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NO MATTER WHICH WAY you want to spin it, Panthers’ quarterback Bryce Young was poised to fail. Some fans want to blame David Tepper and the Carolina organization, while others seem perfectly content placing the brunt of the blame on Young himself. I say choose both. The Carolina Panthers have failed Bryce Young and Young has failed the Panthers.

It’s easy to point fingers at each party as the sole perpetrator behind one of the worst managerial decisions in modern-day football to bet the house for Young. We weren’t even two years in for the Panthers after touting the former first-round draft pick before they made the monumental decision to bench him in favor of veteran quarterback Andy Dalton.

It has been a whirlwind of emotions for Panthers’ fans, but it’s tough to say no one saw this coming. After a 2023 offseason filled with hope and exuberance, Carolina delved into a sobering reality– most rookie quarterbacks in the NFL are not meant to start right away. Of course, there are the outliers– think CJ Stroud who was drafted only one selection after Young who has quickly become one of the league’s rising stars and won Rookie of the Year last season. But all in all, the vast majority are inexperienced and wide-eyed thrown into the deep end just for the blowback to come back on them for a poor performance.

For that, the Panthers deserve some of the blame. They traded away valuable assets that would be beneficial for any freshman quarterback to have– star wide receiver DJ Moore, elusive draft capital, and the pressure of being the beneficiary of high stakes on the back end of a trade in order to just draft Young. Off the rip the Panthers aren’t in the best position to host any beginning quarterback.

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Then, the Panthers continuously refuted the fact that Young would have no weapons on offense. A half-hearted signing of Adam Thielen stated that Carolina would do the bare minimum in order to help Bryce Young succeed. It didn’t help Bryce Young when the Panthers had the 27th-ranked pass blocking unit, the 30th-best receiving unit, or the 28th-ranked run block unit. None of these rankings scream support for a infant quarterback, but it was the hand Young was dealt.

It has become clear that teams must do more to help pass throwers in the inception of their career. Whether that comes from giving him firepower through quality players on the perimeter or behind him at running back is up to the team, but simply ignoring the problem like Carolina has done and hoping the signal caller can clean up any rough edges is not only unreasonable, it’s simply irresponsible.

A last-ditch effort to transition to Dalton won’t magically change the Panthers’ fortunes. It seems as though this season is already lost. That statement in and of itself shows the flaws with the team’s roster construction. Young has no weapons, is running for his life behind an absent offensive line, and the defense looks more like a wet paper bag than a professional football unit. But, as the quarterback– on the player level, the blame ultimately falls on you.

Bryce Young himself cannot fix Taylor Moton’s 1.4% blown pass blocking rate according to Sports Info Solutions and the average 3.77 sacks per game he takes. Young cannot fix his receivers averaging 2.7 yards of separation on any given play. And Young cannot fix the abysmal run game that cannot seem to get off the ground in any meaningful manner to help set up the aerial attack.

BUT WHAT YOUNG CAN CONTROL is his own play to an extent– an end of the bargain which he has failed to maintain. Amongst all qualified NFL passers this season, Bryce Young ranks 29th in catchable ball percentage (76.5%) and 23rd in on-target percentage (71.1%). Young is not immune from your typical criticisms when evaluating a quarterback: he holds onto the ball too long, makes stupid and irrational decisions, gets spooked easily, and just doesn’t spin the football well at the professional level.

Sure, a lot of these knocks get alleviated with time and experience, but Young has shown no progression from his rookie year to his sophomore season. Instead, he has regressed in some ways– in the football world, if you’re not improving, you’re getting worse.

Young’s decisions have been baffling at times– throwing to clearly covered receivers, into zones with multiple defenders, and with abnormal arm slots. His completion percentage through two games have shown exactly why the benching was made, 55.4% through duo of contests doesn’t instill confidence in any head coach, especially when the reason you were hired was to reform an anemic offense, as is Dave Canales’ case.

The Alabama alum’s three turnover worthy plays are tied for fourth in the NFL and his three interceptions are tied for second. To be outscored 73-13 through two games is partly on the defense, but it’s just as much on Young and his reckless handling of the football. You simply cannot score points when you’re turning the ball over.

This phenomena has been seen all across the league and been on the up and up as head coaching tenures get shorter, college football gets more lucrative, and hype continues to fester for young prospects. The idea of sending a quarterback out naked and afraid is usually a bad one, and in order to pull off a successful inauguration into the league teams must either: be patient enough and have the grit to stick it out through extended periods of rough play while the quarterback figures it out OR have the QB sit behind a starter for more than a year so he learns.

The latter has worked to some avail– Patrick Mahomes with the Chiefs or Jordan Love in Green Bay, the notion is usually a good one.

Coaching staff turnover usually doesn’t help either– which is unfortunate because the boom and bust cycle of coaches are usually tethered to quarterback play. To be a new coach in an organization with a juvenile quarterback might be some of the worst cards dealt in football. Young had to learn plays for Frank Reich, his coach last season– only to post a 2-15 record and have his play caller fired. Now he had to learn plays for Dave Canales, only to be benched. The cycle seems like an endless negative feedback loop, one in which team brass is always jumpy to make some sort of decisive action.

News flash: hard action is not always the best idea when the issue needs time to resolve itself. Decisions without basis only reset the cycle and time frame instead of shortening it.

Take a look at another struggling young quarterback– Bo Nix in Denver. Nix has been thrust into a role where as a rookie he has thrown 77 attempts through two games– the third-most in the NFL. However, statistically he has been one of the worst pass-throwers in the nation: 24th in completion percentage, 25th in completion percentage over expected, and second-to-last in expected points added.

The question remains is that, is this a planned venture with head coach Sean Payton willing to accept that the ends justify the means? Or will Nix be subject to the death of nearly every other quarterback baptized by fire? Those are answers we won’t know the answer to, but the first-round quarterback graveyard just gained another victim.