Adam Thielen reveals he'll return to Carolina Panthers for 2025 season

Adam Thielen is giving it at least one more go-round in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers, as he revealed via the team’s YouTube channel that he’ll be returning to the franchise in 2025.

The veteran wide receiver will be 35 when the season begins, but he looked like his old self during the final couple weeks of the season in 2024. All told, he caught 48 passes for 615 yards and five touchdowns during his second season in Carolina, and he’s ready to gear up for a third.

“I mean, the media already ran with it, that I said, ‘I got football left in me.’ I was kind of saying like, ‘I can play, but I don’t know if I’m going to play.’ But no, I feel good,” Thielen said, regarding his decision to return to the Panthers. “I took two weeks off, like I said I would at the end of the season, and got my energy back. Started training already, so I’m ready to give it one more shot.”

While the start of the 2024 season had Thielen wondering if he should hang up his cleats, the Panthers offense turned it on at the end of the year. Now, Thielen is hoping to finish what he started in Carolina in Year 3, and leave the franchise in a better spot than he found it when he first joined ahead of the 2023 campaign.

“I think if you’d asked me — I probably shouldn’t say this, but if you’d asked me [with] like, three, four weeks left of the season, I would’ve said, ‘For sure, I’m done. I’m just I’m exhausted. I’m tired. It’s been a rough couple years, and I think I’m just done.’ And like I said, I took two weeks off. Spent a ton of time with my family. Just kind of thought about how the end of the season went. The progression, the things — the moves that the leadership in this organization are doing, that I’m really excited about,” Thielen explained.

“Really excited about Bryce [Young], and what he was able to do once he got back in the game, and kind of learn from the start of the season and taking some time away. So, I’m really excited about this organization, where it’s going. It really kind of pushes me to say, ‘Why not give it one more shot?’ I’ve gone through the tough, tough, tough times. The lowest of lows, hopefully. [I’m] excited about what the future holds for this organization, and I want to be a part of it.”

That’ll certainly fire up Panthers fans to have their veteran wide receiver talk like that. Adam Thielen may not be a top wide receiver like he was in his prime, but he’ll be a valuable crutch for Bryce Young to lean on, and a nice piece for their offense in 2025, regardless of his veteran status.