In a loss, Bryce Young’s best day gives Carolina Panthers fans a reason to dream
Officiating controversies aside, there was one thing all Carolina Panthers fans should be able to agree on after a 33-30 Christmas Eve loss to Green Bay on Sunday:
That’s the best we’ve seen Bryce Young play.
And that leads to some hope for the future.
The Panthers (2-13) lost again Sunday, which is nothing new in this lost year.
But this time they scored a season high in points and Young had the first 300-yard passing game of his NFL career. The rookie QB also threw two fourth-quarter darts to D.J. Chark for touchdowns, directing Carolina all the way back from a 30-16 deficit into, briefly, a 30-30 tie.
Even at the end, after a go-ahead Green Bay field goal, Young nearly got Carolina into another game-tying field goal situation — this despite taking over at his own 25 with no timeouts and only 19 seconds left. He was an eyelash away from spiking the ball quickly enough at the Green Bay 31. Carolina interim coach Chris Tabor, in fact, said he “absolutely” thought the Panthers had a single second left for what would have been a 49-yard field goal.
In other words, even though the Panthers ran out of time in this one, it was the sort of game that made the next markers of time — 2024, 2025 and onward — gleam with potential. This is what the Panthers had always wanted when Carolina drafted Young with the No. 1 overall pick in April.
Young finished 23-for-35 for 312 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions, and the Panthers scored 30 points after not even getting to 20 in any of their previous eight games. He looked, for once, like a guy to build a team around.
“He was in complete control,” Tabor said of Young. “He knew exactly how the game was being played.”
Those aren’t words that have often surrounded Young’s rookie year. Words like “pick-6” and “hasn’t thrown for 250 yards all season” have been more common. Questions about the rookie’s 5-foot-10 height have flourished, as well as fellow rookie C.J. Stroud’s strong play in Houston, and those will occur throughout at least the early part of his career.
But in this game, Young was superb. It was only one afternoon, on a sunny, 65-degree Christmas Eve in Bank of America Stadium. And granted, it came against a Packers team that former Carolina quarterback Baker Mayfield had lit up the week before for 381 yards and four touchdowns.
Still, this was major progress. Young even ran for a first down on a fourth-and-1 sneak, something the Panthers have been loath to let him do all season.
Young, though, seemed disconsolate after the game, preferring last week’s game instead (Carolina never had a TD, but won, 9-7, on its final drive).
Said Young of the Packers game: “It’s as good as we’ve looked as (an offensive) unit. ... The sting is that we lost. You can try to make up whatever moral victory you want with whatever. At the end of the day, we do this to win, and we didn’t get that done. I didn’t do enough. We didn’t do enough. We all take accountability for that.”
The result still kept about half the fans in the Panthers’ home stadium happy — the half that was wearing green and gold and chanting “Go Pack Go!” But at the end, the Panthers fans were getting loud, too, as Young and the offense kept giving them things to cheer about in the same way that Cam Newton did during Carolina’s mid-2010s heyday.
After a season full of 4-yard passes, in this one Young threw passes of 30 yards to tight end Tommy Tremble, 22 to Chark and 22 to Adam Thielen. His most impressive play was probably a scramble drill on Carolina’s final touchdown, when Young rolled right, Chark broke off his route to run with him and Young threw, in full stride, a ball that Chark caught with his fingertips just before sliding out of bounds for a 10-yard TD.
“Just a great toe drag, catching it in the back of the end zone,” Young said.
This is the way Young describes any great play he is part of (and there haven’t been many of them yet). Somebody else did something good, he will say, and he was just a cog in the machine. It is predictable, but endearing. It plays well in a locker room full of players who also have egos and also want some credit.
Carolina could well have won this game, but its offensive firepower was negated by the defense. Usually the Panthers’ strength, Carolina’s defense allowed Green Bay to score on each of its first four offensive possessions, meaning the Panthers were constantly playing from behind. Carolina still has yet to run an offensive play all season in which the Panthers lead in the fourth quarter — their only two wins this season have come on last-play field goals.
But enough of all that.
It’s Christmastime and, for once, there’s no need for the Panthers to be afraid.
At Christmastime, the Panthers let in light, and they banished shade.
And yes, I’m quoting the 1984 Band Aid Christmas song now, because “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is still a banger.
And on Sunday, so was Bryce Young.
Merry Christmas, Panthers fans.
For lots of reasons, in the world we live in and also for the Carolina Panthers, there’s still some hope.
