On September 20, Bryce Young, the 2023 number-one overall pick, revealed he was “open” to anything. That includes a trade elsewhere and remaining with the Carolina Panthers. While the exact route these two sides are going to take is totally unknown right now, it seems pretty evident that this is much more likely to continue going south than it is to rebound. No first-overall pick who started his second season under center has ever been benched like Young was. That’s just the latest thing to wrong in this pairing, which was arguably doomed from the start.
Outsized Expectations
No Panthers fan, even the most optimistic ones or those who root for Alabama on Saturdays, can argue that Bryce Young has played well. The statistics are bad, and the film is perhaps even worse. His last start, which may have been his final one for the Panthers, saw 18 completed passes for 84 yards. His rookie season was pretty dismal, and it got worse in year two. That led the Panthers to bench him, which is the latest failure in a lengthy line of them.
The initial trade that allowed the Panthers to select the Alabama product was the first. In true blockbuster sense, the Panthers sent a nearly unprecedented package to the Chicago Bears to move up eight spots in the draft.
- WR DJ Moore
- 2023 ninth overall pick (traded back for Darnell Wright)
- 2023 61st overall pick (traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars)
- 2024 first overall pick (Caleb Williams)
- 2025 second-round pick (33rd overall as of now)
The first overall pick always comes with expectations. These downtrodden franchises look to young, vastly inexperienced quarterbacks to be the savior of their franchise. It was that way for Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Bryce Young. The biggest difference is that none of those players really had the same level of expectation. Not only did the Panthers tab the former Heisman winner as the savior of one of the worst franchises in sports at the time, but they gave up everything they had to get him. That only made the expectations unfairly high, since an NFL team was clearly willing to sacrifice half of their roster to get him.
Dismal Support
It’s no secret by now that the 2023-24 Carolina Panthers assembled one of the worst groups on offense in recent memory. The unit was atrocious, as a 33-year-old Adam Thielen would have been wide receiver one on pretty much no other rosters. The line, which did suffer some injuries, couldn’t keep Young on his feet whatsoever. The coaching staff, highly touted in the offseason, was disastrous. Frank Reich, who lasted 11 games, reportedly refused to implement RPO plays to fit Young’s strengths. It was, by far, the league’s worst offense. It’s hard to imagine any quarterback thriving there.
The support increased tremendously in his sophomore season. QB guru Dave Canales was brought in, and he resurrected Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield. Diontae Johnson and Xavier Legette revitalized a despondent wide receiver room. Ja’Tavion Sanders was drafted at tight end. Jonathan Brooks, who hasn’t played yet, is supposed to be a star running back. The offensive line added two high-caliber guards and has played well in pass protection. Young struggled even worse despite this, and it’s fair to question how that happened. What happened in his rookie season seems to have seriously stunted any ability to grow.
Bryce Young Was Shocked By Benching
The fact that Bryce Young has been benched isn’t shocking when one looks at the tape or the numbers. Most other quarterbacks with his statistical line wouldn’t have made it this far except for the expectations. He was reportedly shocked by it, however, since Canales had said just one day before that Young was the Panthers’ quarterback. He was emphatic about not benching him and changed his mind one day later. Never mind the fact that it surprised Young, it is yet another mistake by a Panthers team that has made a comically long list of them since 2019.
They insist that this isn’t the end of Young’s career in Carolina, but they’re signaling the opposite to him. They brought Canales in to help fix Young, but after 25 total possessions on offense, Canales has already waved the white flag. A quarterback with no confidence was just told indirectly by his brand-new head coach that he’s not fixable. The Panthers choosing to give Young just one series in the preseason with an entirely new offense was a massive oversight, and it may have contributed to some struggles.
The Fallout
What happens next is not laid out, but there are a few options for the Panthers. None of them are good. The first option is that Andy Dalton plays well. This is likely because he’s a longtime veteran who has played under so many systems and in so many bad situations. If he does play well, there’s no chance Young ever finds his confidence again. The Panthers, who should be interested in picking high in the draft if Young’s not their future, have mortgaged any hope of salvaging their young quarterback in favor of losing fewer games. If they need to replace Young, losing more games is ideal.
The other alternative is that Dalton also struggles, but that’s not ideal, either. That means all the money they spent on offense, much of which is tied to long-term contracts, was a waste. The expensive guards are bad signings, and drafting Legette was another mistake. It also means that Canales is in over his head and his six-year contract looms large. The front office, which was reconstructed last offseason, would also be under fire for another disastrous run. If the team is really that bad, and this move will expose whether or not they are, then they have no present or future.
Conclusion
The Panthers have made a mistake in the Bryce Young saga at every possible turn. Whenever a decision has needed to be made, they’ve made the wrong one. Instead of waiting until 2024 in a much stronger class (Panthers fans can’t bear the thought of having Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels, or Caleb Williams instead of Young right now), they way overpaid for a move and then drafted the wrong guy from the class. They then failed to let him learn or give him a supporting cast worthy of a high-school quarterback.
The team failed again in the timing of the benching. If they’re really that concerned about avoiding 0-17, then Week 3 is not the time to bench the quarterback who’s played a handful of drives in a brand-new system with new teammates. It’s clear that Young is struggling, but did the leash need to be that short? Now, the likely result is that they severely overpaid for a QB who may not even make it to the end of his rookie contract. They were going to be feeling the effects of the trade for a long time, and they just made sure that they wouldn’t even have a decent quarterback at the end of it.
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