Bryce Young has a ‘superpower.’ How Panthers’ offensive coordinator plans to harness it
Thomas Brown, the Carolina Panthers’ new offensive coordinator, has a lot to teach rookie No. 1 pick Bryce Young. It is Brown who is primarily creating the Panthers’ new playbook, and it is Brown — along with quarterbacks coach Josh McCown and head coach Frank Reich — who is most responsible for teaching it to Young.
But while the countless hours of teaching are important, what the Panthers don’t want from Young is an AI robot who always does what he’s been programmed to do, no matter what. At Alabama, Young made up for his slim build and 5-foot-10 height by processing plays beautifully but also by freelancing occasionally. Brown knows what you don’t want to do with Young is tell him that his gift for improvisation is no longer required.
“You don’t want to take away guys’ superpowers,” Brown said Tuesday when he spoke to reporters about Young. “I think being able to have off-schedule plays is a big part of his game, and of most elite quarterbacks nowadays.”
The best example in the current NFL game is Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, whose forays into freelancing often lead to breathtaking plays.
Young did some of that at Alabama, where he won the Heisman Trophy following the 2021 college football season. There’s no reason why he can’t do it here sometimes, too. In fact, he must, and the Panthers will encourage it within reason.
Plays break down often enough in football that teams have a name for what happens next on offense. It’s called a “scramble drill,” with receivers breaking off their routes and trying to help their QBs by running in the same direction. The Panthers practice it constantly.
In his prime, Cam Newton often solved a protection breakdown question with the same answer: he tucked and ran. This often worked on the sort of middle-level plays that are the backbone of most long NFL drives, as Newton would turn a potential 8-yard loss into a 7-yard gain.
Young, though, isn’t going to be that guy. Newton was a “one of one” sort of talent in his mid-20s but paid for it long-term by sustaining so many numbers of hits. Young is about six inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Newton, and when he runs, it’s going to be with an eye on throwing the ball downfield after a few steps to evade the rush. What the Panthers won’t want him to do is “just making stuff up,” as Brown said, adding quickly that Young “doesn’t do that at all.” Like Drew Brees did, Young will run mostly so he can find clear throwing lanes.
Brown, who’s 5-foot-9 himself, was a standout running back at Georgia who had a cup of coffee in the NFL before going into coaching. Only 37, if he succeeds here as an offensive coordinator, he will morph into an even better NFL head-coaching candidate. He’s steadily moved up the coaching ranks both collegiately and in the pros, working at places like South Carolina, Miami, Georgia and, most recently, with the Los Angeles Rams, where he was part of a Super Bowl-winning staff.
So how did Brown evaluate Young’s height?
“I’ve never cared about it,” Brown said. “Never an issue in my opinion. I evaluate tape… If we were in a competition for the tallest, the biggest, the fastest, the strongest… then maybe so…. But for me personally, I never cared about it, because I evaluate tape. I evaluate the person.”
The Panthers ended up trading four draft picks and wide receiver DJ Moore to Chicago for the right to pick Young because they’ve been stuck in a quarterback quagmire since mid-2018. They chose Young partly because of his athletic ability, but also because of his work ethic and his brain.
Brown told the story that has now made the rounds several times at Bank of America Stadium about how, during what amounted to a job interview for Young, he asked the QB a question about his game-week preparation at Alabama. Specifically, Brown said, what do you do starting on Sunday (normally the day after Alabama played) to get ready for the next game?
“For most guys, that’s probably a five-minute conversation,” Brown said. “For him, we’re 17 minutes into it, and it’s Wednesday.”
Brown finally told Young to stop, that he got the idea. Young is a worker and a performer, dazzling in every way but his build. He’s getting good reviews already and will be able to execute anything that Reich calls (Reich will call the plays in the 2023 season, and Brown plans to work from the sideline, not the coaching booth upstairs).
Young is also, lest we get ahead of ourselves, No. 2 on the Panthers’ current QB depth chart. Veteran Andy Dalton has started 162 NFL regular-season games compared to Young’s zero. While most everyone expects Dalton will be supplanted by Young in time for Carolina’s first real game — the season opener is at Atlanta Sept. 10 — Brown is not about to commit to that notion.
“I’m never going to answer that question,” Brown said.
Well, he will answer it one day. And as long as Young stays healthy and his superpower doesn’t dim when he’s being chased by NFL defensive ends, it’s going to be the rookie. Everything in this franchise is pointing toward that.
