Fantasy Football Impact: Panthers Add Miles Sanders to Backfield

The former Eagles running back helped lead his team to the Super Bowl but now joins a Carolina team that is in rebuild mode.

The Panthers have found their new No. 1 running back, signing former Eagles back Miles Sanders. With D’Onta Foreman a free agent, it’s a good landing spot for the former Penn State standout. He’ll also be reunited with his former running back coach, Duce Staley, so it was a natural move for the veteran back.

Sanders is coming off a solid season, posting a career-best 1,347 scrimmage yards and 11 touchdowns. That was good enough to finish with 216.7 fantasy points. It wasn’t his best season though, as Sanders averaged more points per game in both 2019 and 2020. He was also painfully inconsistent in the stat sheets, scoring single-digit points in eight of his 17 games including each of the last four contests.

In Carolina, he’ll project to be the early-down and goal-line back while sharing some of the workload with Chuba Hubbard. Sanders can be a decent pass catcher, which he proved as a rookie with 50 catches, but he’s seen his reception totals decline in each of the last three seasons which will hurt him in PPR formats.

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While it’s a good place for Sanders to land, I’d still be hard pressed to trust him as anything more than a risk-reward, low-end No. 2 fantasy runner. Some level of regression is likely coming in an offense that will start a rookie quarterback (the Panthers have the top overall pick in the NFL draft) or veteran Andy Dalton.

In Philadelphia, the Eagles’ top back on the depth chart is newly-signed Rashaad Penny. However, there’s a good chance the team will draft a running back who could push Penny, Kenneth Gainwell and Boston Scott for touches next season.