We have our first standout of the 2026 NFL season, and his name is Haynes King. The Carolina Panthers quarterback and former Georgia Tech star took full advantage of his opportunity during the Hall of Fame Game against the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday night, playing the last two and a half quaters in Canton and throwing for 180 yards and two TDs while rushing for the game-winning score in the final seconds.
Of course, any performance against backups in early August should be taken with several heaping helpings of salt. But for a Panthers team with an unsettled QB2 situation, King's performance certainly opened some eyes. It could also give him the inside track to back up Bryce Young once the regular season rolls around — and force the other option for that job, Kenny Pickett, out of town.
While King was showing off his dual-threat dynamism against Arizona, Pickett was his usual pedestrian self, throwing for 62 yards on largely checkdowns while taking a sack and generating one touchdown (and two three-and-outs) across three drives. It should be pretty clear that his future doesn't lie in Carolina, which should have the Panthers hoping they can pawn him off on someone else with question marks behind their starting quarterback.
Proposed Panthers-Patriots trade for Kenny Pickett
No team fits that description better than the Buffalo Bills, which are currently set to enter 2026 with Kyle Allen and Shane Buechele backing up Josh Allen — hardly ideal considering the physical toll that Josh Allen is exposed to on a weekly basis.
Pickett's stock could hardly be lower right now; his time as a starter in Pittsburgh was largely disastrous, and he's spent the last two years looking like a replacement-level quarterback while backing up in Philadelphia and Las Vegas. But he is a QB with a pulse and NFL game experience, and this time of year, that should be worth at least a seventh-round pick. The Buffalo Bills have two of those in next year's draft, so they can afford to send one to Carolina to try and address one of the league's sketchiest QB2 situations.
Why the Bills should consider trading for Kenny Pickett
Josh Allen has proven famously indestructible in his NFL career to date. But expecting that to last forever is playing with fire, especially considering just how much punishment he takes over the course of a full season. And right now, all that Buffalo has behind its MVP candidate is Kyle Allen — who hasn't started a game since 2022, when he completed 51.3 percent of his passes with one TD and two picks in a loss to the Cleveland Browns while in Houston — and practice squad option Shane Buechele.
Is Pickett a significant upgrade on those two? That's very much an open question at this point; he really hasn't shown much in his NFL career, and his well-documented ball security issues probably aren't the best fit for Buffalo winters. But he at the very least has started his fair share of games at this level without actively melting down, and at this point the Bills just need to add some sort of body to create a sense of competition for what is an underratedly important spot on the depth chart.
Maybe Pickett proves even worse than Kyle Allen or Buechele. The Bills have to test out that theory, though, because going into 2026 with such a black hole behind their foundational star is untenable.
Did Haynes King show enough to win Panthers' QB2 job?
Of course, there's also a chance that we're getting way out ahead of ourselves based on one largely meaningless preseason performance from King. He went undrafted for a reason; he's a dynamic athlete, but he's also very raw as a passer, and one decent stat line through the air against backups on a bad defense in August doesn't do much of anything to move us off that scouting report.
That said, he probably showed enough to pass Pickett on the depth chart. If the Panthers are forced to spend significant time without Bryce Young, the 2026 season is likely sunk no matter what. But at least King's ability to move around and make things happen with his legs gives them a path to staying afloat for a half or even a full game. What is Pickett's value add at this point? He doesn't have the arm to push the ball downfield, and he can't even take care of the ball reliably.
If Caroilna can get anything of value for Pickett, they're better off striking now, handing the keys to King and maybe signing another body as camp competition. Oh, and then just pray Young gets through 17 games healthy.
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