Carolina Panthers rookie quarterback Bryce Young had just one blemish on what was a sharp-looking showing in his Fan Fest debut. And that one blemish, according to head coach Frank Reich, wasn’t even of his own doing.
Reich spoke with reporters following Wednesday’s practice at Bank of America Stadium. When asked of Young’s pick, which came on his final pass of two-minute drills, he took the blame.
“When you get in those situations at the end and you got 15 seconds left, so what do you wanna do?” Reich explained. “Do you wanna take a shot into the end zone? Well, that’s what the defense is gonna do. So sometimes it’s just good to take your medicine, kick the field goal with 15 seconds to go. And then, you gotta kick off.
“But, in this situation, sometimes what you find is—man, I feel like we’re in midseason form right now, this is good stuff. Sometimes you wanna see, ‘Is the defense gonna screw it up?’ I wanna see what the defense is gonna do. So I said, ‘Hey, let’s just go out there and run four verts, see if the defense plays the wrong coverage and then we’ll just throw it away. And then they got a pretty good rush and I put him in a hard position.”
That position saw Young take a shot at wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr. in the end zone. His ball, however, was tipped by cornerback Herb Miller and ended up in the hands of summer standout and linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill.
Outside of that experimental shot, the No. 1 overall pick completed 11 of his 16 attempts in his second straight step forward.
