Bryce Young is Asking Questions 'Well Beyond What a Rookie Would Ask'
Bryce Young's size or lack of it has been one of the most talked about topics over the course of the last several months.
Rarely do you see a quarterback of his stature make it to the NFL, let alone go No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft. Of course, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, and Kyler Murray come to mind as smaller quarterbacks who have found success in the league but still, it's a relatively small (no pun intended) list.
With Bryce Young, his size is really the only red flag in his game. That is if you consider it a potential issue at the next level. Panthers QB coach Josh McCown, who spent over 15 years in the league, doesn't believe Young's size will be problematic. And he's not just saying that because he's defending his quarterback. He truly believes it.
"It's obviously part of it, unique to our league for a quarterback. You get into the average heights and different things but when you turn on the tape, you don't feel that. You never felt it. You look at all the studies and all the balls being thrown over the middle especially that's where you get into some issues and his percentages are as high or higher than taller quarterbacks. At the end of the day, that never really entered into the evaluation or as a critical factor because it just didn't show up on the tape."
Panthers GM Scott Fitterer mentioned on draft night that batted balls were never a concern with him and that he only had two that they saw on tape, which is one less than what Russell Wilson had in his final year of college ball.
What Young lacks in size, he makes up for with his high level of processing and understanding of the game. He is an advanced quarterback for his age and to support that, McCown lauded his ability to retain knowledge during film sessions and QB meetings.
"It's clear every time we step into a meeting with him, it's clear that he's taking the material, whatever was presented the day before, he's taking that and he's spent time with it at home. And he's digested it and he comes with questions. That's what a pro does. He's got great questions, very insightful. A lot of times well beyond what a rookie would ask, so that's encouraging. That expedites the process for us meeting-wise because we can get to some second, third, fourth level-type answers. He's doing a great job of taking the information, processing it, and this is kind of the downloading phase right now of all that information he's doing a good job of that."
You can follow us for future coverage by liking us on Facebook & following us on Twitter:
Facebook - @PanthersOnSI
Twitter - @AllPanthers_ and Schuyler Callihan at @Callihan_
