John Metchie III

Week 1 of 2026 he did not play, week 2 he caught nothing, and the highlight of his season so far is 9.9 points in week 3. Five catches and 56 yards through three games tells you exactly what he is giving you, and none of it surprises us. Our preseason number was 66 points, built on a 4.7-a-game pace over 14 expected games, and he is running exactly at that pace. The problem is the pace was never good enough to matter.

Look at the room he walked into. CAR made him the fourth receiver, behind Tetairoa McMillan and Xavier Legette, who together took 41% of the targets in 2025. Receivers in his spot have historically dropped 0.9 points a game the following season, and on a team with 5.5 expected wins the pie is small before anyone cuts it. Dave Canales and Brad Idzik both return, so the pecking order he is stuck at the bottom of is the same one from last year. His 11.1% target share in 2025 was fine for what it was, but his average depth of target was 5.6 yards, 194th among qualifying receivers, so even his catches rarely turn into anything.

He changed teams from NYJ to CAR and it did not move his outlook, and drafters left him unpicked before the season, which tells you league mates saw the same wall. His best trait is availability, 13 and 14 games the last two years with one injury miss between them, but a healthy fourth receiver is still a fourth receiver. He is on rosters as a depth stash, and that is all he is. Let him go and spend the spot on a receiver with a real path to targets.