Panthers’ Haynes King Deals With Hamstring Injury as Schefter Floats Taysom Hill Comparison
Haynes King spent four days as the best story in the NFL preseason, then spent the fifth in a walking boot conversation nobody wanted to have. The Carolina Panthers quarterback threw for 180 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a game-winning score in the Hall of Fame Game against Arizona, then found out the next day he’d banged up his hamstring doing it.
Head coach Dave Canales confirmed the injury Sunday, and he pointed to the exact play — King’s diving touchdown as time expired in Carolina’s 33-30 win.
“From what I understood, it was on that last play where he kind of like lunged in and dove for the goal line and really gave everything he had,” Canales said. “We’ll just keep evaluating him on a weekly basis.”
King will sit out Saturday’s game against Buffalo, and Canales said the team will reassess after that. In the meantime, Carolina brought in Kyle Trask as a stopgap third quarterback, a move that says more about Carolina’s thin depth chart than it does about King’s standing in the QB2 race behind Bryce Young.
Schefter Floats a Taysom Hill Role for Haynes King
The injury hasn’t cooled anyone’s interest in what King’s usage could look like once he’s healthy. Adam Schefter said on “The Pat McAfee Show” that Carolina could use King the way the Saints have used Taysom Hill for the better part of a decade.
“Haynes King is somebody that I think is going to have a role there in Carolina this season. He’s going to make the team, and it wouldn’t shock me if they wound up using him like in a Taysom Hill role there,” Schefter said.
"I think Haynes King is gonna have a role with the Carolina Panthers..
It wouldn't shock me if they used him in a Taysom Hill role" ~ @AdamSchefter #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/rrGOsaaNw3
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 10, 2026
Worth being precise about what that comparison actually means, because “Taysom Hill role” gets thrown around loosely. Hill has never been a full-time snap-count player even in his best seasons — he topped 40 percent of Saints offensive snaps in roughly half his games in 2024, and his 2025 usage dipped as low as five snaps in a single outing. What makes him valuable isn’t volume. It’s that he’s a live short-yardage and red-zone changeup who forces a defense to prepare for a run-pass-option built around a real passing threat instead of a straight wildcat gimmick.
That’s the version of King the Panthers can plausibly build toward — not a snap-share battle with Young, but a package. King’s tape from the Hall of Fame Game supports it: he extends plays with his legs, and Carolina already runs zone-read concepts under Canales that would translate to a King package without needing a separate offensive install.
Why the Hamstring Timing Matters
This is the part getting lost in the Schefter buzz. A package role built on live-action rushing reps is exactly the kind of usage a hamstring injury threatens most. Carolina doesn’t need King fully healthy to throw from the pocket — they need him fully healthy to trust him on designed runs without worrying about re-aggravation, which is a much higher bar. If this lingers past Week 1, any Taysom Hill-style plan likely gets shelved until he’s built back up, not just cleared to practice.
King is a 25-year-old undrafted free agent out of Georgia Tech, where he ran for 953 yards and 15 touchdowns last season on top of throwing for nearly 3,000 yards. The traits are real. So is the medical file — he already lost a season to injury at Texas A&M before transferring. None of that means this hamstring is serious. It just means Carolina has reason to be conservative with him regardless of how good he looked against Arizona.
What’s Next for Carolina at Quarterback
Young remains the unquestioned starter. The real competition is for QB2, where King had been building a case over Kenny Pickett before Thursday’s injury. Carolina hosts three more preseason games before final cuts, and how quickly King returns will likely decide whether that competition resolves on the field or by default.
The Panthers open the regular season Sept. 13 against the Chicago Bears.
