Adam Thielen details the one change Bryce Young made that led to 'success' in 2024
After two weeks, Bryce Young was defeated. He looked like a broken shell for the Carolina Panthers and he was eventually demoted to the bench. His smile, which never really arrived in the NFL from Alabama, was gone. Not only did it look like his talent had left, but his personality was extremely muted.
To be fair to Young, it was hard to smile about the Panthers. They'd won twice in the first 18 starts of Young's career, and he had only a smattering of quality outings during that time. Eventually, that would change, and one adjustment is what Adam Thielen believes really took the offense to a new level.
Adam Thielen reveals how Bryce Young's change sparked Panthers offense
A 30-27 loss to the one-loss defending champions on a last-second field goal sparked a rare outburst from Bryce Young. Using expletives he rarely does, he emphatically informed his team that this performance was not a fluke. It was something Adam Thielen loved seeing.
“He is an introvert, where he doesn’t show that emotion all the time. But when he does, people listen,” Thielen said via Joe Person of The Athletic. “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.’ ”
Things were trending in the right direction for Young and the Panthers' offense at that point, but things continued to get better thanks to Young's overall demeanor. He believed the team was good enough to compete, and he believed in himself. His body language dramatically shifted over the final few weeks.
He was dancing, celebrating, and smiling like a little kid again. Thielen added of the new-look Young, “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. 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.”
That Young played like a dangerous NFL quarterback. He finished on a 10-0 touchdown to interception streak with a couple more scores on the ground. It was a fantastic finish to the year, one that might not have happened if he'd never gotten his joy back.
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