Heading into the 2023 NFL season, few players were as hyped up as Bryce Young.
The first overall pick out of Alabama who led the Crimson Tide to a 37-4 record on the way to bringing a Heisman Trophy back to Tuscaloosa, Young was widely viewed as the savior for a Panthers franchise that had been largely spinning its wheels since Cam Newton left town, with the potential to take the team back to the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be.
That's right, after trading up for the rights to draft Young first overall, giving up the pick that would eventually become Caleb Williams, DJ Moore, and additional draft assets for the privilege, the Alabama QB struggled across the board, throwing for less than 3,000 yards, throwing 11 touchdowns versus 10 picks, and ultimately leading his team to just one win on the way to the worst record in the NFL.
Now granted, some of Young's issues weren't on him, the Panthers' roster wasn't particularly good, they changed out head coaches mid-way through the season, and traded away arguably their best offensive player, Moore, to bring him to town, but it's not like the young passer was fighting tooth and nail to secure his team wins only to come up short due to a lack of talent around him; Young looked lost throughout his rookie season and how enters 2024 with a big old question mark over his future with the franchise.
Could Young bounce back in 2024 now that he has a full NFL season under his belt? Sure, there's a reason he was almost universally considered the best quarterback in his draft class, and the Panthers were celebrated for making the selection. Still, when CJ Stroud, the quarterback selected one pick after him, had an incredible season in Houston, taking the team to the playoffs and winning Rookie of the Year versus an all-time great season by Puka Nacua, further struggles by Young will only look worse and worse on the Panthers rightly or wrongly, with surely looking to the 2025 NFL draft to see if their next great signal caller could be in the NCAA right now should their pick fall first overall for the second year in a row.
Dave Canales wants to fix the Panthers' offense, not Bryce Young
While the jury is still very much out on Young's ceiling as a pro, let alone how much track he will have to sink or swim before the Panthers look to the draft once more for their next franchise quarterback, Carolina's new head coach, Dave Canales, has been saying all the right things about the former Alabama signal caller, telling reporters shortly after he was hired away from Tampa Bay that his job is to fix the overall offense, not his 22-year-old quarterback.
“No plan to fix Bryce Young. I think for me it's about building an offense that we can be proud of. Something that something that is tough, something that is smart, that takes care of the football. I really respect Bryce and the road that has taken him to here. I want to be able to present something to him that's tangible, that's specific, and says, ‘Hey, here's some things that we can really dive into and improve on your things that you're doing.' So, we'll have a great plan when he comes back to us in a couple of weeks,” Canales told reporters via Panthers.com.
“I think that he's got the tools that we saw a year ago. So, I think, number one, we're going to have to teach him a new offense. That's going to be a big part of it. And I think just from a fundamental standpoint, I just see a really accurate player, I see a decisive player. He's now played 16 games. So, he's got a good variety of exotic looks coverages, blitzes, different things that might have got him, he might not have seen this or that. So, we'll be able to kind of walk him through; ‘here's some tells on those things.' So, some basic year two improvement.”
Is Canales politicking ever so slightly in his response to reporters? Sure, Canales was clearly hired because he successfully pitched that he was the man to get the former first-round pick back on track, and no matter the Panthers' final record this fall, Young's stat line will largely define how successful the 2024 season will be for Carolina. Still, considering the Panthers averaged the second-fewest points per game of any team in the NFL last season, with an SRS of -9.88 that ranked 31st overall, they've got plenty of issues on their plate.
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