Haynes King scored on a 5-yard run on the final snap of the Hall of Fame Game to deliver the Carolina Panthers a 33-30 win over the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday night. The Georgia Tech product finished with 180 passing yards, two touchdown passes and 39 rushing yards in the NFL preseason opener. What complicates the reading: both teams sat their starters, which makes King's night either a signal or noise depending on how much you trust exhibition reps against second-string defenses.
A drive that mattered when the game did
King's decisive score came the hard way. The Cardinals led 30-27 after Kedon Slovis found Bryson Green on a 1-yard touchdown pass with under two minutes remaining. King marched Carolina back into the end zone anyway. His earlier work pointed the same direction: a second-quarter touchdown pass to Ja'Seem Reed, then a 4-yard strike to Anthony Tyus III on the opening snap of the fourth quarter to put Carolina ahead 24-20. Bryce Young, who did not play, spent the evening as King's most visible supporter on the sideline, which gave the closing drive a bit more context than a standard preseason stat line warrants.
The counterargument: Beck was right there too
The counterargument belongs to Arizona rookie Carson Beck, who finished with 188 passing yards and one touchdown. That is eight more passing yards than King. Beck, a third-round pick from Miami, gave the Cardinals a first look that will take more preseason weeks to read clearly, but nothing in the raw output suggested Carolina's rookie had a meaningfully better night on the numbers. The line to watch in Arizona is whether Beck's production holds as the exhibition competition sharpens.
Canton, and the class of 2026
The game ran alongside Hall of Fame enshrinement weekend in Canton. The Class of 2026 includes quarterback Drew Brees, running back Roger Craig, kicker Adam Vinatieri, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and linebacker Luke Kuechly.
On balance
On balance, the case for King rests on one specific thing: he was behind late and he won it. Beck matched the statistical output and finished on the wrong side of the score. King's final line reads 33-30, Panthers.