Will the Panthers quarterback have a strong season?
Bryce Young had an unusual sophomore season as a pro. The 2023 first overall pick was benched after two straight terrible games against the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Chargers. New Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales switched to Andy Dalton and most of us thought that was it for Young’s career as a Panther. Instead, Young returned to the starting line-up in Week 5 against the Denver Broncos and slowly built a body of work that fans could believe in.
What happened in 2024?
Sure, Young was still 4-6 after his return but wins and losses aren’t everything. Playing against a murderer’s row of opponents—including both the eventual AFC and NFC Champion teams in the Kansas City Chiefs and the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles—didn’t help and neither did having one of the worst defenses in the history of the NFL.
The optimistic story out of those last ten weeks is centered on the four wins—versus New Orleans, against the New York Giants, versus the Arizona Cardinals, and at the Atlanta Falcons—and the two close loses against Kansas City and Philadelphia. Young looked competent and focused in those games. He was also accurate and decisive. He was, in short, every bit the quarterback we were told to expect during his rookie season. I am optimistic, though not totally convinced, that these games represent the floor of Young’s talent for the rest of his career.
Did that leave us with a predictive statistical sample?
To take his stats from just those games and average them across a 17-game season would be the height of cherry picking, however. As a Panthers fan, I have a healthy respect for those kinds of heights. One might call it a deeply jaded phobia.
Instead, we’re going to take his combined stat line from all ten of Young’s starts after he was benched and average those across a 17-game season. Hopefully this gives us a reasonable starting point. In those ten games. Young completed 197 of his 319 pass attempts for a 61.76% completion rate, 2104 yards, 15 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He also ran the ball 37 times for another 223 yards, five touchdowns, and five fumbles, two of which were turnovers.
What should Young’s stats be in 2025?
That would make for season-long stat line of 335 completions on 542 attempts for 3,577 yards, 26 touchdowns, and ten interceptions, with another 63 rushing attempts for 379 yards on the ground and about nine more touchdowns and fumbles. That would have had Young as the ninth most prolific passer by attempts and 16th by yards in the 2024 season. The yardage would have been just 150 yards behind C.J. Stroud’s 2024.
That’s the stat line we would hope to expect out of Young if he was rolling back the exact same team from 2024 into 2025. It is certainly an acceptable, but not inspiring line. The good news for Panthers fans is that there have been significant changes on both sides of the ball that should favor Young.
Is that all?
First and foremost, the defense should be better. Young will probably often be playing from behind, but hopefully not from as impossibly behind as he was in his worst games.
Second, the commitment to Chuba Hubbard and signing of Rico Dowdle behind the Panthers monster offensive line signals that the team is finally serious about committing to the running game. That should give Young more time to pass from more advantageous down and distances than the usual second or third and extremely longs that Young saw regularly last season.
Third, the addition of Tetiaroa McMillan to the receiving corps should diversify and improve Young’s range of targets. Defenses only have so much attention they can pay to each player, more talent means more targets. This is very much a “rising tide lifts all boats” scenario if McMillan is even half the receiver he is projected to be.
What should I watch for?
There are three things to keep a loose eye on in 2025 that will key us into whether or not Young is taking the next step forward. They all are going to relate to efficiency, stress, and what Young is being asked to do.
The first is is just Young’s completion percentage, this will account for the first thing we’re looking for and so much more. This is going to be the easiest quick check of how things are going. If the Panthers are running the ball wall, creating easier passing downs for Young, and this number is not improving over the 61.76% mark from the end of last season then Young—and the Panthers—might be in trouble.
The second is how often the Panthers find themselves in third and long situations while trailing their opponent. This is going to give us a barometer for how much pressure Young is under from a game situation perspective and provide nuance to the basic completion percentage stat. The more often the Panthers are in this situation the more often Young is going to be asked to complete lower percentage throws. This not only will affect Young’s stats but it will also affect our perception of them. If he’s 62% and his average to-go distance is 3 yards then I’m going to feel a lot differently about his play than I am if he’s 62% and his average to-go distance is 8 yards.
The third thing to watch for are big plays. Young was rated by multiple analysts as one of the best deep ball throwers in the NFL over the last six or so weeks of 2025. He put together some awesome tape in that regards and it is one of his traits that I find the most promising going forwards. If he is asked to launch moon shots every drive on 3rd and 15 and regularly missing them then that is largely a team problem. If he is hitting them on 2nd and 2 two or three times a game then the Panthers will be in business against any opponent in the league. The reality is likely to be somewhere in between those extremes. How close it falls to one extreme or the other is going to be a good indicator for how optimistic we should be about Young’s season.