ATLANTA — Tetairoa McMillan was on the opposite side of the end zone from Xavier Legette as he watched his teammate reach out and pull in a 36-yard touchdown. By the time Legette had secured the score, sparking the Panthers' comeback win, McMillan was running towards his fellow receiver in celebration.

Legette pulled Dolla Bill out of the stables for the first time this year, riding his horse back to the sideline in celebration. So McMillan grabbed a horse and joined him for the ride.

"I was hitting the Dolla Bill too," exclaimed McMillan after the Panthers' 30-27 win over the Atlanta Falcons. "I don't know what horse I was on, though."

We'll have to name McMillan's horse at some point, because this could become a standard celebration. Receivers coach Rob Moore challenged his guys this week: celebrate each other, because if this offense was going to come alive, it was going to take every single one of them playing a part.

"Coach Moore harped this whole week about celebrating each other's victories," shared McMillan. "And if you look, if you turn the tape on, I feel like the receiver room, we played a big part in that today, whether it was me, Jalen Coker, the tight ends, or XL."

They all did play that huge part. In total, Bryce Young threw completions to nine different pass catchers. Five guys had 50-plus yards. Both McMillan and Legette had touchdowns, and Coker pulled in a crucial two-point conversion that made the lead a field-goal game with just over a minute to play in regulation.

"I think everyone's an option when we call a pass play, but, with the coverage they were giving us, I was able to create quick separation," Coker said of the conversion. "And Bryce, being just hawk vision, he is able to see me and kind of put a nice ball right there for me."

With everyone being an option, in the end, it was what helped the Panthers set a franchise record for passing yards in a game (Young finished with 448 yards). Through the first half of the season, McMillan had become a clear favorite target. In the first few weeks of his rookie season, he was still able to take teams by storm, given little tape on him to that point. But in recent weeks, defenses have been tilting their coverage towards him.

On Sunday, McMillan had a 27 percent target share, meaning he received 27 percent of Young's targets. It was his second-lowest of the season, behind only the Jets game. He finished with a career day, eight receptions for 130 yards and two touchdowns.

The why is simple.

Every other receiver around him was also making plays. They had to be covered. It opened up a lot of lanes for the guy who now leads all rookie receivers in yardage (748 yards).

"Shoot, honestly, I think we were executing all cylinders, every receiver was going off, just kind of expanding the offense and opening up holes for us. And so I wouldn't be able to do it by myself at all," McMillan said.

"I mean that's big, our guys, the tight end room, the running backs, and especially our receivers coming in and making plays, you know that's huge just to fly around and execute on all cylinders; it only makes my job easier, makes Bryce's job easier and make the play caller's job easier just so that they can rely on any player on the offense."

This became evident on the Panthers' first drive of the game, and the second passing play.

After weeks of the Panthers' leaning on the run game, at times to the detriment of the explosive passing game, they saw the danger of that during the Week 10 loss to the Saints. New Orleans put all their focus into shutting down the run game, and Carolina's passing game couldn't make up the difference.

But on Sunday, against the No. 1 passing defense in the league coming into the game — the Falcons hadn't allowed more than 221 passing yards in any game this year — Canales and the Panthers showed a willingness to sling it around the yard. It started with a 15-yard shot over the middle of the field to Coker on that second passing play, kick-starting two things Canales had been calling for: vertical passing and a big day for Coker.

"I don't really think about it like that," expressed a humble Coker, who finished with four catches for 52 yards. "I go out there and I play and I do my best every time I step on the field, so whether I'm getting targets, not getting targets, catching it, not catching it, I'm going to continue to do everything I can, whether that's blocking or anything like that. So it is what it is. If it comes to me, it comes to me, and it's my job to catch the ball."

Now comes the next challenge: doing it again, proving this was not a flash-in-the-pan performance, but a standard. As Carolina uses their extra day of preparation before facing the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football, Dave Canales and Moore will point back to this tape from Atlanta, at the crisp route trees, the execution, the celebrations, and the production.

"It really is about the guys and the work that they've been putting in, and I think I've mentioned before, I'm seeing the improvement in practice. I'm seeing the chemistry happen. And for whatever reason, that hasn't shown up in the game, and today we found great rhythm," said Canales.

"It's not always pretty, and there were some dirty pockets, but the offensive line did an admirable job of giving Bryce time, and Bryce bought a little bit of time to find guys down the field. It just takes a couple of plays, and the guys feel the juice and the confidence to continue to go.

"I'm not always going to call a perfect play, but at the end of the day, the ball gets snapped. There's five eligibles most of the time, find a completion, find a win, and the guys found wins in different ways…for me it's it gives me a chance to just circle back around and double down on the focus that every game needs to be approached with this kind of care, this kind of focus and this kind of execution."