WS Chronicle

The Carolina Panthers have limped out of the gate to start the 2024 season with a 1-3 record. To make things even worse, the team has also benched their starting quarterback who was also the No. 1 overall draft pick just a year ago.

This was not supposed to be a great year for the Panthers, but they were expected to look better than their subpar 2023 season. I will admit that Bryce Young did not impress during the two games he started this year; however, the kid only had 18 starts under his belt and deserved more time to blossom, if you ask me.

There were many reports that Young was not happy about the decision, and I don’t blame him. I will commend Young for laying on the sword by taking full accountability for the move by saying he didn’t do enough to keep the starting job.

“As a competitor, obviously not how you dream of what’s going to happen,” said Young. It wasn’t something I necessarily was expecting. Obviously, it was not something that was great to hear.

“I had a lot of plays last year and in the first two games,” he said to ESPN following the news. “For the most part, every snap hit my hands, and I didn’t do enough. I take accountability for that. There’s a long list of things that I wish was better and I’ll continue to work and grow and improve and be better at.”

In his 18 starts as the starting quarterback for the Panthers, Young completed 59.3% of his throws for a total of 3,122 yards and 11 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. The two games he started this year, he only threw for 245 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions, so if you are simply going by the numbers, his benching is warranted.

To further complicate things, backup Andy Dalton has stepped in and completely turned the offense around. In the two games Dalton has started, the Panthers offense looks good.  

In his first start with the Panthers, Dalton threw for 319 yards and three touchdowns in a convincing win against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sept. 22. He followed that up with a 220-yard, two touchdown and one interception performance against the Cincinnati Bengals this past Sunday. Even though they didn’t beat the Bengals, Carolina was competitive in the game and the offense looked pretty good.

Now I am not sure you can bring Young back into the starting lineup with how well Dalton has been playing in these two starts. Unless Dalton totally falls off a cliff or is injured, I don’t see a way that Bryce ever starts another game for the Panthers, which puts them back on the clock looking for yet another franchise quarterback.

This type of move had to come from the top, meaning team owner David Tepper. I just can’t imagine the coaching staff wanting to bench Bryce so early on in his career, along with everything they invested to draft him a year ago.  Carolina traded away their first and second round picks from last year’s draft, along with star wide receiver D.J. Moore to Chicago in order to take Young No. 1 overall. That’s a lot of capital, just to bench two games into his second season.

While Bryce has not had the success that many Panther fans hoped, the talent is obviously there. In his three seasons at Alabama, Young completed nearly 66% of his passes for 8,356 yards and 80 touchdowns, with only 12 interceptions. He also led the Crimson Tide to the National Championship in 2020 and won a Heisman trophy the next year. I just think he needed a little more time to acclimate himself to the professional ranks.

I know many of the guys in the front offices of NFL teams are smart and good at evaluating talent, but when it came to drafting their future franchise quarterback, I was not on board with Carolina taking Young. His measurables were too small, in my opinion, to warrant taking him number one. I wasn’t in love with C.J. Stroud either, but his performance in the 2022 College Football Playoff game against Georgia showed me he was the real deal. Stroud threw for nearly 350 yards and four touchdowns.

It’s too late for second guessing and I also think it’s the end of the road for Bryce Young in a Panthers jersey. The question remains, where do they go from here? Carolina has been looking for a quarterback since Cam Newton left the first time and so far they haven’t been able to find one.

This is not an indictment on the Panthers because finding a franchise quarterback is very difficult. I know this because as a Washington Commanders fan, we have been looking for one for over 30 years and it seems we finally have our guy in Jayden Daniels. 

I just don’t see the point in Carolina pulling the plug on Bryce so quickly. The guy has the talent, now I guess he has to just figure out the best move for his career. I am rooting for him