You wouldn’t have known today was Bryce Young’s 22nd birthday when he spoke to reporters at his very first NFL training camp. Heck, you wouldn’t even have known he was 22 by the way he was speaking.
This morning, the Carolina Panthers rookie quarterback took some questions a few days after moving into Wofford College for the rest of the summer. When asked about the outside noise that comes with being the No. 1 overall pick, Young stated that the only expectations that matter are the ones on the inside.
“I’m grateful for anyone who has an opinion. That means they care about the team and they’re invested,” he said. “But the only real standards I go by are the ones that we set as a team—and that’s to push each other and push ourselves every day to get better every day and grow as much as we can. So the stuff that happens outside of that isn’t stuff that I focus on or I put my energy towards. It’s stuff that I can’t control. But what I can control is trying to hold myself to that standard that we set internally in the building, and that’s trying to get better every day.”
Young is seemingly sticking right to that standard, even before taking a snap in Spartanburg. He has already been named the team’s starting quarterback, a declaration made by head coach Frank Reich before the end of last month’s mandatory minicamp, and has earned rave reviews from a number of veteran teammates.
And even after all the early praise, Young is still sticking to the same modest and methodical approach that got him here—no matter who says what.
“Having, I guess, lofty expectations isn’t something new,” he added. “I took the same approach in college. I’ve always taken the same approach. I’ve had experience of taking the approach of whatever expectations are, whatever people are talking about—it is what it is. It’s stuff that I can’t control.”
