The Secret to Unlocking Bryce Young Is Right in Front of the Panthers

The Carolina Panthers would love for Bryce Young to be more consistent. The highs are pretty high, as evidenced by outings against the Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Rams, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The lows are low, unfortunately. The Panthers would like to keep him on the higher end because it is better for him, and it will lead to more points and more wins. How can they do that? How can they truly unlock Young?

The answer might be right in front of them.

Panthers can unlock Bryce Young with more deep passes

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young (9) passes the ball | Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

The volume wasn't exactly there, but when Bryce Young threw it deep (over 20 yards), he was excellent. In fact, he was quite literally the best in the NFL at it in 2025.

The best deep ball thrower in 2025:

BRYCE YOUNG 🚀 pic.twitter.com/CxEzvl4gGw
— PFF (@PFF) February 12, 2026

His passing grade for the entire season when throwing deep down the field was an unfathomable 99.7. That's pretty much as good as it gets, and no one was better.

Was he throwing to wide-open receivers all the time? Not at all. Young had the highest big-time throw rate (38.9%) of any quarterback in the NFL on deep throws. PFF defines a big-time throw as high-difficulty and high-value.

In other words, he was threading the needle with perfectly timed passes down the field more than anyone else. Nearly 40% of the time, Young needed to make a perfect throw deep down the field and he did.

The graphic doesn't have a qualifier on it, such as a minimum of 250 attempts. With that in mind, we can infer that this includes literally every quarterback.

That means he outperformed Drake Maye, Matthew Stafford, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Sam Darnold, and the rest of the league.

Even without a qualifier, we can assume that no one got higher than a 99.7 grade on deep passes even if they threw just one deep pass all year because that is so close to literal perfection.

So what does this mean? It's obvious that Young, despite having a weaker arm than many of his peers, is better at throwing it deep than anyone else. That's what the Panthers should do.

Fans likely saw it all season long, but when Dave Canales let Young throw it deep, the Panthers had success. These stats only affirm what we all saw, so to unlock him even further, the Panthers should throw it deep more.

Additionally, this means they should add a speed threat to the pass-catching corps. Tetairoa McMillan is a good deep threat, but he's not exactly a speedster that can take the top off. If the Panthers add that to a QB who has the best deep ball in football, they might be unrecognizably good next year.

This all hinges on Canales, though. He was too often conservative and too often afraid to open things up for Young. If he does, then Young will continue to ascend.

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