Practice after the Carolina Panthers-Cleveland Browns preseason game felt like the team was in mid-season form, Canales said. By DIAMOND VENCES
It started as Twitter DMs. Then evolved to texts. Then the occasional phone call. A Stanford graduate assistant named Brad Idzik was recruiting wide receiver Brycen Tremayne in the summer of 2017 — and in every mode of communication, the young coach kept to a singular refrain.
If you come here, Idzik would say, you’re going to have a fair shot.
Talk about a prescient moment.
It’s now been eight years since a 20-something Idzik was recruiting a high school-aged Tremayne to Stanford. Eight years that have witnessed Tremayne go from preferred walk-on as a freshman to a scholarship contributor as a sophomore and now NFL wideout.
Yet this summer, when Tremayne was looking for a home for his third NFL training camp, he heard from Idzik, now the second-year Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator. The two left right where they left off.
If you come to Carolina, you’ll get a chance.
“It was kind of like the same thing as when I was going to Stanford,” Tremayne told The Charlotte Observer after practice earlier this week. “He said, ‘There are no guarantees if you come here, you’re going to play just because of me. It doesn’t work like that. But you’re going to have a fair shot.’
“And then he said, ‘I believe in you. If you just work and do the same thing you did at Stanford, you’ll be good.’”
On Thursday, the Carolina Panthers will face the Pittsburgh Steelers in their final preseason game of 2025. Most starters won’t play, head coach Dave Canales said. It’s a last chance for Panthers players vying for a spot on the 53-man roster to make impressions on the coaching staff. And that includes Tremayne, a 6-foot-4, 212-pound wide receiver.
Carolina Panthers wide receiver Brycen Tremayne (87) rides up to practice during training camp on July 26, 2025. Scott Kinser USA TODAY NETWORK
Tremayne came into training camp as a long shot — an unproven wide receiver stepping into one of the deepest wide receiver rooms in the NFL.
Specifically?
He’s logged two NFL games in his career, both in 2024, and finished with one catch on one target for minus-2 yards. And he came in theoretically to compete for one of six to seven roster spots in a remarkably deep receiver room: Adam Thielen is a veteran who’s hade a renaissance the past few years; Hunter Renfrow and David Moore are established veterans; Xavier Legette and Jalen Coker are primed for good Year 2s; and the team just drafted Tetairoa McMillan and Jimmy Horn Jr.
Fair shot? Tremayne could’ve said. Yeah, OK.
But he didn’t. And for good reason.
Because what Idzik said was true.
“He believed in me in the past, and it worked out,” Tremayne said of Idzik. “He continues to believe in me. So it’s definitely nice to have that in the building. But if you have that but don’t perform, it doesn’t matter. It’s ultimately on me.”
Carolina Panthers wide receiver Xavier Legette (17) makes a catch during training camp on July 26, 2025. Scott Kinser USA TODAY NETWORK
Brycen Tremayne knows about relaxing and trusting ‘it’ll all work out’
That belief in Tremayne is paying off.
Tremayne has been one of the pleasant surprises of the Panthers’ preseason. Not only has he flashed in live periods in practice — he once caught two touchdowns in the span of five minutes from Andy Dalton — he’s proven to be a worthy contributor on all four of the special teams units. He also has three catches for 46 yards in the two preseason games he’s played in.
That production hasn’t been lost on Canales.
“The evaluation now is consistency,” Canales said of Tremayne. “Can he continue to do it? Can he do it one more time? Can we count on him for weeks on end? He’s doing a great job.”
And consistency is kind of Tremayne’s thing. Even when it hasn’t always been easy.
Some stories stick out.
For instance, at Windward High School, the Los Angeles native wanted to be a receiver to put on film for colleges, but his quarterbacks kept getting hurt, “so I kept having to switch over to quarterback. My highlight tape in high school is just me dropping back and running.” He laughed. “I didn’t want to show coaches in college that I was a quarterback. I just wanted to show me running.” He transferred to Venice High School his senior year to get reps at wideout.
Another example: In college, he broke and dislocated his ankle on the same play. He worked through that by consistently showing up, working to get his “pop” back in his step. Something similar happened this past summer, when he had a broken foot in OTAs when he first got to Carolina.
It’s all of the same mindset, Tremayne said. Consistency prevails — and trust in those who trust in you.
Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Brad Idzik watches practice during training camp on July 26, 2025. Scott Kinser USA TODAY NETWORK
“I’ve had good training camps, and it didn’t work out I guess being on the 53,” Tremayne said. “So I think just sometimes you just have to control what you can control, and you can’t get so caught up in like, ‘Am I going to make the team, am I not going to make the team?’ That’ll mess with your game. And then in the game, you’ll be playing not to mess up. You’ll just be pushing too hard instead of being out there and relaxed and playing your own game.
“That’s what I feel like happens when you get so caught up in your head. There are this many spots. You start counting out the receivers. Like, ‘OK, this guy’s going to make the team, this guy is going to make the team.’ You just go down the line. But I feel like that’s a bad way to think about it.”
He compared it to being a walk-on at Stanford at first.
“If you go in the building every day, thinking, ‘Today’s the day I’m going to get a scholarship,’ it just drains you,” he said. “And I feel like I did that Stanford too. My first year, every single day for training camp and the first part of the season, I was just like, ‘Today’s the day I’m going to go out there and get the scholarship.’ But if you just relax, and play your game, it’ll work out.”
That’s what Tremayne hopes to do on Thursday night, he said.
It’s not about making the game “bigger than what it is.”
Instead it’s about doing what “I’ve done this whole training camp” — about “just going out there and playing my own game,” believing in himself — as other Panthers coaches have previously believed in him.