Two years ago, the Carolina Panthers traded star receiver D.J. Moore, what became two No. 1 overall draft picks, and two second-round picks for the right to draft former Alabama superstar Bryce Young. After just eighteen starts, 3,122 total passing yards, 11 touchdown passes, and 20 turnovers (13 interceptions, seven fumbles), Young is no longer the woeful Panthers’ starting quarterback.
Note to self: Never trust David Tepper’s evaluations of professional quarterbacks.
Some might say the Panthers have given up on Young way too early. That he never had a chance in a mess of a situation where it felt like most young NFL players, period — not just quarterbacks — would fail. And that his developmental leash was comparatively short compared to most other top-of-the-first-round signal-callers.
While all technically true, that buries the most critical sentiment behind head coach Dave Canales’s decision to end the Young era. In more ways than one, while first-round quarterbacks are a bigger crapshoot than ever, Young is simply not a modern NFL-caliber starter.
Sources: The #Panthers are benching former No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young and starting veteran Andy Dalton beginning this week.
Coach Dave Canales has repeatedly said “Bryce is our quarterback.” But with the season quickly slipping away, Canales decided to make a change. pic.twitter.com/jTYawQCi2C
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) September 16, 2024
Let’s start with the brass tacks on the short-lived Young era. Ask yourself: What did Young do well as a professional quarterback? From the top of your head, tell me something, anything at all, that you liked about him as a player. Don’t worry I’ll wait.
Stumped? OK, for one, Young wasn’t accurate. After completing less than 60 percent of his passes as a rookie, Young somehow regressed to start 2024 by roughly four full percentage points. His ball placement was severely lacking, as he seldom led his receivers or confidently hit throws into NFL-styled windows. When a quarterback can’t even get their ball placement right, most of the offensive playbook becomes limited. It’s more akin to the “Four Verticals” catalog of virtual play cards you might see in Madden than a sustainable offensive approach that works in real life.
What’s worse, when Young did get passes off, they were never in a place that stressed a defense enough to break its umbrella. Through 18 games, Young had an average depth of target (ADOT) — an advanced statistical measure of how much a quarterback is challenging a defense downfield — of 7.6, per FTN Fantasy Football. His average yards per pass attempt (YPA) was, uh, oof, I don’t know how to put this … 5.4. (Tugs collar)
The eye tests match the dreadful numbers of a quarterback who checked the Panthers’ offense into oblivion with poor fundamentals to boot:
full highlight reel of bryce young’s jumping checkdowns pic.twitter.com/VnBBk8vjxg
— Austin Gayle (@austingayle_) September 16, 2024
For comparison’s sake, Young’s best ADOT comparisons are probably Aidan O’Connell (7.4, no longer the Las Vegas Raiders’ starter) and Derek Carr (7.8, with a notorious reputation for checking the ball down at all costs). His best YPA analogs are, well, really … no one. The only other person who reasonably comes close to Young, at the very bottom of the pack, is the Chicago Bears’ Caleb Williams (4.0), who is just two games into his NFL career after getting teed off on by two consecutive defensive lines.
Needless to say, this is not good company for Young to keep.
(Side note: If Young had met the minimum statistical requirement of 1,500 recorded pass attempts, his YPA would be the lowest in NFL history by a comfortable margin.)
The biggest problem for Young, though, was how little he possessed in his toolbag. At worst, an above-average NFL starting quarterback must be a problem solver. Not every play will be run to perfection as it was drawn up. News flash: the other side of the ball gets paid, too. Quarterbacks have to be ready to improvise, and they have to possess enough talent and adaptability to run something else if their comfortable bread and butter isn’t working.
When asked to improvise or stray out of his comfort zone, Young looked like a helpless deer in headlights. His diminutive 5-foot-10, 204-pound frame meant he often couldn’t see directly over the line of scrimmage, limiting him to a shotgun-based offense that became rote. He didn’t have a strong arm, making it easier to take away lay-up reads and progressions that would’ve helped him establish a healthy rhythm. He wasn’t a terrific athlete, meaning the Panthers couldn’t shift their offensive philosophy to implementing more RPOs that utilized Young’s legs. That’s not his game, and it never will be. Young was a pocket passer and a tiny creator to a fault.
This was a familiar, painful sight any time an aimless Young broke contain and had a potential chance to make the defense pay:
what is Bryce Young doing? pic.twitter.com/frBsgiE13n
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) September 15, 2024
None of this is to absolve the Panthers and their horrific mismanagement. They got what they deserved when they threw Young to the wolves on a talent-bereft roster that more resembled a glorified Division I college football team instead of a team playing 53 other grown men every Sunday. They asked him to be a hero and put on a red cape from the jump — a task which many young NFL quarterbacks have fallen well short of. They fired his first coach, Frank Reich, halfway through his rookie season. When push came to shove, they allowed Young to keep spiraling down the drain with irreversible bad habits rather than finding any reasonable way to buoy his career.
Now, the first-year Canales is almost certainly thinking about preserving his job security first after failing to get Young to progress over the offseason. This was not a calculated mastermind seeing the forest for the trees. That much seems clear. Although, Canalas does deserve credit for understanding Young was likely going nowhere and that there would’ve been no point in continuing this charade just because he was a former No. 1 overall selection.
That is the crux of the issue in itself. Even coming out of college, Young had a lower ceiling than other top-pick quarterbacks, but he had the name-brand recognition of being the first pick. His size and skill set meant he would likely always be fighting an uphill battle just to stay afloat in the NFL. It felt like he needed a flawless supporting cast to even be OK or passable, let alone great. And if he hadn’t landed in said flawless situation — an unlikely prospect for the awful team usually picking first in the draft — his worst deficiencies would’ve been amplified in a jarring manner.
That’s more or less what happened.
The Panthers didn’t do Bryce Young any favors by saddling him with the NFL’s worst roster. That goes double for managing him with arguably the NFL’s worst organizational ladder. But let’s not pretend he ever had a certified bright future in the first place.
The writing was on the wall the first of many times he motioned for a receiver to “keep running” before getting leveled by a defender in open space.
