Cat Scratch Reader
What happened to Xavier Legette’s game over the second half of the season?
As far as storylines go, the end of the Carolina Panthers 2024 season was defined by the emergence of Bryce Young and the historically poor performance of the defense, leaving little room for a lot of other stories to garner much air time.
With the season now in the rearview, it’s time to take a look at one of those stories that hasn’t quite gotten the attention you would expect it to: what happened to Xavier Legette?
While Legette’s critical drop in the final moments against the Philadelphia Eagles that cost the Panthers the lead comes to mind immediately for most fans, there were plenty of other lowlights during the back half of Legette’s season that overshadowed much of what he accomplished in the first half of the season.
Legette played in 16 games his rookie year and while the total number of receptions and yardage totals were similar, many of the other statistical categories took significant turns to for the worse.
22 receptions on 33 targets (66.7%), 211 yards, 3 touchdown, 3 drops, 8 contested catches on 9 contested targets (88.9%), 114.4 QB rating when targeted
27 receptions on 48 targets (56.3%), 286 yards, 1 touchdown, 5 drops, 4 contested catches on 14 contested targets (28.6%), 72.0 QB rating when targeted
For some more added context, Legette’s lone touchdown during the final 8 games of the season came in the first of those 8 games, during the Panthers second game against the New Orleans Saints. After Legette had 4 touchdowns in 6 games, he then finished the final 7 games without a score.
The egregious drops aside, the most glaring issue was Legette’s inability to win contested catches. Dropping from an 88.9% contested catch rate to a 28.6% contested catch rate over the same sample size of games is a drastic drop that, to me, represents the main reason for his underwhelming second half performance.
It’s one thing to notice this drop in production, it’s another to put a finger on the “why” behind it. While there are likely many reasons (or excuses), one of the main culprits is usually injuries. At various points during the season, Legette had injury an designation of toe, wrist, hip, shoulder, foot and hamstring. Legette himself swore the injuries were not responsible for his misplays, but I wouldn’t expect him to try and make excuses for himself.
Another factor that may have contributed to Legette’s struggles is much less tangible, that being his confidence. Injuries play a part in that, as does a change in role. After Adam Thielen came back from an injury suffered in Week 3, Diontae Johnson and Jonathan Mingo were sent off during the trade deadline, so the Panthers moved Legette to the X position at receiver. Legette was more often isolated on the boundary, which limited his ability to be moved...
