It's just preseason, but for Jonathon Brooks this one meant something. The Panthers running back punched in a 1-yard touchdown run to open the scoring in Carolina's 34-17 win over the Jaguars on Friday, capping a 7-play, 58-yard drive with the first-team offense.
Jonathon Brooks’ first NFL touchdown. https://t.co/EaNNfyoamc
The score itself is basically a footnote in a preseason box score. What made it hit different is everything Brooks had to climb through to get there. Carolina took him 46th overall in the 2024 draft out of Texas while he was still rehabbing a torn ACL, he only saw three games that rookie season, and then a second knee injury wiped out the rest of his 2024 and all of 2025. Friday was his first real snap of real significance since that mess started.
After the play, Brooks touched a tattoo honoring his late father before pointing to the sky, and admitted afterward it felt "pretty amazing" even knowing preseason stats don't count for the books. That's the kind of context a stat sheet can't capture, and it's why the reaction to this touchdown looked more like a career milestone than a glorified exhibition play.
Fantasy Twitter didn't care that it was preseason either. FantasyPros posted the clip with a simple "love to see it," the kind of reaction that tends to spike a name's search volume heading into draft season.
Love to see it 👏 Jonathan Brooks first NFL TD! https://t.co/X6L7RFNJs2
SleeperNFL went further, joking that Brooks' ADP was headed "to the moon" off the strength of one preseason score. That's the tension with Brooks in real fantasy circles right now: he's currently going around pick 100 overall, which analysts have framed as a fair, low-cost bet given the injury risk rather than a player worth reaching for. Chuba Hubbard remains the incumbent starter in Carolina and is signed through 2028, and the Panthers offense itself has been one of the league's worst by the numbers, ranking near the bottom in red zone drives, yards per play and points per game.
JONATHON BROOKS ADP TO THE MOON https://t.co/ndz7x1Xs2K
None of that changes what one healthy, meaningful drive looked like for a guy who's spent nearly 2 years fighting his way back from injury. Whether Brooks turns this into real touches once the games count is the actual question for fantasy managers — but for at least one night, the moon jokes and the ADP chatter were secondary to a running back finally getting to celebrate something.