How Bryce Young went from slumped shoulders and shaky footwork to soaring confidence

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When he zipped a pass into the end zone to Tommy Tremble in Atlanta in Week 18, then turned his back on the play and signaled touchdown before it reached the Carolina Panthers’ tight end, it was more than just a show of confidence for Bryce Young.

It was the perfect metaphor for Young’s season, which saw the second-year quarterback make arguably the most important 180-degree pivot in franchise history.

Benched by his new coach after two games, Young’s remarkable resurgence over the final 10 games addressed the biggest question that faced the Panthers in 2024: Could the No. 1 pick from 2023 stake his place as the quarterback of the future?

The answer — voiced by everyone from Young’s teammates to Dave Canales, the coach who sat Young down in Week 3 — was a resounding yes.

“That kid is getting up out of there. He turned into an NFL player now,” said Jadeveon Clowney, the veteran pass rusher and 2014 No. 1 pick. “I’m happy for him. He looks like he’s having fun.”

That was too cold, Bryce.@_bryce_young @StephenCurry30 pic.twitter.com/EZwArdAj1L

— NFL (@NFL) January 5, 2025

Clowney had expressed concerns about Young’s energy during OTAs after arriving in Charlotte as a free agent. Young said last week his biggest takeaway from 2024 was understanding the impact his demeanor and energy have on the team.

The Athletic spoke to a dozen of Young’s teammates, coaches and team officials to get a better understanding of what changed for Young during a season in which he went from the league’s lowest-rated passer to one who was among Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded quarterbacks over the final 11 weeks of the regular season.

Like Clowney, they all pointed to Young’s improved body language and fire, which had a galvanizing effect in the locker room. But coaches also used Young’s five-week stretch as Andy Dalton’s backup to refine Young’s footwork and drill into him the importance of urgency in the huddle and pre-snap operation, which Dalton helped demonstrate.

While officials from other teams and various media outlets speculated about whether Young would be traded in the wake of his benching, the 2021 Heisman Trophy winner from Alabama stayed resolute in his approach and re-emerged looking like a different quarterback. As a result, Young and the team are in a much better place entering the offseason.

“They can go build around him. I think he’s the guy,” Clowney said. “He deserves that. He sat quiet those games when he sat down, didn’t open his mouth about anything, where he could have. He battled back and I think he won the locker room over with that as far as making guys believe in him and just seeing what the first overall pick looked like.”

After a tough rookie year that featured the in-season firing of Frank Reich and three offensive play-caller changes, Young entered the 2024 season with a revamped offensive line and a head coach with a history of resurrecting quarterbacks.

Young’s first pass of the season was picked off in a 47-10 loss at New Orleans. Whether that inauspicious start unnerved him or he was still leery of his protection after his 62-sack rookie season, Young looked like a mess in the pocket. He was jumping to throw over pass rushers and wasn’t trying anything downfield.

In a 26-3 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 2, Young completed 18 of 26 passes for 84 yards, the fourth-lowest passing total in Panthers history for a QB with at least 25 attempts. Veteran receiver Adam Thielen threw a sideline fit at Bank of America Stadium, where some fans wore bags over their heads and others were chanting for owner David Tepper to sell the team.

The mood in the locker room wasn’t much better. One team source said “it felt like the air was sucked out of the room.”

When Diontae Johnson — acquired via trade to give Young a receiver who could separate — was asked if he was surprised by the lack of downfield throws, he said: “We all are.”

After saying initially he was sticking with Young, Canales announced the next day that Dalton would start at Las Vegas. In a 36-22 win over the Raiders, Dalton threw three first-half touchdowns, finished with 319 passing yards and showed Young what the offense could look like if he went through his reads and trusted his protection.

Young also saw how Dalton took control of the huddle and how the other offensive players responded to Dalton’s energy.

“I value my coaches. I value my teammates. I value what they say,” Young said last week. “And when they’ve talked about, ‘When you’re doing X, Y, Z or you’re running around, you’re smiling, it makes us feel good. It makes us have confidence. It gives us that.’ That’s what resonates for me.”

Dalton’s performance against the Raiders earned him another start, with Canales evaluating the quarterback position on a week-to-week basis. While Young ran the scout team, Canales and his assistants continued to work with him. The Panthers’ staff believes in syncing up a quarterback’s footwork to the concepts of specific play designs.

