Bryce Young's former coach is 'emphatic' that benched Panthers QB will be great

Matt Alquiza | Oct 23, 2024

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Carolina Panthers

Bryce Young's NFL career has been nothing short of a disaster. The former number one overall pick was benched after 18 starts and as it stands, he has no path back to relevancy with the team that drafted him. Dave Canales is adamant that veteran quarterback Andy Dalton gives the Carolina Panthers the best chance to win in 2024, which honestly says more about Young than it does Dalton. Even following an outing where Dalton failed to eclipse 100 passing yards and threw two interceptions that crippled his offense, Canales has no plans to hand the reins back to the quarterback he was brought to Carolina to save.

Although Dave Canales' belief in Young has seemingly waned, other folks around the former Heisman Trophy winner still believe that the potential he showed at the University of Alabama is still in there somewhere. The Athletic's Diana Russini hopped on her podcast, Scoop City, and shared a conversation that she had recently with one of Young's former coaches. Russini shared a bit about that conversation and how folks around the NFL still think that Bryce Young is salvageable.

Belief in Bryce Young

⬇️ Dianna Russini on Bryce Young trade talks:

“The #Panthers weren’t the only team that had Bryce Young as #1”

“They were emphatic. He’s going to be great, he just needs the right surroundings.”

As @DuncOnDemand likes to say #WeGoneSee ‼️ pic.twitter.com/lMRkSzYGVU
— Keep Purring Podcast (Ben) (@KeepPurringBen) October 22, 2024

Here's what Russini had to say about Bryce Young, a potential change of scenery, and his former coach that hasn't given up on him quite yet: "The Panthers weren't the only team that had Bryce Young as number one in terms of talent at the quarterback spot...I spoke with someone that coached Bryce Young over the weekend actually, and I asked him that exact question. 'Does Bryce Young have enough in him, in terms of the strength mentally, to recover from this experience? And also his ability?' Because it's so hard for us to see it now because it's just been so ugly on field..They were emphatic that he's going to be great. He just needs the right surroundings. "

Is that a hot take at this point? Because it sure feels like it is. Bryce Young's inability to function as an NFL quarterback was the biggest wart in the Carolina's Panthers ugly 0-2 start to the season. He passed for 161 yards (most of it in garbage time after Carolina went down 37-0 at halftime) and two interceptions in week one, and followed it up with an 84 yard, one interception performance in week two that eventually led to his benching.

The idea of him turning his career around after leaving Carolina isn't unprecedented. Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold have performed like Pro Bowl-caliber signal-callers after the Panthers jettisoned them following unsuccessful stints in the Queen City. David Tepper knows a thing or two about capitalizing on distressed assets. It has become a market inefficiency in the NFL to sieze failed Carolina Panthers quarterbacks and turn them into stars, and if Russini is correct, Bryce Young will join Mayfield and Darnold as quarterbacks that have found success outside of Carolina following a poor tenure in Process Blue.