Getty Image / Grant Halverson
When the Carolina Panthers traded a slew of assets for the rights to the first-overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft to eventually select Bryce Young, the franchise had high hopes. After all, Young had dominated both high-level high school football in Southern California as well as the SEC, winning the Heisman Trophy with Alabama in 2021.
But, just eighteen starts into his career, he was unceremoniously benched this week by Carolina Panthers Head Coach Dave Canales in favor of veteran Andy Dalton. It’s a stunning fall from grace for a player that the team has been consistently saying they’re all in on.
Young is only 23, and the same guy that many teams in the league had as the best quarterback in the 2023 NFL Draft ahead of CJ Stroud may still be able to be developed. Make no mistake, things look bleak now, and his 55% completion percentage, 4 yards per attempt, and 0-3 TD-INT ratio through two weeks paint that picture. But, maybe, just maybe, he can be rehabilitated.
Some in the NFL ecosphere have made it clear that they’ve given up on Bryce Young. But, according to Yahoo! Sports NFL reporter Charles Robinson, some still believe in him.
Later that day, an area scout who had done a lot of work on Young prior to the 2023 NFL Draft called me after seeing that clip.
“That’s so crazy. That’s a throw he would make 999 times out of a thousand coming out [of Alabama],” the scout said. “Sees the pressure, turns and throws to his short read. It’s just a wide handoff. They’ve got him so screwed up.”
It wasn’t an isolated opinion. A handful of personnel talent evaluators who I reached out to starting on Sunday shared a similar opinion that Young is a talented player who has gotten tangled in a messy franchise. And now he may need to get out and completely reboot somewhere else. That is becoming a familiar theme in Carolina that I’ll address later in this column.
Hopefully, a team will come along and get Bryce Young out of that situation, develop him, and turn him into a solid starting quarterback.