Seriously, what was that?
It was easier to believe last week that Bryce Young was avoiding his wide receivers like they owed him money than it was to believe he was so bad at passing that he could only
post 124 yards against a New Orleans Saints team that only had eyes for running back Rico Dowdle. This week, Young posted a career and franchise record 448 yards passing, three touchdowns, and no interceptions against the Atlanta Falcons. The only two solid conclusions I can draw from that are that divisional games are weird and Young deserves a key to the city of Atlanta.
Young wasn’t perfect yesterday and neither were his teammates. His five sacks taken were a joint effort between himself and his offensive line. In the past, that kind of effort would have snow balled into complete ineffectiveness. Three-and-outs would have been paced by a couple of well timed four play drives and that opening touchdown would have been about the whole story of the Carolina offense. Instead, Jalen Coker, Xavier Legette, and Tetairoa McMillan came alive as a unit. Young passed with precision, confidence, and anticipation, targeting both the long ignored intermediate and deep parts of the field.
This was the Young we all saw last season against the Philadelpia Eagles, the Kansas City Chiefs, in their first game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and in their season finale against the Falcons. We’ve seen him enough to know that complaints against his size and arm aren’t intelligent arguments. He can play quarterback and he can play it well. What’s understandably maddening is that he cannot seem to do it consistently.
You can’t play like a franchise quarterback in one out of every ten games in your career and expect to be paid lile one. Young has been too many different kinds of bad to be trusted. He has also shown that he can be excellent too many times to just assume that he is only bad.
Something has to be true.
Did Young turn a corner after being embarrassed by the Saints? Has the offense finally gelled with Jalen Coker fully back from his injury? Are the Falcons just determined to be that mean to their own fans?
I’m partial to the philosophy that, in situations with as many moving parts as an NFL football team, simple answers rarely capture the totality of a complex question. They are conveniences that pave over nuance. Despite David Teppers’ nigh immeasurable wealth, the Panthers lack the resources to ignore any possibilities at quarterback. Their opportunities for both short term and long term solutions are too few and far between.
That means that, eleven weeks into the 2025 season, the team is still exactly where they started the 2024 season when it comes to Bryce Young. He has not shown enough to guarantee the team picking up his fifth year option in the coming offseason, but he has shown enough to for some fans to be optimistic down the stretch of this season.
The San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams will provide excellent tests in the coming weeks. Young has been bad. He has been good. Now we get to see if he can be consistent against quality competition.
The Panthers find themselves in an odd position. If Young can pass that test then they are in a prime spot to make a push for the playoffs a year or two early in their rebuild strategy. The NFC South is currently led by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs are at 6-4 and on a two-game losing skid. The Panthers could concievably be in first place in the division by the end of next Monday night.
On the other hand, if Young turns back into a pumpkin in the coming weeks then the team will find themselves in rebuilding limbo. Good quarterbacks are hard to find and rarely hit the open market. Their best hope for 2026 will be competition for Young, not replacement, and that could set them behind on their schedule.
In all, this is a perfectly Panthers place for the franchise to be. The team is better than expected, but still incredibly frustrating for fans to watch on a week-to-week basis. And the biggest question of their season remains: Can Bryce Young remain a good quarterback or can he only be a rollercoaster?
