Bryce Young is 'Mastering' the Panthers' New Offense

The Panthers' second-year quarterback is off to a good start with the new offensive scheme.

Jan 7, 2024; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young (9) drops back to pass against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the first quarter at Bank of America Stadium. Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports / Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

For the second time in as many years, Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young has to learn a new offensive playbook and scheme.

Last year's supporting cast or lack thereof has been well-documented, but what hasn't been talked about nearly enough, in my opinion, is that Young didn't really fit into last year's scheme under Frank Reich. Now, part of that can be attributed to the coaching staff not being on the same page, but there's a reason why rumrors floated about that Reich really wanted C.J. Stroud. He fits the traits of past quarterbacks Reich had throughout his career, whereas Young was an outlier - a type of quarterback he's never coached.

When it comes to shorter stature quarterbacks, Dave Canales has a pretty impressive resume with the work that he did with Russell Wilson and Baker Mayfield. The main objective is to get the ball out as quickly as possible and not allow the big guys upfront disengage and get into passing lanes. The line of demarcation is 2.7. If you get the ball out under 2.7 seconds, typically good things happen. Adjusting to that timing is something Young is working through in the early stages of the offseason program.

"I think today's a really good starting point for getting that," said Canales. "Because really what's going to allow Bryce to learn the timing as he grows is having the defense out there to kind of see that these windows close quickly. If number one in progression is going to be off pre-snap, how quickly can I get to two and three? Those are all the things that I can't wait to just can't wait to get into the meeting room, study what we did today, build off of that and just kind of stack those days. This is really the time we're starting to evaluate that."

In terms of learning and memorizing the new playbook, the verbiage, and all that comes with it, Young is in a good spot.

"He's doing fantastic with it and the way we do it is part to whole, really. So, as we teach our concepts...just for an example, let's say we have a pass concept, we're not going to use six different formations today to run this concept. If it becomes something that we're really effective at, we'll start to build it out. So for us, the formations are pretty vanilla so that we can just teach the concept and what we want out of each route, the depth, the footwork. That's the approach right now, so as I expected him to do, he's really mastering that part of it."

Again, it's early, so don't read into that as Young being in line to have a ridiculously good season. He could, but there are layers to this. Right now, he's mastering the first layer of install. Let's wait to see how he looks in training camp and in any preseason action before forming an opinion on what he can do in year two.

READ MORE ABOUT THE PANTHERS

An Injury Update and a Jersey Switch for Amaré Barno

Panthers Uptown Practice Facility Comes Into Focus

Canales Reacts to Panthers Getting Shutout of Primetime