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“We’ve got our drills we go through. A lot of the technique stuff is within the context of the play for us,” quarterbacks coach Will Harriger told The Athletic. “We’re not overly mechanical, and that’s not necessarily something we spend a lot of time diagnosing. And other things when we do, those things kind of stay in our room.”

Canales has declined to go into detail on what the points of emphasis were with Young, who received mop-up action in blowout losses at Chicago and Washington. But Young’s footwork ended the season “light years ahead” of where it was at the end of 2023 and the first two games of ’24, in the opinion of one team source.

And while Canales and general manager Dan Morgan have said there was a plan to go back to Young at some point, neither laid out what that plan looked like. Another team source said the Week 12 game against Kansas City — after the Panthers’ bye — would have been a logical re-entry point for Young.

Instead, fate intervened to force Canales’ hand when Dalton sprained the thumb on his throwing hand in a car accident on Oct. 22. Young would start at Denver in place of Dalton, who had lost four starts in a row after the win in Las Vegas.

Dalton believes Canales had the entire team in mind when he first sat Young down.

“I think he will look back and he’ll probably be happy he did with how it all played out — not necessarily knowing that it was gonna go back (to Young) and Bryce was going to do what he was doing,” Dalton said. “It’s a tough decision for a first-year head coach to make two games into the season. But I think for him it’s understanding the whole team and all the players that are involved in it. Sometimes it gives you a spark.”

While some in Young’s circle were upset with Canales over the benching, Young never wavered publicly, repeating that it was part of God’s plan. Teammates and coaches said Young’s approach to practices also stayed the same, which Canales believes spoke “volumes about his constancy, his character (and) his maturity.”

Panthers right guard Robert Hunt was part of the same Miami Dolphins’ draft class as Tua Tagovailoa, the ex-Alabama QB who was the fifth overall pick in 2020. Hunt said Tagovailoa benefited from sitting behind Ryan Fitzpatrick the first six games of his rookie year.

“He sat, he learned, he watched. That’s probably what should’ve happened here,” Hunt said. “You’ve got Andy Dalton, who’s done it a while and been a franchise quarterback. Let (Young) sit, let him watch, and then that situation (in 2023) probably wouldn’t even happen. That’s what he did (in 2024). He did it in a short time. That’s letting people know how fast he learns, and ever since then he turned it around.”

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Young’s turnaround was not immediate. He threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns in his Week 8 return against the Broncos, but his two scoring drives came on a short field following a turnover and a 98-yard march with the Broncos in a prevent defense at the end of their 28-14 victory.

Young led game-winning drives against the New York Giants (in Munich) and the Saints to carry some momentum into the bye, which was followed by the toughest stretch on the schedule. Although the Panthers went 0-3 against the Kansas City Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles, Young had Carolina in position to beat all three playoff-bound teams while going toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield and Jalen Hurts.

After the Bucs took advantage of a Chuba Hubbard fumble to win 26-23 in overtime, Mayfield said he thought Young “played his balls off” in completing 26 of 46 passes for a season-high 298 yards.

Bryce Young threw for a season-high 298 yards in a Week 13 overtime loss to the Bucs. (Bob Donnan / Imagn Images)

And just like that, Young had his groove back: Throwing in rhythm, anticipating receivers coming open, making off-platform throws — all the things that had convinced the Panthers to trade DJ Moore and four high draft picks to Chicago to take Young at No. 1.

Young’s numbers over his first 18 starts, including Weeks 1 and 2 this year, included a 59.3 completion percentage for 3,122 yards, with 11 touchdowns, 13 interceptions and a 70.9 passer rating. The Panthers were 2-16 in those games.

Compare those to Young’s stats from his last 10 starts: A 61.8 completion percentage for 2,104 yards, with 15 TDs, six INTs and an 88.9 passer rating. The Panthers were 4-6 after Young reclaimed the starting role.

From Week 8 when Young took back over through the end of the season, PFF scored Young with an 83.7 passing grade, sixth best in the league over that span. Young was just ahead of Mayfield (83.3) and Sam Darnold (82.3), both of whom had short stints in Carolina before the Panthers decided to go all in on Young.

“I always had the belief that Bryce was going to reach his potential. How that happened or when that came, I wasn’t sure. But I knew it was in there,” said Morgan, the assistant GM under Scott Fitterer when the Panthers drafted Young.

