Given a second chance to resuscitate his young career, Bryce Young produced something equally as rare during Week 9 of the NFL season — a victory for the Carolina Panthers.
Young, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 NFL draft, who was benched earlier this season after just 18 career starts, led Carolina on a game-winning drive to beat New Orleans 23-22.
After the Panthers took over with 3:26 left in the fourth quarter trailing 22-17, Young threw a pair of incompletions before he found Xavier Legette for 26 yards. On the next play, Young threw the ball high downfield, inducing a pass interference penalty that moved the ball 16 yards from the end zone. Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard scored on the next play, and Young was sacked on the two-point conversion.
The drive ended a day in which Young completed 16 of his 26 passes for 171 yards, with a short touchdown to Legette and an interception in which Legette initially caught the pass, only for a Saints defensive back to rip the ball away. The outing wasn’t spectacular — his 61% completion rate was only a tick higher than his 59% career average — but it was efficient, and it ended with a clutch victory over a team that had beaten the Panthers 47-10 in Week 1 while making Young look overwhelmed.
For Young, who is now 3-17 as a starter, that counts as progress.
The win ended the Panthers’ five-game home losing streak, dating to last season.
Carolina traded up to select Young out of Alabama first overall in 2023 and quickly installed him as the franchise’s face and starter. But in September, after just 18 starts and paltry production, he was benched in favor of veteran backup Andy Dalton. His struggles were magnified by the contrast between him and Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud, who was drafted immediately after him and found early success as he led the Texans to the playoffs as a rookie.
In September, four teams inquired about trading for Young after he was benched, according to Fox’s Jay Glazer, but were told Carolina would not consider a trade. Glazer added the Panthers “still think there’s a future here.”
That future arrived last week, when Dalton sprained a thumb in a car accident, bringing Young back into the lineup before a loss to Denver in which he completed 64% of his passes and threw two touchdowns but also two interceptions.
Young is yet another reminder that being a high draft pick alone — even one a team has given up assets to trade for — doesn’t provide career insulation in the NFL. This week, Indianapolis benched quarterback Anthony Richardson, the fourth pick in the same draft as Young, and earlier this season Tennessee sat its own second-year quarterback, Will Levis, who was a second-round pick in 2023.
First- and second-round quarterbacks who don’t pan out in their first homes often get more opportunities elsewhere, such as Sam Darnold, thriving in Minnesota after stumbling with the New York Jets and the Panthers, or Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay following time in Cleveland and Carolina. Less common is the benched starter who returns to earn full favor within an organization that had lost enough confidence to initially sit him. Young appears to have that opportunity now.