Carolina traded for the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft to obtain Young. The former Alabama All-American started 16 games as a rookie. The Panthers won two of those games, so the questions at last year’s combine press conferences centered on Canales’ plans for the young quarterback and Morgan’s options for building around him.
When Carolina totaled 13 points in losing its first two games of 2024, the Panthers pulled Young out of the lineup in favor of veteran Andy Dalton.
After five starts, Dalton sustained a thumb injury in a traffic accident. Young started the final 10 games of the season. With a 1-6 record when Young returned to the lineup, Carolina won four times.
“Just toughness,” Canales said on Tuesday about what Young showed in the second half of his second NFL season. “You know, mental toughness, emotional toughness, physical toughness. Took some good shots there and showed he can just stand in there and play good football. And just watching the weekly progression of it … as we finished each week, there was improvement each week, there was improvement, and you can imagine if you could just get one week better for a long time, how good you can become, so I got a lot of excitement, a lot of appreciation for the way that Bryce just took a leadership role in this, too, and really made statements to his teammates in that locker room.
“And you can feel the respect, I’m sure all of you of you around the team. The guys started to feel that. Like, this guy’s real, and so I’m excited to go into this offseason knowing we have this quarterback. Now let’s start building this team, and let’s become the 2025 Panthers.”
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Carolina closed its season on Jan. 5 with a 44-38 overtime victory against the Atlanta Falcons. Young threw for three touchdowns and ran for two more in the Panthers’ highest-scoring game since a 45-21 victory over the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 13, 2017.
Young and 2024 NFL MVP Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills were the only players with at least three touchdown passes and two touchdown runs in the same game this season, and Young became the first Carolina player to accomplish the feat.
“That was exciting,” Canales said. “But it was also pretty scary, just kind of seeing (Falcons quarterback) Michael Penix step up and make those plays and just really going drive for drive, battling that way. But it was an exciting feeling to come off of that field, for sure, because we won, but also because you could just feel the sense of, like, all right, here’s what we have to look forward to, here’s the challenges that we have to meet, and so it does add to the urgency for all of us to first and foremost, it starts with our division, and there’s some really good teams in our division.”
Through the first 18 games of his career, Young averaged 173.4 passing yards, completed 59.3 percent of his passes, totaled 11 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions, compiled a 70.9 passing-efficiency rating and ran for one touchdown. Carolina won two of the games.