Panthers Sign Kyle Trask as QB3 After Haynes King’s Hall of Fame Game Injury
Carolina brought in veteran Kyle Trask on Sunday after rookie Haynes King, fresh off his Hall of Fame Game heroics, was sidelined with a week-to-week hamstring injury.
The Carolina Panthers moved quickly to shore up their quarterback room on Sunday, signing veteran Kyle Trask just three days after rookie Haynes King’s breakout performance in the Hall of Fame Game was overshadowed by a hamstring injury that will keep him out week-to-week. The addition gives Carolina three quarterbacks on the roster behind starter Bryce Young, with Trask stepping in as the new QB3 while King rehabs.
King, an undrafted free agent out of Georgia Tech, had turned heads in his professional debut against the Arizona Cardinals last Thursday, completing 21 of 34 passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns while adding a game-winning 5-yard touchdown run as time expired in Carolina’s 33-30 win. That final play, however, is reportedly what led to the injury. Head coach Dave Canales told reporters Sunday that King “gave everything he had, literally” diving for the goal line, and that the team does not expect him back for this week’s preseason game against the Buffalo Bills.
How Trask Fits Into Carolina’s QB Picture
Trask, 28, was Tampa Bay’s second-round pick (No. 64 overall) in the 2021 NFL Draft out of Florida, where he set the school’s single-season passing touchdown record with 43 scores and finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. His NFL production has been minimal by comparison — across four seasons with the Buccaneers he appeared in just seven games, completing 4 of 11 passes for 28 yards without a touchdown or interception, and never made a start. He last saw NFL action on Dec. 29, 2024, in relief duty during a Bucs blowout of, fittingly, the Panthers. Tampa Bay re-signed him in March 2025 before releasing him that August, and Trask later spent time on Atlanta’s practice squad last November. He worked out for Carolina on July 29, a session that put him on the team’s radar for exactly this scenario once King went down.
With King sidelined, the Panthers now slot Trask behind Young and backup Kenny Pickett on the depth chart. Canales indicated the starters will get 10-20 snaps against Buffalo, with Pickett expected to follow and Trask likely closing things out — giving the veteran a chance to shake off nearly two years of game inactivity in a low-stakes setting. Carolina also used roster moves Sunday to waive wide receiver Malick Meiga and linebacker Nick Hampton, both with injury designations, further reshaping the depth chart as the preseason accelerates toward the Aug. 30 roster deadline.
What It Means for Panthers Bettors
The QB3 shuffle itself isn’t the kind of move that shifts a season win total on its own, but it lands at a notable moment for Carolina’s market position. Entering August, the Panthers were priced around 7.5 wins (odds hovering near +110/-130 depending on the book) after an eight-win, division-winning 2025 season, with roughly +310 to repeat as NFC South champs and long-shot Super Bowl odds near +9000. None of that pricing is built around a rookie third-string quarterback — Young remains the engine of every relevant Panthers future — but King’s injury does complicate what had briefly looked like a real training-camp storyline.
King’s Hall of Fame Game showing had started to generate buzz about his path onto the 53-man roster over other depth options, the kind of subplot that shows up in backup-QB and roster-construction chatter more than in mainline odds boards. A week-to-week hamstring now threatens to cost him meaningful preseason reps right as final cuts approach, which could nudge his roster odds in the opposite direction even as it opens the door for Trask to make his own case with live snaps against Buffalo. For bettors tracking Carolina’s depth-chart-driven markets — anything tied to backup QB usage or roster-construction props — this is the kind of update worth filing away, even if it doesn’t move the marquee win-total or division numbers yet.
The bigger swing factor for Panthers season-long value remains squarely on Young’s shoulders. He set career highs across the board in 2025 — 3,011 passing yards, 23 touchdowns and a 63.6 percent completion rate — while leading Carolina to its first playoff appearance since 2017, and that arc is what actually drives the sportsbook numbers on this team. A depth-chart shakeup at QB3 doesn’t change how oddsmakers view Carolina’s ceiling, but it is exactly the type of camp news that keeps bettors monitoring the roster closely for anything that could ripple into Young’s supporting cast or the offense’s continuity heading into the regular season.