“When he was benched, I thought that was an opportunity for him to kind of sit back and just take a deep breath after a long previous season and first tough couple games. I think it was a really good thing for him in the long run,” Morgan added. “And to his credit, he’s come out and he’s really turned the page on that. We all feel really good about him being our quarterback of the future.”

While his play improved, Young also was growing more comfortable as a leader. After the 30-27 loss to the Chiefs, Young made a rare locker room speech, telling teammates they shouldn’t be surprised by their performance against the two-time, defending Super Bowl champs and punctuating his message with some expletive-deleted language.

“He is an introvert, where he doesn’t show that emotion all the time. But when he does, people listen,” Thielen said. “That’s what I told him last year. … ‘I’m not saying you need to do that every single day. But just know that because of who you are and the way you carry yourself, the way you prepare — when you speak up, people listen.’ ”

Young’s body language also was changing. Gone were the slumped shoulders and dour countenance from the first two games, replaced by a bounce in Young’s step and a smile on his face. After big completions or third-down conversions, Young would look to the sideline with a grin, as if to say, “I got this.”

“When he started to really buy into that, like, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna be myself and I’m gonna play free and just let it rip, and have fun doing it,’ it really started to go through the team like a virus — in a good way,” Thielen said. “You felt that as an individual and as an offense and as a team. I think it’s why he had a lot of success toward the end of the year.”

When Harriger was asked to name a play or two that best represented Young’s play over the second half of the season, Carolina’s quarterbacks coach pointed first to Young’s third-down scramble against the Arizona Cardinals, when the 5-10, 204-pound Young ran through 6-2, 244-pound linebacker Xavier Thomas to pick up the first down and extend the Panthers’ opening-series touchdown drive.

“We preach protecting the quarterback,” Harriger said, “but sometimes they do those things and they’re real displays of leadership to the football team.”

Added Tremble: “We loved it, man. Every single person, we love that stuff. It got us hype for the rest of the game.”

Adam Thielen, Bryce Young and David Moore celebrate Moore’s fourth-quarter TD grab against the Cardinals. (Bob Donnan / Imagn Images)

Young would have another similar display in the fourth quarter against the Cardinals. With linebacker Kyzir White coming unblocked up the middle with a full head of steam, Young stayed in the pocket and took a big hit from White as he released a strike to Tremble for a 12-yard gain. Two plays later, Young found David Moore for an 18-yard touchdown.

“You saw those moments last year of him being tough because he was getting crushed. But I don’t think you saw him throwing the ball on time and with accuracy while taking big hits,” Thielen said. “That’s what the greats do. They trust the system. They know the system. And they know when they can release it before the guy’s open and take a hit while doing it.”

From Weeks 8 through 18, Pro Football Focus had Young with 26 “big-time throws,” which PFF describes as high-difficulty, high-value passes. Young was tied with Joe Burrow for the most in the NFL over those last 11 weeks.

Young capped his comeback season (within the same season) in a 44-38 overtime win at Atlanta, accounting for five touchdowns, finishing with a career-best passer rating (123.5) and directing the Panthers’ highest scoring output in seven years. He joined Josh Allen, Steve Grogan and David Woodley as the only players in NFL history to rack up three touchdown passes and two rushing TDs in a game before their 24th birthday.

Young’s teammates were fired up with how Young ended the season, though not exactly surprised.

“That dude, I’ve been here since camp and I’m telling you, Bryce can put the ball anywhere in spots. It’s crazy,” Hunt said. “Y’all be seeing that s—. He’s been doing that all year. In games sometimes they don’t get caught. But we’ve been seeing them (well placed) balls. You can’t take that away. … When you got it, you got it.”

Dalton said it was fun watching Young “in full control” during his second act. Tremble — who was on the receiving end of Young’s turn-away TD pass at Atlanta — said if you know, you know.

“People who play ball, when you get on the field and see someone play, you know if they’re a good football player or not. You know if they’re built for this,” he said. “And he’s built for this stuff, man.”

“It’s crazy to do that all in one season and for all the crap people were talking about him. I hope they eat their words because he’s been ballin’, man,” Tremble added. “Everyone got to see it. Finish on a bang. It was awesome.”

(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)