Not what you want: The Bryce Young era is off to a terrible start
CHARLOTTE - With about seven minutes left Sunday and down eight points to the Minnesota Vikings, Bryce Young took a first-down snap and handed the ball to Miles Sanders.
Boos rang out at Bank of America Stadium before the Carolina Panthers running back was tackled for a short gain.
Panthers fans, who were annoyed with the Carolina offense for much of the afternoon with collective muttering, were now openly hostile.
A winless team facing another winless team in the fourth game of the year, and the Panthers still weren't letting their first overall pick sling the ball. Even a little. Young, the former Alabama star who Carolina mortgaged its future to acquire, wasn't just running an offense with training wheels still attached; he was piloting the equivalent of one of those tricycles where the parent is actually steering the thing with a big handle.
Screen pass, handoff, check down. And repeat. By that point in the game, Young had completed only one pass for a gain of more than 20 yards, and it came on a short throw to Adam Thielen in the left flat.
Within moments, Young demonstrated that head coach Frank Reich's lack of faith in him wasn't without reason. Having steered Carolina into the red zone on a drive that included - gasp - a couple of intermediate passes, Young threw two incompletions and took a pair of sacks that effectively ended the game. More boos rang out, and the surprisingly large purple-and-yellow contingent in the stands closed out proceedings with their Skol chant.
Panthers fans could be forgiven for their anxiety. It's not just that Young is the would-be franchise cornerstone, a Heisman Trophy winner who could allow Carolina to forget about the rapid decline of Cam Newton; it's that the team paid a steep price to get him. Last October, the Panthers sent running back Christian McCaffrey to the San Francisco 49ers for 2023 draft picks in the second, third, and fourth rounds, plus a 2024 fifth-round pick. They used the best asset in that haul, the second-rounder, as part of the package sent to the Chicago Bears for the first overall pick in 2023, with which they selected Young. The price paid for that top pick still elicits a low whistle: the ninth and 61st picks in 2023, a first-round pick in 2024, a second-round pick in 2025, and a very capable wide receiver in D.J. Moore.
The Panthers took a huge chance with that series of moves, a high-risk play not unlike a deep ball that Young has so far not been allowed to throw. By the extremely unscientific metric of JIS (Jerseys In Stadium), McCaffrey was and is a star in Carolina. And while there are all sorts of caveats to be added here about not being too hasty to make judgments after a month, the early returns for the Panthers are alarming. Young's cautious play so far has been backed up by the numbers: He's 33rd in ESPN's QBR statistic, or last among qualified quarterbacks. He's last in expected points added per play and last in success rate. He's also last in air yards per completion, which measures how far the ball travels beyond the line of scrimmage, at 2.9.
C.J. Stroud, the former Ohio State quarterback taken by the Houston Texas at No. 2 after Young, is ninth in the NFL in air yards per completion at 6.8, per Football Reference. He's been - and apologies for the complicated football terminology here - chucking it. Andy Dalton, the veteran who started in Young's place in a Week 3 loss at Seattle, is a notch above Stroud at 6.9. Anthony Richardson, taken fourth overall by the Indianapolis Colts and said to be a raw project compared to the polished Young, is 19th in air yards per completion and 17th in QBR.
In short, Young's been dramatically outplayed by rookies taken after him and also by his 35-year-old backup on his fifth team. It's not what you want, as they say. It's desperately not what you want when so much was gambled on Young translating his collegiate success to the pros. On the same afternoon that the Carolina QB's biggest play was running backward for 20 yards and fumbling a ball that was returned for a Minnesota touchdown, McCaffrey scored four touchdowns for the 4-0 49ers. Stroud threw for 306 yards and two touchdowns in a win over Pittsburgh. Richardson threw for two touchdowns and ran for another in an overtime loss to the Rams. Oh, and Baker Mayfield, dumped last year after half a season in Charlotte, threw for three touchdowns in Tampa Bay's third win of the season. Everywhere a Panthers fan looked, there were flowers blooming along roads not taken. At least Sam Darnold didn't lead any game-winning drives on the weekend.
From a Panthers team-building perspective, all of this seems deeply odd. Carolina cashed out on McCaffrey and fired head coach Matt Rhule last year, almost made the playoffs anyway, and then made a major swoop for the No. 1 pick when there wasn't a clear favorite at the top like Joe Burrow or Trevor Lawrence. Or, ahem, Newton.
And while those caveats mentioned above still apply to the early season, the Panthers now find themselves facing tough road games against Detroit and Miami. An 0-6 start is a real possibility in a season in which every loss gives the Bears better first-round draft position.
The Panthers have a bye in Week 7 and then home games against Houston and Indianapolis. If nothing else, the crowd in Charlotte won't have to look far to wonder what could've been.
Scott Stinson is a former national sports columnist for Postmedia News.