Every time Bryce Young takes a hit, his personality beams. The Panthers are noticing
There was the play on the first drive, when Bryce Young scrambled on a third-and-4 and bulldozed his way through a linebacker for a first down.
There was the throw in the fourth quarter, where Young stared down an untouched pass rusher, only to let go of the ball right before getting boomed to the turf and finding David Moore in the back-left corner of the end zone.
There was the biggest hit of all, too. It came at the beginning of the fourth quarter, second-and-7, when Kyzir White got a great jump on the rush and split the offensive line, only for Young to let go of an underneath route to tight end Tommy Tremble for a first down. White still got a good hit on Young, though — so hard, in fact, that offensive lineman Robert Hunt ran over to his second-year quarterback after the completion to check on him.
“I was kind of shocked,” Hunt told reporters in the locker room postgame. “I was like, ‘Yo..., you aight?’ Trying to check on him.”
Hunt then noticed something cool.
Perhaps “strange” is a better word.
“He hopped up, he was smiling, man,” Hunt continued. Not only that, Young congratulated White for the hit with a high-five, a gladiator’s chivalry.
“That kid is tough as nails,” Hunt said. “I give him a lot of credit.”
The Panthers defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 36-30, in overtime in Bank of America Stadium Sunday, flexing a grittiness that this team has developed over its 4-11 season. A lot of people contributed to that. There was an offensive line battling illness, including starting center Brady Christensen who didn’t know he would start until Sunday morning, when the regular starting center in Cade Mays went out sick. There was a maligned defense rising to the moment. There was Chuba Hubbard, putting together a redemptive overtime performance after he lost a game-changing fumble three weeks earlier in the same OT circumstances to Tampa Bay.
But at the center of it all on Sunday was Young. And his toughness. Especially his toughness. In multiple senses of the word: toughness, in the sense that he bounced back from a career-worst four-turnover performance against the Dallas Cowboys a week ago; toughness, too, in the sense that he bounced back up after every hit, leaping higher from the turf every time he was knocked down.
With every hit he took on Sunday, Young’s personality beamed brighter. And everyone associated with the Panthers seemed to notice. It’s what helped lift the Panthers to a win and a remarkable day: Young finished 17 of 26 for 158 yards and two touchdowns passing — and added a career-high five rushes for 68 yards and another score.
“He just keeps popping up and playing the next play,” head coach Dave Canales said postgame. “And that’s the goal, what we talked about, is to refocus. Can we snap back in and just play the next play? And that’s what he did today.”
Young’s ability to withstand a beating is well-known. The second-year, 5-foot-10, 205-pound quarterback took quite a few as a rookie. He was sacked 62 times in 2023, the second-most sacked rookie quarterback in NFL history, and that was only in 16 games. There were a lot of question marks surrounding Young after Year 1 — but none of it had to do with his durability, which is funny considering that was his biggest concern as a draft prospect.
He’s had to be tough this year, on and off the field. In his comeback effort against the Eagles, Young was shedding tacklers in his own end zone, where his undershirt was ripped off even as he stayed upright and fired a beautiful, near-game-changing pass to Xavier Legette on a final drive. He’s taken 24 sacks in 12 games this season — a big step up from 2023, in large part because of an improved offensive line.
But Sunday, in many ways, felt like another level.
Hunt ascribed it to “confidence,” something that was all but lost after the Week 3 benching, something that too required immense fortitude to gain back in the present day.
Young, himself, said his tough personality was a product of just doing what is required of him.
“Just wanting to bring a spark, bring energy, be whatever the team needs,” Young said. “And I think that for me, just as a leader, whatever I can do to get the guys going, to get the sideline into it, to push us to our best ball, whatever that may be — that falls into my job description.”
He added: “You see it from other guys too. Whether it’s a run or a pass, whatever it is, just getting the guys going. So really that’s the thought process. And I’m grateful to have guys around me who are all just looking for one little thing, we all love feeding off each other, and we all play for each other, so it’s great to have that.”
After the game, Young was headed up to the third floor of the stadium to visit his family when he ran into Ron Rivera, the winningest coach in Panthers history, and exchanged a few words with him. Rivera was in town because he was working as an analyst for a national radio broadcast of the game.
It was a moment between two prominent Panthers, one of the present and one of the past. Rivera appeared proud of the way Young played. He’d seen glimpses of this kind of gutsy performances before, after all. Instead of a 9, Rivera’s quarterback wore a 1. Instead of a quick scamperer, Rivera’s quarterback was a 6-foot-5, 245-pound bully with the ball, flashing a Cam Newton smile and dance after finding the end zone.
But the same toughness was there, though. The same ability to be rejuvenated after every hit was there, too. It was there for every Panther, past and present, to see.
This story was originally published December 23, 2024 at 5:45 AM.
