Jonathon Brooks has been waiting three years for this. Carolina traded up to grab him in the second round of the 2024 draft out of Texas, banking on a running back who could carry a backfield for a decade. Instead, he's spent most of his young career on IR.
The injury history is brutal. Brooks tore his ACL as a senior at Texas, got drafted anyway, then tore the same knee again against the Eagles in Week 14 of his rookie season — just his third career NFL game. That second tear wiped out all of 2025 too; he opened last season on PUP and never got activated. He hadn't taken part in a single NFL training camp practice until July 23 of this year.
Chuba Hubbard will also play.
That's why Adam Schefter's confirmation carries weight — this isn't a token preseason cameo. Brooks will suit up Saturday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park against the Bills, his first NFL appearance of any kind since that Eagles game in December 2024.
Panthers third-year running back Jonathon Brooks will appear in the first preseason game of his NFL career on Saturday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, against the Buffalo Bills. Story via @mike_e_kaye: https://t.co/YXdwRnZ9le
Head coach Dave Canales isn't hedging on the workload either, saying Brooks is "ready to rock — he's ready to play football." The plan is to rotate him with Chuba Hubbard across a couple of drives, treating this less like a preseason exhibition and more like a real evaluation of whether Brooks can still be the every-down back Carolina thought it drafted.
Hubbard, for his part, has quietly become the Panthers' workhorse while Brooks rehabbed — so Saturday isn't about a competition so much as a reintroduction. If Brooks looks anything like the back who was tearing off chunk runs at Texas before the injuries piled up, Carolina's backfield picture gets a lot more interesting heading into the regular season.