Chuba Hubbard 2025 Season in Review

Chuba Hubbard finished 2025 as the number 38 running back in total PPR scoring and the number 41 in PPR per game. That's the headline right there — Hubbard came into the season as Carolina's lead back, and instead of building on it, he watched Rico Dowdle take the job and run with it. Literally. By midseason, Hubbard was the change-of-pace and passing-down option in his own backfield: 134 carries, just one rushing touchdown, and a fantasy line propped up almost entirely by early-season receiving work. The Panthers won the NFC South as the four seed. Hubbard was a passenger on that run, not the engine.

Now let's dig into the numbers, because they tell a brutal story for a presumed bell cow. Hubbard averaged 8.4 PPR per game across 15 games — barely a flex floor — and the bottom didn't just wobble, it fell out. He ran for 511 yards on 134 carries, 3.8 a pop, with rushing yards over expected of minus 39.2 on the season and minus 0.3 per attempt, 44th among qualified runners. Compare that to backfield-mate Dowdle — plus 146.4 rushing yards over expected on 236 carries with six rushing scores — and the workload shift explains itself. The consistency profile is uglier still: Hubbard cleared 15 PPR exactly twice all year, and posted single-digit games in 11 of 15 appearances, including a Week 9 through Week 12 stretch of 1.7, 2.5, 3.8, and 8.3. Three receiving touchdowns and 30 catches on a 9 percent target share were the only things keeping the weekly scores from being even worse.

The defining play of Hubbard's fantasy year came in Week 1 at Jacksonville. Third and 8, Panthers down 7 in the first quarter — Bryce Young hit him on a short route and Hubbard turned it into a 35-yard touchdown with 40 yards after the catch. He posted 17.9 PPR that day and looked like a locked-in starter. He'd score one more rushing touchdown the rest of the season. Week 1 was the ceiling. Everything after was the slow erosion of a job he was supposed to own.