Bryce Young Reveals the Mindset That Saved His Panthers Career

Bryce Young was getting criticized before he was even a Panther. Carolina traded DJ Moore and a bunch of draft picks to Chicago just to move from No. 9 to No. 1 in the 2023 NFL Draft, and people immediately started wondering if the Panthers had given up too much.

Then Carolina took Young, and the questions only got louder. He was too small. The Panthers should've taken C.J. Stroud. They gave up all of that for the wrong quarterback. The guy hadn't even played an NFL game yet, and people had already made up their minds about him.

I started thinking about all of that again after listening to Young talk to Pat McAfee this week. McAfee asked him about dealing with criticism, and after everything Young has been through in Carolina, I don't know if his answer could've been any more fitting.

Then Young Gave People More to Talk About

May 12, 2023; Charlotte, NC, USA; Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young (9) throws during the Carolina Panthers rookie camp at the Atrium Practice Facility in Charlotte, NC.Mandatory Credit: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

I'm not going to sit here and act like all the criticism was unfair, because it wasn't. Young struggled as a rookie, Carolina went 2-15, and Frank Reich didn't even make it through the season. Young finished with 2,877 passing yards, 11 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions, and there were plenty of times when I wondered if the Panthers had made a huge mistake.

Stroud having the rookie season he did in Houston only made it worse. Every time he had another big game, the Young vs. Stroud conversation started all over again. I understood it because, at that point, I was starting to wonder the same thing.

The hope was that Year 2 would look different. Somehow, things got even worse.

Two games into the 2024 season, Dave Canales benched Young for Andy Dalton. I know we've had two years to move past it, but that's still pretty wild when you think about where Young is now. A little more than a year after Carolina gave up everything it did to draft him No. 1, he wasn't even the starting quarterback anymore.

Canales said Dalton gave the Panthers the best chance to win. I don't care who you are, that has to be tough to hear when you're 23 years old and already have people everywhere telling you that your team drafted the wrong guy.

What happened next is probably the biggest reason I look at Young differently now.

He Didn't Make Excuses

Young could've been angry, and I don't think anybody would've blamed him. Carolina had already changed coaches, the offensive line hadn't exactly made his life easy, and there were plenty of other things wrong with the Panthers besides the quarterback.

But Young didn't really go there.

“I'm always going to look in the mirror,” Young said after the benching.

Then he went back to work. Young ran the scout team, stayed ready, and eventually got another chance after Dalton was injured. When he got back on the field, he started playing better, and eventually there wasn't much of a quarterback debate anymore.

That's the part I think gets lost now that we're watching what Young is doing in 2026. He didn't just struggle for a while and then suddenly get better. He actually lost his job and had to work his way back to being Carolina's starting quarterback.

Now His Answer to McAfee Makes More Sense

Fast-forward to now, and this whole conversation looks completely different. Young has thrown for 1,268 yards and nine touchdowns through four games. He just threw for 329 yards and two touchdowns against Detroit, and Panthers fans were chanting MVP for him Sunday night.

If you had told me that was coming when Young was sitting behind Dalton, I don't know if I would've believed you.

McAfee asked Young this week how he deals with all the criticism, and his answer made me laugh a little.

“I'm grateful for the engagement,” Young said.

That's such a Bryce Young answer. He's basically saying people care about football, so they're going to have opinions about him, and he understands that. What I found more interesting was what he said about how much those opinions actually mean to him.

“I'm probably not really gonna put anything into it,” Young said.

Now go back through everything that's happened since Carolina traded up to draft him and think about that answer again.

What If Young Had Actually Listened?

That's where I keep getting stuck with this. What happens if Young actually starts believing everything being said about him?

Maybe the Stroud comparisons get to him. Maybe getting benched for Dalton kills whatever confidence he had left. Maybe Young never plays well enough when he gets another chance, or Carolina decides it has seen enough and starts looking for another quarterback.

We'll never know, and I'm not trying to make this more complicated than it is. Young wasn't good enough early in his career, and some of the criticism was deserved. He had to get better, and he has.

But I also think you have to give him credit for how he handled everything when it looked like his career in Carolina might be falling apart. It's easy to say you don't care what people think when you're throwing for 300 yards, and fans are chanting MVP. Young apparently didn't care all that much when he was sitting on the bench, either.

That's what I kept thinking about after hearing him talk to McAfee. Carolina has changed coaches, changed play-callers, and tried to put better players around Young, and all of that has helped.

But none of it matters if Young doesn't fight his way back from that bench.

Maybe that's one of the biggest reasons the Panthers still have their quarterback.

Add us as a preferred source on Google