Young and McMillan carry Carolina past Detroit, 32-26, on Sunday night

Carolina beat Detroit 32-26 on Sunday night in Charlotte. Bryce Young completed 29 of 41 passes for 329 yards and threw two touchdowns, both to Tetairoa McMillan. McMillan finished with 14 receptions for 192 yards, a career high. Chuba Hubbard carried 20 times for 122 yards and two touchdowns. The Panthers are 2-2 and won at home for the first time in two tries this season. The Lions are also 2-2.

Young started the night by completing his first 11 passes. He entered the week leading the league in passing yards. Two of his top three wide receivers, Jalen Coker and Xavier Legette, were out. The targets went to McMillan, the 2025 Offensive Rookie of the Year. McMillan had nine catches for 147 yards and a 32-yard touchdown in the first half. He joined Steve Smith Sr. and Patrick Jeffers as the only Carolina players with at least 10 receptions, 150 yards and two touchdowns in a game. He finished one catch and nine yards short of the franchise single-game records in those two categories.

Detroit's passing night, and the ground game it did not run

Jared Goff completed 32 of 52 passes for 412 yards and a touchdown. Jameson Williams caught six passes for 102 yards. Jake Bates kicked field goals from 54, 43, 41 and 26 yards. Jahmyr Gibbs added 77 yards from scrimmage and scored his seventh touchdown of the year. Detroit ran on only 15 of 68 snaps. The ground game was not the plan, and the plan still produced 412 passing yards and a one-score loss.

Brad Marchand is not in this game. The relevant return, on the Detroit side, was the volume: Goff's 52 attempts are a heavy passing script against a Panthers defence that Carolina described as short of bodies. Carolina still held Detroit to two touchdowns. The other Detroit points came from Bates. A 32-26 final with four field goals in it is a game that stayed in range without becoming a shootout on the scoreboard, even with 741 combined passing yards.

The sequence that decided it

The score was 16-16 at half-time after field goals from Fitzgerald, from 47 yards, and Bates, from 41, in the last 30 seconds of the half. Carolina then scored on six straight possessions after punting on the opening drive. Hubbard's two rushing touchdowns and Young's two throws to McMillan sat inside that run. Detroit got the ball back after a punt late and drove 67 yards in 2 minutes 29 seconds. Goff's 8-yard pass to Sam LaPorta with 3:38 left cut the lead to 32-26. Carolina did not give the ball back in a way that let Detroit tie it.

The franchise line on McMillan is the detail that will outlast the week. Fourteen catches, 192 yards, two touchdowns, and a place next to Smith and Jeffers on a three-name list, is a single-game record in everything but the last catch and the last nine yards. Hubbard's 122 yards were a season high, on 20 carries, in a week when the receiving corps was short. Young, the first pick in 2023, now has a Sunday night win at home to set beside the league lead in passing yards he carried into the game.

Both clubs sit at 2-2. The next useful comparison is not the record. It is how Detroit replaces 15 called runs in a game it lost by six, and how Carolina replaces Coker and Legette if McMillan's 14 targets become the weekly plan rather than the emergency one.