Why the Panthers Trading Bryce Young to the Dolphins Makes the Most Sense

Carolina and owner David Tepper will never find another trade partner with such an appealing infrastructure and an opening at quarterback.

Young could be a possible fit in Miami with Tagovailoa recovering from a concussion. / Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

Life moves fast in the NFL, and if you think too long about the past, you’ll be left there. Three weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers were proceeding like Bryce Young was their future, and the Miami Dolphins had committed emotionally and financially to Tua Tagovailoa as their franchise quarterback. Now Young is on the bench, Tagovailoa’s career is in limbo, and it’s time for Carolina and Miami to make a deal.

Young can get a fresh start in the best possible situation. If Young’s career is salvageable, and Tagovailoa retires because of concussions, the Dolphins would have a workable quarterback situation, which they do not have now. The Panthers would make the best of a miserable situation.

It might work out for nobody. But it makes the most sense for everybody. The big question is whether Carolina’s impetuous owner, David Tepper, can put his ego aside and acknowledge his franchise’s reality.

When the Panthers’ new coach, Dave Canales, benched Young for Andy Dalton, he said the team was “not really considering” trading Young. His choice of adverb was revealing. The gap between “not considering” trading Young and “not really considering” trading Young is larger than anything Carolina’s offensive line has created in years.

Dalton has proven to be an immediate upgrade on Young. Maybe that means Young is incapable of being an NFL starter. But it certainly means that Young is incapable of being the Panthers’ starter. His appeal as a prospect was in how well he processed and how decisively he acted on what he saw. Now his confidence is shot, and it’s not coming back in Carolina.

The Panthers can’t bench Dalton for Young unless Dalton gets hurt or plays disastrously. If they keep Young, they would only have one more season before they have to make a decision on his fifth-year-option. Picking up the option would cost them somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million. The path that leads to Young staying in Carolina for the long term is quite narrow. Keeping him is a commitment to a sunk cost—something that Tepper, who made his billions running a hedge fund, should understand well.

Again: Maybe Young is just a bust. But if anybody can revive him, it’s the Dolphins. When Miami hired Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa was a beaten-down quarterback who was compared unfavorably to a physically superior quarterback drafted after him: the Chargers’ Justin Herbert. McDaniel built up Tagovailoa’s confidence and installed a scheme that plays to his strengths. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle gave Tagovailoa the best pair of big-play weapons in the league. The combination saved Tagovailoa’s career.

Young is a beaten-down quarterback, too, who has been compared unfavorably to a physically superior quarterback drafted after him: the Texans’ C.J. Stroud. If he can’t play, he can’t play. But McDaniel, Hill and Waddle give him his best shot.

As wild as this sounds, Young might also be the Dolphins’ best shot at finding a competent quarterback. Tagovailoa is out, perhaps for a long time. His replacement, Skyler Thompson, is a 27-year-old who has thrown one career touchdown pass and just suffered a rib injury. McDaniel said he isn’t sure if Thompson, Tim Boyle or Tyler Huntley will start at quarterback this week. There is not a whiff of optimism in that sentence.

Trading the No. 1 pick in the draft after just 18 professional games would be an astounding admission of failure. But benching the No. 1 pick in the draft for 36-year-old Andy Dalton after just 18 professional games is not what I would call a success.

Picking Young first is where the Panthers were. Young watching Dalton from the bench is where the Panthers are. They should realize that the longer he sits, the less time anybody has to turn him around—and that decreases the incentive to acquire him. The time to act is now.

Young is (obviously) a depressed asset. His trade value right now is minimal. But with sliding-scale compensation, a deal would work.

The Dolphins would commit to dealing only a late-round draft pick. If Young hits certain benchmarks—starts, playoff starts, etc.—the compensation would improve. I would argue that the boom-or-bust nature of this calls for a sliding scale of unprecedented range. If Young only plays a bit, the Dolphins should give up very little. But if he starts in playoff games for two consecutive postseasons, or wins multiple playoff games, then the return should reflect his value as a good starting quarterback.

This really comes down to two factors. One is whether the Dolphins see—or saw—anything about Young that intrigues them. Young’s NFL career has been a debacle, but it’s not like the Panthers plucked him out of nowhere when they drafted him. Most people thought highly of him when he left Alabama. 

The other is how Carolina views Young—and that depends on Tepper.

The Panthers chose Young over Stroud, who has been a star for the Texans. / Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

Speculation that Tepper pushed for Young over Stroud started before they were even drafted. It increased when Tepper fired Frank Reich after less than a season. Billionaire owners tend not to admit to big mistakes publicly. But if Tepper did push for Young, and he sees the Young situation through that lens, that’s a problem.

 If the Panthers are trying to prove Young can be the face of their franchise, despite all available evidence, they are committing to a path of near-certain failure: Keep him, watch him struggle, decline his fifth-year option, lose him.

If Tepper is scared Young might succeed elsewhere and make him look bad, he has the wrong priorities and he doesn’t understand the game very well. Environment matters a lot in the NFL. If Young succeeds somewhere else, it is because he found a better situation.

But if Tepper views Young purely as an asset that he needs to maximize, he’ll see him differently. He will realize that the best way for the Panthers to get value from Young is not just to deal him, but to deal him to the place where he is most likely to thrive, thereby improving the compensation.

Miami is that place. The Panthers will never find another trade partner with such an appealing infrastructure and an opening at quarterback. The Dolphins got here because of an unusual sequence of events that are unlikely to be replicated anywhere else.

This kind of trade has never really happened in the NFL, as far as I can tell. It probably won’t happen now. But it should—for everybody’s sake.