In the wake of another poor showing by Bryce Young, Panthers head coach Dave Canales offered a public vote of confidence in the 2023 first overall pick. A very quick reversal has been made regarding the team’s quarterback depth chart, however. 
Carolina will in fact go with Andy Dalton in Week 3, Tom Pelissero reports. The veteran made one start last season while Young was injured, and he will now take charge of an offense desperately in need of improvement. Dating back to end of the 2023 campaign, the Panthers have scored just 13 points in their past four games. This decision was driven by Canales along with general manager Dan Morgan and EVP Brandt Tillis, ESPN’s Adam Schefter adds.
Young himself is not solely responsible for the team’s underwhelming production, obviously, but the 23-year-old struggled throughout his rookie campaign and has not shown signs of improvement early in the 2024 season. Young’s 8.9 QBR ranks dead last in the NFL through two weeks. Dalton should offer a degree of stability over at least the short term while Canales aims to develop Carolina’s offense.
Of course, the former Buccaneers OC was hired as head coach in large part for his potential in helping Young rebound from his rookie campaign. The Alabama product will now spend time on the sidelines as part of that process while Dalton, 36, receives a second look during his Carolina tenure. The longtime Bengals starter became a journeyman backup starting in 2020 when he joined the Cowboys.
That one-year stint was followed by one in Chicago of the same length. With the Bears turning to Justin Fields as their starter midway through the 2021 season, it came as no surprise Dalton once again found himself on the move in short order. The TCU product next joined the Saints, and he started all 14 of his appearances in 2022. Dalton completed two thirds of his pass attempts that season while posting a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 18:9.
The Saints added Derek Carr last offseason, but Dalton remained in the NFC South by taking a two-year deal including $8MM guaranteed. That investment came with the knowledge Carolina would be taking a signal-caller in the draft, something which was cemented by the team’s blockbuster trade to acquire the No. 1 pick. Young has – to put it lightly – not justified the price paid by then-general manager Scott Fitterer so far in his career. Today’s move marks a notable turning point in his brief NFL tenure, but the team will no doubt re-insert him into the lineup at some point and in doing so give him another opportunity to make progress.
Dalton’s 164th career start will come against the Raiders, and his ability to lead the offense to a better showing will be worth watching. Should he remain atop the depth chart for at least one more week, he would be in line for a matchup against the Bengals.
At this point they need to look remotely like an NFL team. Young has been a big problem, but he’s far from alone. Maybe Dalton can give them a control group to see what’s what. But of course this won’t fix a defense that was untalented before its best player went down.
Who went down?
Derrick Brown is out for the season.
That 2nd round pick next year the Bears still have coming is looking better all the time.
A couple years ago the Bears traded away what turned out to be the first pick of the second round. Looks like they might get the lucky version of the same outcome.
In a lot of ways that 1st pick in the 2nd round is more valuable than a late 1st rounder because it gets you a really good player without the guarantees that go with the 1st rounder. I know when Poles traded that pick he really didn’t think the Bears would get the 1st pick of the 2nd round he probably thought they would be better than they were.Unfortunately he was wrong about the Bears and the player he traded for making it a horrible decision. Nobody is perfect.
I didn’t mean it as a dig at Poles. It was a terrible move, but I think he’s been really good overall.
The guarantees aren’t all that different. You could argue it’s better to get the fifth year option at a modest extra cost.
True. but more often than not that 5th year guarantee is for way more money than the player is worth and gets declined.
Usually more than half of them get picked up. This offseason, 18 of 32 fifth year options were picked up . The year before it was only 12. The year before that it was 19. The year before it was 20. And teams can still keep guys around without the fifth year option, like Bateman or Collins this past offseason.
The failure ALL comes down to the owner – who wears the pants in the Panther football family? Did he not learn from co-coach Irsay? The 2022 Colts were 3-3-1 and had beaten the Champion Chiefs; but a couple of the losses were bad. Irsay had had enough, as he thought the Colts were a SB contender, and systematically fired the coaches, named the Practice Squad QB as starter (Ehlinger) and hired a former Colt/TV analyst as Head Coach. The rest of the season was May be the most embarrassing in NFL history.
Lesson learned; owners should let their football people make football decisions.
A fundamental problem is that some owners simply have no idea what a football person with good decision making abilities looks like. They either hire a consult firm to provide recommendations to them or they create a layered bureaucracy in the front office and fill it with suitable “fall guys” to take the blame when disaster strikes.
I think they went with the wrong player to begin with and that they should have taken Stroud. With that said, I also think throwing him into the fire on a horrible team has ruined any shot he had at being a successful NFL QB in the future. If they would have let him sit for a year or two he could have had a shot at being decent.
Imagine trading up tp select Young when Stroud is available. Lol that’s a decision the Browns typically make!
I’m not saying it was the right choice. But Stroud would look bad in Carolina too.
100% the truth.
Probably not THIS bad though
Frodo’s career is done
Worst #1 pick of all time
JaMarcus Russell has entered the chat . . .
First 18 games played:
Russell: 53.2% complete, 2648 yards, 13 TDs, 11 INT
Young: 59.3% complete, 3122 yards, 11 TDs, 13 INT
I was actually thinking it would be no contest for Russell ending up worst of all time, but it’s close. I still give it to Russell though because while Young is terrible, he’s also been sacked nearly twice as many times as Russell in that sample size, so Russell was just as bad or worse with less pressure.
