QB Room, Week 2: Let’s start...

A little over a year ago, I was sitting with someone from the New York Jets and we were discussing where it all went wrong with Zach Wilson. It was a lengthy conversation about all manner of things that impact a young quarterback’s growth — from maturity to confidence to patience and team-building ideology. In the grand analysis of everything, the tapestry of errors made by the organization boiled down to one regret.

Wilson never should have started as a rookie. The team wasn’t built for his success, and he wasn’t built to overcome the organization's shortcomings. And that ultimately fractured whatever he could have been for the Jets.

That’s the conversation I was thinking about Monday, when the new Carolina Panthers regime benched No. 1 overall draft pick Bryce Young after just two games this season. Young looked about as defeated as you can as a young quarterback. His body language — along with him just making the simplest of mistakes — ultimately led to this moment. Like Wilson with the Jets, something in his confidence looks broken. And it traces back to the punishment he took his rookie season behind an offensive line that was beaten up and ill-equipped to protect anyone, let alone a rookie quarterback.

Without a doubt, there’s a mental component here with Young — a confidence component — that is disrupting his ability to make some of the plays that he’s been making his entire life. At one point during the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday, Young badly missed wideout Adam Thielen on a simple third-and-2 throw into the slot position at the line of scrimmage. A free rusher came into his field of vision, but all Young needed to do was turn and make a quick, standard 5-yard throw. He missed it badly, zipping the ball nearly 3 yards in front of Thielen.

Later that day, an area scout who had done a lot of work on Young prior to the 2023 NFL Draft called me after seeing that clip.

“That’s so crazy. That’s a throw he would make 999 times out of a thousand coming out [of Alabama],” the scout said. “Sees the pressure, turns and throws to his short read. It’s just a wide handoff. They’ve got him so screwed up.”

It wasn’t an isolated opinion. A handful of personnel talent evaluators who I reached out to starting on Sunday shared a similar opinion that Young is a talented player who has gotten tangled in a messy franchise. And now he may need to get out and completely reboot somewhere else. That is becoming a familiar theme in Carolina that I’ll address later in this column.

Before we get to that, let’s address the important questions about Young.

Is Bryce Young done in Carolina?

If we’re letting history guide us, then yes — he’s probably done. I can’t think of the last time a player with this kind of perceived value to a franchise was benched this quickly in his second season. It’s a dramatic move. And it caught Young by surprise. Even in situations where the leadership of a team intends to calm things and search for another opportunity for a young quarterback later in the schedule, it rarely ever works out.

I spoke with a source who has an intimate understanding of what’s going on with Young and the coaching staff and front office, and the source painted this move as an effort to “stop the bleeding” and let Young “heal” — not as an ending to his career in Carolina. The source pointed out that Andy Dalton is signed through only the end of the season, so it’s an opportunity to sit Young down with the clarity that his replacement isn’t a long-term solution. In the meantime, he will watch a seasoned veteran and get a chance to mentally settle down.

Do I think that’s a 100 percent lock? No. Only because I think that team owner David Tepper is unpredictable and we’re still finding out how new head coach Dave Canales and new general manager Dan Morgan function beneath Tepper. This could be a sign of change from Tepper, where he’s letting Canales and Morgan make the call — even if it means ultimately bailing on Young. But Tepper’s history of meddling is what it is. If anything, this is all going to be an instructive moment that shows us how the franchise functions moving forward.

What was the final straw that led to the benching?

Thielen’s aggravation in the loss to the Chargers wasn’t great. But what I was told was that it was as much a body language red flag with Young as it was anyone else. He looked defeated and deflated against the Chargers. The coaching staff isn’t stupid when it comes to something like this. Keeping a quarterback in place when he’s as lost as Young has been this season only further damages the quarterback and any chance that he can regain footing.

Does Young have value to other NFL teams?

I think he does. When I talk to personnel people around the league and ask them if everyone was simply wrong in their draft assessments of Young, the response is similar. They all believe that Young still has the talent and tools to succeed in the NFL, and they all seem to believe that the culprit behind his failure is Carolina’s surrounding roster and organizational chaos.

Whether that opinion means Young has any real trade value is a whole other matter. I haven’t fished around on what his specific trade value is yet because I’m uncertain that Carolina wants to jettison him. And even if the Panthers do, highly drafted quarterbacks who get rug-pulled this fast don’t tend to have a ton of value. You could probably look at the Pittsburgh Steelers' trade of Kenny Pickett for guidance, which netted the franchise one third-round pick and a pair of seventh-rounders in exchange for Pickett and a fourth-rounder.

Before anyone gets into that kind of discussion, it’s best to wait and see what Dalton does in this opportunity. If he is equally bad, it probably says more about the roster and coaching than it does about the players.

If Young is finished, what are his future options?

We have to let the NFL and college football seasons unfurl a bit to really answer this. It’s not considered a great class of quarterbacks in the 2025 NFL Draft, but we also haven’t seen everything to offer yet. As for veteran options, it’s not looking great at the moment. Perhaps Russell Wilson is the odd man out in Pittsburgh. Maybe Sam Darnold plays well enough this season for the Minnesota Vikings that it unexpectedly open a conversation about a J.J. McCarthy trade. Maybe you take a trade flyer on Detroit Lions backup Hendon Hooker or check with Seattle on Geno Smith.

At best, it’s a murky situation only two games into the season. For the entire league … and most definitely for the Panthers.