Bryce Young was “completely surprised” and “blindsided” Monday by his benching following Carolina’s Week 2 home loss to the Chargers, according to a source, and veteran Andy Dalton takes over as the Panthers signal-caller Sunday and beyond.
But short of Dalton going on a tear, there’s a belief within the organization that Young will be called upon again this season in what would be one of the earliest second acts of a No. 1 overall pick’s career.
“You want to see what you have in this kid,” one team source said. “It’d be foolish not to.”
Panthers coach Dave Canales said Wednesday, and multiple sources confirmed, the team has no designs on trading Young now. Multiple personnel executives around the league surveyed by CBS Sports estimated Carolina would get no better than a Day 3 pick for Young if they soon traded him. A fourth-round pick was the highest offered by a source.
Beyond that, there’s still belief in the 23-year-old former Heisman winner. Three sources familiar with Carolina’s 2023 draft process reconfirmed this week to CBS Sports that Young was the “unanimous” selection within the building.
Team owner David Tepper wanted Young, but so did then-coach Frank Reich and then-general manager Scott Fitterer. One source said that Tepper’s lean toward Young was known, but that alone didn’t sway others from getting on board with the Alabama great.
Early in the 2023 pre-draft process, shortly after the NFL Scouting Combine, the Panthers began making their move up the draft board. A source said the team had conversations with the Arizona Cardinals about moving to No. 3, but those plans got scuttled when Carolina realized it could get to No. 2 with what was virtually a three-team trade involving Chicago (at No. 1) and Houston (at No. 2).
Plans between the Bears and Texans broke down in early March when the teams, according to one source, couldn’t agree on compensation and/or, according to a different source, the Texans stopped communicating with Chicago.
Trading to 2 or 1 would have meant sending receiver DJ Moore to Chicago regardless, so Carolina sweetened the offer a bit more to go up to No. 1 and control the draft.
Fitterer and Reich did not discuss which quarterback they liked the most until late in the draft process. When they did, “it was pretty obvious,” Fitterer said at the post-draft presser. “It was really a five-second conversation and then we said, ‘What do we do next?'”
Reich was emphatic at that same presser that Young was his top choice.
“At the end of the day there’s a lot of factors that go into it,” Reich said, “but we’re coaches. We’re scouts. We watch the tape. And when you watch the tape, Bryce Young is the best player.”
The Panthers consulted with Bill Polian during the pre-draft process, according to a source. Polian put together Super Bowl rosters as general manager of both the Buffalo Bills and Indianapolis Colts, and he served as the first GM in Carolina Panthers history in between those two stops. Polian, who was the Bills GM when Reich was the backup quarterback for those four Super Bowl runs, famously drafted Peyton Manning in 1998 over Ryan Leaf.
According to a source, Polian said in pre-draft meetings with the Panthers that Young could be the NFL’s version of Stephen Curry, the undersized guard who came out of Charlotte-area Davidson College and who revolutionized the NBA while winning four NBA titles.
“You want to win Super Bowls. And there’s no sure thing but there’s a probability. And we thought this guy had the best probability of winning us Super Bowls,” Tepper said in a press conference immediately following Young’s selection, placing an emphasis on the plural Super Bowls. “The way he throws the ball, the way he’s a point guard, how you can use the different players on the field, how you might not have to have as many elite receivers because he’s the point guard.”
In Young’s rookie season, the Panthers gave the quarterback a group of receivers who were below league average in separation, dealt with a bevy of injuries to the interior of the offensive line and flipped play-callers multiple times before the merciful end to the season.
The Panthers hired Canales in part to fix Young and get the franchise back on track. Clearly, there was a disconnect.
Some outside the building have believed the move to bench Young this week was motivated or forced by Tepper. Multiple sources said that wasn’t the case, though those sources say Tepper agreed with the decision and didn’t discount his influence in the matter.
“No owner isn’t involved in the benching of a quarterback, especially one drafted at No. 1,” said one source.
Young’s 44.1 passer rating through two weeks is both the lowest in the league this year and the lowest in the league for any qualifying passer since the 2020 season. One of the biggest reasons for Young’s benching was his third-down inefficiency, and Carolina had the worst third-down conversion rate of any NFL team in more than 30 years.
“It was getting to the point where if you didn’t do something, you lose everyone,” said another source.
Anecdotally, several sources pointed to what they believed was a lack of confidence within Young on the field. If last year’s Panthers were the worst team in football for a multitude of reasons, this year’s group improved at both offensive line and receiver, yet Young appeared to regress through the first two weeks of the season. Carolina’s offensive line allowed the fourth-most pressures in the league last season compared to having the seventh-best rate so far this year.
“I have confidence in myself. I’ve always had confidence in myself,” Young told reporters Thursday. “At the end of the day, I’m a competitor. Whenever there’s a football and there’s a field out there, I have the utmost confidence in myself. It’s been great with these guys, too, having teammates that I can lean on as well. That’s not something that’s gonna waiver.”
There’s a strong hope within the building that Young’s benching can serve as a reset for the young player. All-time greats like John Elway and Terry Bradshaw were benched early in their careers, only later to go on and win multiple Super Bowls. Carolina isn’t discarding Young at this time.
But as one source noted: “The relationship is forever altered.”
On the evening the Panthers selected Young, Fitterer and Reich were all smiles. Tepper stood to the side and, about eight minutes into the media availability, began fielding questions from reporters. Not only was the Panthers owner pleased with the pick, but he was pleased with just how the team went about securing Young.
“This is truly a process. I can’t emphasize it enough,” Tepper stressed. “We’re true to this process this time. Not all the time in past years. But this is: process in the coach, process in getting this quarterback and not leaving a stone unturned. So this is truly, in everything we’re doing and everything we did with the coaches when Frank was hired, a process of, ‘Do we have the best person?’ And [Frank], true to the process. Scott, true to the process. We’re not messing around, let’s say it that way.”
Eleven games after that, Reich was fired. Six games later, Fitterer was fired. And eight months and two games later, Young was benched.