The Carolina Panthers opened the NFL's 2026 preseason with the kind of finish that outlasts a summer news cycle. Rookie quarterback Haynes King scrambled five yards for a touchdown with no time left on the clock, lifting Carolina to a 33-30 win over the Arizona Cardinals in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Thursday night at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
The victory, first in what is an exhibition slate that carries no bearing on the standings, nonetheless produced real consequences. King's spectacular relief effort has scrambled Carolina's quarterback pecking order behind starter Bryce Young, while Arizona rookie Carson Beck's sharp first half left the Cardinals with an intriguing decision of their own buried three deep on their depth chart.
How it happened
Carolina trailed 14-7 when King, an undrafted free agent out of Georgia Tech, replaced veteran Kenny Pickett with 9:38 left in the second quarter. He finished 21 of 34 for 180 yards and two touchdowns — a 15-yarder and the game-winner — without an interception, adding 39 rushing yards on three carries. His final snap came on third-and-goal from the 5 with two seconds remaining, capping a 13-play, 65-yard drive with a dive across the goal line as the clock expired, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame's recap of the game.
Beck, Arizona's third-round pick out of Georgia, was arguably the better quarterback for most of the night. He opened 11 of 14 for 148 yards and a touchdown in the first half, directing three straight scoring drives, and finished 15 of 19 for 188 yards, a touchdown and a 125.4 passer rating. NFL.com's postgame breakdown called Beck the best player on the field through the first 30 minutes, praising his timing on intermediate throws and his willingness to push the ball outside the numbers. But Carolina's defense tightened in the second half, and King's late heroics were enough to erase Beck's edge on the stat sheet.
Neither rookie is competing for a Week 1 starting job — Young remains entrenched atop Carolina's depth chart, and Arizona begins the season with Jacoby Brissett as its starter and Gardner Minshew II as the primary backup, a pecking order that took shape after the team moved on from Kyler Murray this offseason. Beck, per multiple reports including Yahoo Sports' rundown of Arizona's quarterback room, was ticketed to open the year as the No. 3 quarterback even before Thursday's game, but his performance has renewed chatter about whether he can push up that chart during the rest of camp.
For Carolina, King's outing carries an unmistakable urgency: the touchdown run that won the game also cost him. Panthers coach Dave Canales confirmed King suffered a hamstring injury on the play and is considered week-to-week, with the team signing veteran Kyle Trask to shore up the quarterback room in the meantime. Young, watching from the sideline, offered an endorsement of his rookie backup afterward.
"It was so cool to see. Haynes has been working so hard. He's looked great this whole time throughout OTAs, throughout camp. So, I wasn't shocked at all with how great he performed, how great he operated."
— Bryce Young, Panthers quarterback
The injury complicates what had been shaping up as a clean audition for King to lock down the No. 2 job behind Young for the regular season. Canales has indicated he does not expect King back in time for Carolina's next preseason outing.
Thursday's game doubled as the kickoff to Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement weekend in Canton, with the Class of 2026 — Drew Brees, Roger Craig, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri — inducted two days later at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. The annual exhibition has served as the traditional opener of the NFL calendar for more than two decades, drawing a national broadcast audience despite its lack of playoff or roster stakes for most participants.
What's next
Both teams now shift into the heart of their preseason schedules. Carolina is set to visit the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, Aug. 15, then travel to Jacksonville on Aug. 21 before closing the exhibition slate at home against Houston on Aug. 28. Arizona opens against the Las Vegas Raiders on Thursday, Aug. 13, the first of its own three tune-up games. Every NFL club must trim its roster to 53 players by 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, Aug. 30 — a full week earlier than in past years — before the regular season begins Wednesday, Sept. 9, when Seattle hosts New England in a Super Bowl rematch. For King, the next several weeks will be about rehabilitation rather than reps; for Beck, they represent a chance to build on a debut that has already made Arizona's quarterback conversation more complicated than it looked a week ago.
