, and yards behind only Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in all three categories. With an average depth of target of -0.6 yards, it’s clear that White was used as a safety valve and screen game weapon as opposed to more of a downfield threat. He did average over nine yards after the catch, so Canales was able to scheme him open despite him being behind the line of scrimmage. White’s final stat line receiving had him catching 64 of 70 targets for 549 yards and three touchdowns.

With Jonathon Brooks being slightly quicker and better balanced that White, I believe a Brooks can be incredibly effective within Canales’s wide zone scheme. Because he’s coming off an injury, and because Chuba Hubbard showed out last season, I don’t think Brooks will be a bell cow back on the same level of Rachaad White, at least not yet. This makes the thousand yard mark less likely, at least at first. I could see Brooks being the go-to third down back because of his receiving ability out of the backfield. If Canales uses Brooks similar to how he used White, I would wager that Brooks finishes his rookie season with around 175 carries for 800 yards and five touchdowns on the ground, while netting 45 catches for 400 yards and two touchdowns through the air.

How do you think Brooks will be used this season? What kind of stats do you think he’ll put up? Sound off in the comments!