Long before Greg Olsen began working as an in-game NFL analyst for Fox, he earned three Pro Bowl nods serving as a tight end for the Carolina Panthers from 2011-19.
Olsen recently spoke with The Athletic's Joseph Person about a handful of topics, including how second-year quarterback Bryce Young improved after he was benched by first-year head coach Dave Canales this past September.
"The Bryce we saw when he took back over is making those plays in the pocket," Olsen explained. "His feet are underneath him. He’s keeping his eyes downfield. I think he had a lot more confidence in the pass protection. ...He’s creating second-level plays. He’s attacking the ball downfield. It’s not just swing screen, smoke screen, draw. There would be games last year where we wouldn’t see him throw the ball five yards downfield. He just looked more confident in himself, the scheme, the people around him."
Young may have been the NFL's worst starting quarterback across the first two weeks of the 2024 season before his benching, and one may never know if the 23-year-old would've taken another meaningful snap through Week 18 had veteran Andy Dalton not suffered a sprained thumb in an October car accident.
Canales turned back to Young in Week 8, and the first pick of the 2023 draft largely looked like a player reborn over his last 10 starts. In total, Young completed 197 of his final 319 pass attempts (61.76 percent) for 2,104 yards with 15 touchdowns and six interceptions. He also added 223 yards and five touchdowns on the ground as he helped the Panthers win four of those 10 games.
Shortly after Carolina's regular-season finale, Canales confidently declared while speaking about Young that "we've got our guy." If nothing else, it seems there's little chance the Panthers will consider trading Young before the 2025 campaign gets underway.
"I’m happy for him," Olsen added about Young. "He does it right. He’s a kid that I want my boys to look up to. I want them to model themselves (after). He could have quit. He could’ve gone in the tank. He could’ve folded. The bounceback that he took was one of the best stories in football. It represents everything we want to teach our kids about resiliency, just the ability to keep going."