Bryce Young and Chuba Hubbard post best PFF grades for Panthers in Week 16

Reviewing Carolina Panthers best and worst performers this week according to the Pro Football Focus grades.

Tim Weaver | 6 Hours Ago

Dec 22, 2024; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young (9) and running back Chuba Hubbard (30) react in overtime at Bank of America Stadium. / Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

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Carolina Panthers

It's not difficult to point out who the two most-important players on the Carolina Panthers are right now. The backfield duo of Bryce Young and Chuba Hubbard led the Panthers to an upset win over the Arizona Cardinals (36-30) in overtime on Sunday, combining for five total touchdowns in the win.

As expected, those two earned the highest grades from Pro Football Focus on the team this week. Let's break down their grades and see what else we can learn from the Panthers' marks from PFF.

Bryce Young tops Panthers offense

If this looked to you like the best game of Bryce Young's NFL career, you hit the mark. Young put up a line of 17/26 for 158 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 107.5 passer rating, the second-best of his career. Young did even more damage with his legs, totaling 68 yards and a touchdown on five carries, bringing his QBR up to 80.1. For his efforts Young earned a 91.2 passing grade, a 73.9 runnin grade and a career-high 91.7 overall, the best on the team this week.

Chuba Hubbard earns silver medal

Among players with five snaps or more running back Chuba Hubbard posted the second-best grade for the Panthers this week. Hubbard came in with an 87.6 run grade and an 86.1 overall after racking up 152 rushing yards and two touchdowns on just 25 carries.

Brady Christensen bottoms out

Carolina's offensive line had a pretty strong outing, with Damien Lewis, Chandler Zavala and Ickey Ekwonu all grading out at 74.6 or better. Robert Hunt's grade was dragged down by an inexplicable 44.7 run blocking grade, but Brady Christensen was the lowest-graded lineman this week. He earned a 40.4 mark in pass blocking, which brought down his overall grade to 51.4. To be fair, Christensen was subbing in for a sick Cade Mays at center and had no time at all to prepare this week.

Mike Jackson leads Panthers defense

The Diontae Johnson and Jonathan Mingo trades are pretty tough to beat, but for our money the best deal general manager Dan Morgan has made this season was getting cornerback Mike Jackson from the Seattle Seahawks for seventh-round pick Michael Barrett. Jackson would have been an afterthouht in a deep Seahawks cornerback room, but he's absolutely balled out all year for the Panthers. He posted two big pass deflections in crunch time against Arizona and earned the highest defensive grade on the team (78.1 overall) this week.

Tough scene for linebackers

At the bottom of PFF's grades for Carolina's defense this week was cornerback Dane Jackson and LaBryan Ray, but they were only on the field for 46 snaps combined. Among starters the lowest-graded defenders were inside linebackers Josey Jewell (48.4 overall) and Jacoby Windman (50.2) overall. Normally our eyeball test matches PFF's grades, but this is an exception - and part of a trend we've seen all year, and not just for this team. It seems off-ball linebackers are getting unfairly low grades compared to other defensive positions, even when they seemingly play well from the broadcast angle. Windman and Jewell looked solid this week if not spectacular, and something needs to change with how PFF is evaluating these positions.