CHARLOTTE — Jaycee Horn is having a career year. The Carolina Panthers first round pick in the 2021 draft was plagued by injuries early on in his career, keeping him off the field for swatches of the season. But 2024 has been his year. He's on pace to play the most snaps in one season since joining the league, surpassing 2022.

In the first 10 games, Horn has been a lockdown corner, putting up not only the best numbers of his four years since joining the NFL, but some of the best numbers in the league overall.

We take a look at some of the numbers that stand out the most from Jaycee Horn thus far this season, and hear from Horn himself on that stats that mean the most to him.

*All stats are courtesy of Next Gen Stats and dependent on being on the field for a minimum of 250 coverage snaps.

• Horn has allowed 22 receptions on 48 targets for 289 yards. He has been targeted on 16.8% of throws when on the field.
• His allowed completion percentage of 45.8% is fourth in the league. He trails only Calen Bullock (42.1%) and Eric Murray (42.4%) of the Texans and Kerby Joseph (45.5%) of the Lions. This completion percentage is 9.2 points less than expected for the quarterback, meaning Horn has provided better defense than probable.
• At the midway point of the season—following Week 9—Horn led all NFL corners with the lowest completion percentage allowed.

This stat, above all else, can tell the story of a corner's season. The main job of the position is to keep the receiver from catching the ball. Forcing an incompletion means a job well done.

For Horn though, that means focusing on every pass as a chance for an incompletion, and his allowed completion percentage is not important to him.

"I really don't even think about it," Horn said this week. "I'll just be out there playing. And then I see somebody like tag me in something and tell me, I didn't know I had the lowest (percentage) at one point until the Panthers tagged me.

"So, no I don't really pay attention. It's not nothing I'm looking at, like going out there, like oh I gotta keep my completion percentage low today. But obviously you want to take away your side of the field and not give up any catches. So, I just try to do that."

• Horn has been used in zone coverage for 76.5% of his snaps, 4.5% above the league average. He has been in man coverage 23.5% of the time.
• Horn is in the Top 15 of the league in yards after catch allowed as well, only giving up 46 yards after the catch on the 22 receptions.
• He has held quarterbacks to three completions on seven targets (42.9%) for passes of 20-plus air yards.
• Through 10 games, Horn has 44 total tackles, including two for loss.
• When Horn is the nearest defender to the ball, the Panthers defense has a success rate (a successful play for the defense) of 60.4%, which is in the Top 15 of all qualifying corners in the league.

This stat was one of the few Horn seemed proud of, since it spoke to his game helping the entire defense, and not just his own resume.

• Of the 48 targets, Horn has 10 passes defended (one interception) which is tied for 6^th best amongst qualifying defensive backs. Quarterbacks were throwing into a tight window 29.2% of the time when targeting Horn, which is in the Top 10 of highest percentages.

Quarterbacks are throwing into such tight windows against Horn is because he's forcing them to do so. Receivers average only 2.1 yards of separation against Horn, making his job easier and forcing the quarterbacks to be near perfect.

"It's all on the corner to create a tight window; the receivers, they want as much separation as they can get and that's what they pride themselves on," Horn explained.

"They got less room for error. So, like a lot of times when you're in tight coverage, a perfect throw's going to beat you. So you know I just try to do a good job of being on the body, trying to limit separation so if they do get a completion on me it's a bang-bang play where it's just like, OK, the quarterback made a good throw. He got me there.

"Like, that's just a life of corner. You're not going to stop everything. Like even the Giants game, I didn't give up no catches till the last drive of the game. They caught like 4 bang-bang balls on me because like sometimes it's going to go like that…so I just try to make it tough as I can on the receiver and quarterback."

Horn will have arguably his toughest task to date this Sunday, as he faces one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league when Patrick Mahomes comes to town. The two-time MVP has an arsenal of weapons, including Xavier Worthy, who is tied for second-most touchdowns by a rookie receiver through Week 11 (tied with Panthers' Xavier Legette).

Whether Horn is facing Worthy or any of the Chiefs receivers, he is approaching the matchup with the mindset he's used all season.

"(Defensive passing game coordinator Jonathan) Cooley told me one time, that put a lot of stuff in perspective for me, he was like, you want to be hard to play against," he said. "You want to make it—yeah, they might catch that ball, they might have a big play on you, but how did they get that? Did you give it to them, or did you make them work for it?

"I just try to be on the body, and if they win, good throw, good catch, and we'll line it up again and I'll win the next one. So that'd be my mindset."