Honorable mentions: Tim Couch, who also got murdered behind his line, but threw for more yards & TDs than either of these two regardless, and David Carr who threw a ton of picks but also got sacked 80+ times for over 400 yards in his first 18 games – makes me sore just reading those numbers. These guys were both behind lines for expansion teams in year one, feels unfair to pick on them too much!
Your research is solid. They are remarkably similar.
I’d argue Young is still the slightly worse pick though, only because Carolina also gave up future draft capital to move up for him. Russell only wasted one of the Raiders’ selections.
Yeah, that’s a very very good point, good enough that you’ve swayed me on this. I’m not even convinced on Caleb Williams, but all the rest of the stuff they got in addition to Caleb makes this much uglier.
Or maybe that college tape and development goes a ways longer than just Combine numbers and hype.
On the field, and on the field only, Richardson is showing serious JaMarcus signs….
Panthers should be in a good position — local NFL team in a growing part of the US — and they’re pissing it all away with their owner, coaching, team selection, etc.
BTW Dalton started 9 games for Dallas in 2020 (after Dak Prescott fractured his leg) and 14 games for New Orleans in ’22.
My “never draft a jockey to be your QB no matter how good his college career is” theory still going strong.
I’d take a jockey over an owner with the brains of a donkey every time.
Daniel Jones for Bryce Young. Who says no 🙂
Carolina…at least young is still tied to his rookie deal
I mean, least Daniel Jones would be a hometown kid. Born and raised in Charlotte, NC, went to Duke where he starred.
Maybe Giants kick in money instead of draft picks to even out the deal but definitely think at the very least Panthers could sell seats with the hometown kid leading the team.
Taking a flyer this season and drafting high would be better for the cap. Most fans wouldn’t even want Jones as their backup quarterback, let alone pay him as an elite player.
Sounds crazy but could work. I don’t see Bryce doing any better with giants tho than DJ
It would be a trade only to get DJ contract off the books and then they’d dump Young and get in a vet (if Willis keeps up maybe him)
“It would be a trade only to get DJ contract off the books”
Barring his injury clause kicking in, Jones is gone after the season with a dead cap of ‘only’ $22 million. Which is very similar to Young, according to Spotrac.
So who would take on Bryce and what would they do with him? He has to go somewhere
Miami?
Lmao never. Dobbs or Sam Howell makes more sense to Miami. Shhh even Kenny Pickett to Miami makes more sense
Season ticket holders in both cities when it comes time to renew?
I know, not what you meant. But I don’t think I’m wrong. Lol.
I think the staff read all our comments from this sites post 4 hours ago. Good move.
Kid never had a chance in CAR. They were already a fecal franchise and threw him into the cesspool as though he would make it smell like a bouquet.
… unlike the near perfect scenario Pole created for Caleb; who’s proven what I’ve said he was: a system dependent QB
Who follows a HC from OU to USC for any other reason than to ensure his draft stock stays elevated; because it definitely wasn’t with a championship in mind lol
Honestly thought he was retired. Watch the Red Rocket lead them to a victory.
Whoa, that was fast. Maybe some time holding clipboard n learning from sidelines will help … @this point it couldnt hurt. He looks intimidated n scared out there w/nowhere near the precision it takes to be winning nfl QB.
Tanking for his replacement this early is smart long term. They should try and look at least a little less horrible on their way to another #1 to prevent the nfl of fixing lotteries like nba always has and mlb just copied.
If they were tanking, they’d leave him in.
To be honest that team is tanking even if Tom Brady unretired to play there. The entire roster would be a backup or not even make a superbowl contending team.
Brutal lmao
Next up, bo nix. I’ve been high on nix and Payton leading up to the season, but Payton can’t call a game anymore and I’ve seen enough of Bo nix. More games in isn’t going to help his cream puff arm with no zip. Ala, watch the genial play from Pittsburgh where his Hail Mary only went around 30 yards. Or even the trick play for 35 yards to Reynolds, he severely under threw him.
I think it’s the right move but the wrong time. And I wonder what the worst owner in football’s input was on this decision. Guaranteed he has a say in this.
The Panthers coaching staff has failed Bryce Young. Not this year but last year. You don’t give the keys to the team to a rookie quarterback day one and expect him to flourish. Unless of course you have a team around him like CJ Stroud. Or Dak Prescott.. look how horrible Caleb Williams has been. He’s giving Bryce Young a run for his money in how awful their careers have started. The best way to develop your young QB is to let him learn under a veteran for at least 4-6 weeks before taking the training wheels off and putting him out there. That’s my opinion.
not like the bears have done much with the gifts tepper bestowed upon them
and reply to action Dan I guess you forgot about Ben roethlisberger starting day one and winning 14 games
I guess you forgot that Big Ben didn’t start until week 2 after Tommy Maddux got hurt during the opener.
some teams have no business trying to develop a young QB. the Panthers, Jets, Bears, Giants are among the worst. if Brock Purdy was drafted by the Jets, he’d be practice squad at best after 5 years. Bryce Young would have been ROY with the right team. good luck, Caleb, Bo and Drake.
anyway. so stupid to pull Bryce. hire some help that knows how to communicate with a young QB.