Trevor Etienne Didn’t Carry the Ball Much as a Rookie. He Still Finished 19th in the NFL in Return Yards.
Fourth-round picks at running back are not return specialists. That’s not the expectation, not the pitch, not how you sell the selection to a fanbase watching a rebuild. Carolina took Trevor Etienne 114th overall in the 2025 NFL Draft and, by the end of his rookie season, his 94 rushing yards were nearly a footnote next to 896 total return yards. The backfield was too crowded. The return game was wide open. Etienne walked into both situations and only one of them had room.
He grew up in Jennings, Louisiana – same town, same house, same football bloodline as Travis Etienne, the Jaguars’ starting running back. Trevor was born July 9, 2004, which means he watched his older brother get drafted by Jacksonville in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft at age 16. He had two years of high school left.
By his senior season he was rushing for 1,344 yards and 20 touchdowns in seven games – seven games – and earning a spot on the All-American Bowl roster. He committed to Florida over LSU and Clemson, two programs that would have taken him without hesitation, and chose to go somewhere he wasn’t following his brother.
His freshman year at Florida: 719 yards, six touchdowns, SEC All-Freshman Team. His sophomore year brought a career-high 173 yards on 23 carries against No. 11 Tennessee in a 29-16 upset – he won Doak Walker Running Back of the Week for that one. Then 753 total yards, eight touchdowns, and in December 2023 he entered the transfer portal.
He chose Georgia. Florida’s rival. The irony was not lost on anyone in either fanbase.
March 2024, two months before spring practice: Etienne was arrested for DUI and reckless driving. Georgia suspended him. He came back, and by November he was scoring 87 yards and three touchdowns against No. 1 Texas in a 30-15 win. In the SEC Championship rematch with Texas, he scored the game-winning touchdown in overtime. Georgia 22, Texas 19. He finished that season with 609 yards and nine scores on 122 carries.
NFL Network’s Lance Zierlein put together the pre-draft assessment most scouts agreed with: vision and elusiveness, one-cut decisiveness in zone concepts, legitimate three-down versatility – and then the part teams had to weigh against all of that. He lacks the speed and power of his brother. He could struggle to get tough yards. Average burst wide. The comparison to Travis was always going to happen; the problem is Travis ran a 4.48 at the Combine during his draft process and has averaged over 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns in his peak seasons. The athleticism profile isn’t the same.
Carolina took him anyway, 114th overall via a trade with Chicago, and slotted him into a backfield that included Chuba Hubbard on a contract extension and Rico Dowdle, signed away from Dallas. Jonathon Brooks, the Panthers’ second-round pick a year earlier, tore the same ACL he’d torn in college and missed the entire 2025 season. That’s a lot of running backs for one roster.
So Etienne went to special teams.
The Panthers had finished 30th in punt return efficiency and 29th in kickoff returns the season before he arrived. The incumbent returner, Raheem Blackshear, didn’t make the roster cut. Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith said in early September that Etienne “has shown he wants to take the job.” He took it.
733 kickoff return yards. 163 punt return yards. 19th in the NFL in return yardage. He had a 45-yard kick return, a 28-yard rushing gain that showed what he can do when the blocking sets up right, a 15-yard punt return where he hurdled a Jets defender clean. On offense: 20 carries, 94 yards, 4.7 average. Three catches, 13 yards. After Week 11, he didn’t get another carry for the rest of the regular season – Dowdle and Hubbard handled the load, the Panthers went to the playoffs, and Etienne’s job was fielding kicks.
His NFL debut came in Week 1 against Jacksonville. Against Travis. Two brothers from Jennings, Louisiana, on the same field for the first time in the NFL. Trevor as a returner and third-string back; Travis as the Jaguars’ starter coming off a quiet 2024 season, 558 yards and two touchdowns, trying to get back to what he was.
Dowdle is set for unrestricted free agency. Brooks is expected back from his knee. Hubbard stays. Whether there’s an offensive role opening for Etienne in year two depends partly on how the front office handles those decisions and partly on whether the Panthers think what he showed on returns translates to a larger offensive package – his receiving skills at Georgia (32 catches in one season) and his vision in zone concepts were always the argument for third-down value, the part of his game that could survive in the NFL even if he never becomes a featured back.
He’s 21 years old. Three college seasons, 2,081 rushing yards, 23 touchdowns. A DUI arrest that could have ended his draft stock before it started. An overtime SEC Championship touchdown. And a rookie year where the Panthers found a use for him that nobody scripted when they made the pick: the best returner on a team that desperately needed one.
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