Haynes King and several Carolina Panthers rookies turned an off-site parking lot into a second practice field during minicamp, running impromptu walk-throughs between the stadium and the hotel after Friday afternoon work left a few plays needing more time.
King said he texted anyone whose number he had and asked them to find more players who could run offensive plays. By the time the group got organized, it included a full offensive line, a tight end, three receivers and a quarterback. “It was kind of like a knock on the door, trying to find (people),” King said.
For Chris Brazzell II, the answer was simple. “I mean, you got to get it where you get it,” he said. Brazzell said King was going over plays with him in the locker room and then led another walk-through in the parking lot. “He’s in the locker room, helped me go over to plays, talking the plays out for me, so he’s a good leader,” Brazzell said. He added that King pushed the group back out to walk through the offense because “a lot of people want to be great, so he decided he was like, ‘Man, we go to the parking lot, go walk this.’”
King said the extra work focused on the plays that had given the group trouble Friday afternoon. “We had a couple of hard ones and wanted to be able to communicate and be able to operate at a high level when we went out there,” he said. “Sometimes when you hear them the first time, you play a little slow.” Coaches said the group got through everything on Saturday with a smooth operation.
The Panthers see King as a backup prospect because of the experience and maturity he brings after six college seasons, with three at Texas A&M and three with the Yellow Jackets. He led Georgia Tech to a 22-14 record, finished 10th in Heisman voting in 2025, threw for 2,951 yards and ran for 953 yards while scoring 29 touchdowns, and was named ACC player of the year. He is 25 years old, older than Bryce Young, who will turn 25 in July.
That age gap fits a larger point coach Dave Canales said the staff is seeing in rookie camp. “There certainly is, for the guys that we're seeing, 24 and 25 year olds coming out, and there's a maturity to them,” Canales said. “There's a professionalism about how they handle their life inside the building and outside of the building, just kind of having their world in order.” In a short rookie minicamp window, the parking lot session was more than improvisation. It was a glimpse of how the Panthers want the younger but older rookies in the room to think: find the work, repeat the work and make it count before the real evaluations begin.
