Bryce Young can't disappoint heading into his second season.
The Carolina Panthers have seemingly remedied any excuse Young could have in the most consequential season of his career.
Pro Football Focus ranked 10 players under pressure, and No. 1 on the list was Young, who, with a new head coach and a new wide receiver group, is primed to respond to the pressure with dazzling success.
"What makes his season’s struggles even more damning is the outstanding year fellow rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud had for the Texans," writes Sam Monson. "As the other real contender for the No. 1 overall pick, Stroud and his success will draw obvious questions about whether Carolina made the right decision at the top of the 2023 draft.
"The Panthers will hope that the team around Young was a far bigger factor in his failure as a rookie than his ability, and Year 2 is when he needs to prove them right."
Young is at a point in his career where he is still finding himself. But he still has the talent to be a high-level quarterback.
Dave Canales – the Panthers' head coach – knows that to be the case.
"I'm just excited about the talent," Canales said of Young, via The Season with Peter Schrager podcast last week. "It's everything that we saw from over a year ago when we were doing the draft evaluation. It's all there. It's all still there. So it's like, wait, the guy's athletic. He can get the ball out quickly.
"He's a leader. He communicates well. Like, oh, he's got everything we need. OK, Bryce, just do your part, do your 1/11th, do your quarterback part, you're the point guard, and then, we'll everybody else do all there's, and we can dissolve the pressure of 'you've got lead, you've got to do this' and all that. 'You're the one.' No, that's just not true. I have not seen that model of football work and win. In Seattle, we didn't put it all on (Russell Wilson's) plate. So that's not the model we're going to try to create in Carolina."
In landing Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson through trade and drafting South Carolina wide receiver Xavier Legette at the tail end of the first round, Carolina made it a priority to make Young's life easier. He just has to live up to it.
