Really good summary of the conundrum that is Bryce Young by ESPN's Ben Solak...
Get ready for Week 8 with takes on the Chiefs' trade deadline plan, Jared Goff's sneaky season, Kevin Stefanski's Coach of the Year case and the Ravens' struggling defense.
www.espn.com
We're 3½ years into Young's career, and I still don't know exactly how good this guy is. There is no individual player in the league, let alone quarterback, who confounds me the way
Bryce Young confounds me. Who are you?!
Let's take the widest view then funnel in. Since 2024 (I'm throwing out 2023 because it was a disastrous season under Frank Reich), Young is one of 31 quarterbacks with at least 600 dropbacks. He is 25th in EPA per dropback and 28th in dropback success rate (
Aaron Rodgers,
Cam Ward and
Joe Flacco are worse). He is 28th in completion percentage and 30th in off-target percentage (only
Caleb Williams is worse, and he's going to catch up to Young pretty quickly here).
Bryce Young on all dropbacks
| 2024-26 | Rank |
|---|
| Completion percentage | 61.9% | 28th |
| Off-target rate | 18.6% | 30th |
| Yards per attempt | 6.6 | 27th |
| EPA per dropback | 0.02 | 25th |
| Success rate | 42.9% | 28th |
| Explosive pass rate | 12.2% | 22nd |
| INT/dropback | 1.9% | 20th |
| Sack/dropback | 5.9% | 12th |
I think it's easy for people to forget just how bad Young has been on a large sample -- remember, we eliminated his terrible 2023 rookie season. And unlike a lot of the young quarterbacks who have shaky numbers over the past few seasons -- Ward,
Tyler Shough,
Jayden Daniels, etc. -- Young's bad statistical output is not the result of terrible negative plays drawing his performance down. He is around league average for interception rate and sack rate. The average Young pass just isn't all that valuable. It is not completed often enough, and when it is completed, it doesn't generate enough yardage. It's as simple as that.
Now let's narrow things. We don't really care how Caleb Williams produced in 2024, and for good reason -- he's clearly a different guy than he was then.
Drake Maye is different.
Justin Herbert is different. The NFL stands for Not For Long; it's concerned only with what you've done lately. So, let's push aside past seasons and take a look at Young's 2026 progress report.
Panthers coach Dave Canales gave
offensive coordinator Brad Idzik playcalling responsibilities this season, and there has been a boost in the Panthers' offense accordingly. The second season of reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year
Tetairoa McMillan and the third year of
Jalen Coker opposite him helps, too. Through seven weeks of the season, Young is still 30th in completion percentage and 33rd in off-target rate among 34 quarterbacks ... but he's balancing the scales with bigger throws. Young is seventh in air yards per attempt, a new single-season best for him. He's 11th in explosive pass rate and 12th in first down/touchdown per dropback rate.
The chief change in the Panthers' offense under Idzik? Carolina is not doing too much
schematically different, but it has changed the proportions in which it has asked Young to do what he does. When Canales first came to Carolina, the Panthers wanted Young to be a spread-n-shred point guard. In 2024, 22.4% of his dropbacks were in empty formations, then 18.3% in 2025. This season, it's down to 12.8%. As empty has dropped, under center has risen (13.1% to 14.6% to 19.2%) and play-action has followed (22.2% to 25.2% to 27.6%).
The abandonment of empty is particularly interesting when we look at what has
replaced it. The Panthers hired Darrell Bevell this offseason as an associate head coach. For the past four years, he served as Mike McDaniel's quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator in Miami. A huge part of the Panthers' playbook has suddenly become extremely McDaniel-inspired. The Panthers, much like the Dolphins did with
Tua Tagovailoa, are weaponizing Young's lightning-quick release and strong pre-snap processing to hit easy-access RPOs.
The fact that Young is experiencing a production bump while enjoying the same dusting of McDaniel magic dust that once inflated Tagovailoa's output is ... suspicious. But Young has something that Tagovailoa never had: the ability to make plays under pressure.
Young's career numbers don't stack up well on all dropbacks, but on pressured dropbacks (again since 2024) he has always had a knack for playmaking without inviting great disaster. Here's that same table from above, but only on pressured dropbacks. Over the past three seasons, Young is now 11th in dropback success rate, 11th in explosive pass rate and 15th in EPA per dropback. Notice again that his sack rate and interception rate remain low relative to his peers.
Bryce Young on pressured dropbacks
| 2024-26 | Rank |
|---|
| Completion percentage | 44.3% | 21st |
| Off-target rate | 27.9% | 24th |
| Yards per attempt | 5.5 | 21st |
| EPA per dropback | -0.25 | 15th |
| Success rate | 31.1% | 11th |
| Explosive pass rate | 10.6% | 11th |
| INT/dropback | 1.4% | 7th |
| Sack/dropback | 16.6% | 8th |
These are my favorite traits of Young's -- his twitch, his poise and his creativity. It's especially notable in the red zone, where Young flits in and out of tight spaces to manipulate defenders and break coverages. He doesn't make the same truly elite plays out of structure that
Josh Allen, Williams and
Patrick Mahomes do -- he lacks the arm strength and the physical bulk -- but he is in the tier below.
Young has played well under pressure over a multi-season sample, so he should -- with an improvement to the base offense around him -- be able to sustain a solid passing attack and respectable NFL offense. We've seen it in flashes this season, and we said that last year, too. But it's never consistent and never strung together for more than three consecutive games.
Sunday's 43-13 disaster against the Buccaneers was far from Young's fault -- the defense was embarrassed and his offensive line had its worst game of the season against the Bucs' deep stable of powerful rushers -- but Young certainly didn't help. He was erratic and late, as he often is when he gets jittery in the pocket after several hits.
The Panthers are 3-3 and, in theory, in the driver's seat in the NFC South. They have an enormous game at the Packers on Thursday night. Remember, they won at Lambeau Field last season
as 13-point underdogs. If Carolina can run the ball well and play deep zone coverages that force
Jordan Love to check down the football -- and Green Bay's terrible rushing attack continues -- it has a clear avenue to victory.
The Panthers are capable of beating the Packers and most other contenders on any given Sunday. But they're also capable of losing in dramatic fashion to the one-win Buccaneers. And that's because their quarterback remains a mystery bag even now, 50 starts into his NFL career. I know he's getting better, but I'm not sure he's getting better enough fast enough. I know he can make plays under pressure, but I'm not sure he makes enough big ones. I have one job (literally, this is my job), and I still can't figure out what to do about Bryce Young.
Inside Carolina Football Recruiting
Four-Star 2028 QB Levi Kerr Commits to UNC
Inside Carolina Football
Greg: Elite QB Play, Porous Defense & What Comes Next for UNC
Inside Carolina Football
Jason's Five Takeaways from UNC's Loss to Miami: Proof of Concept
Inside Carolina Football
Defensive Lineman Viliami Moala No Longer With UNC Team
Inside Carolina Basketball
UNC's Season Begins, Recruiting Wins - Coast to Coast
