For Panthers QB Bryce Young, Superdome has been a personal house of horrors
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bryce Young is 0-2 in NFL in the Superdome, losing the 2 games by average of 29.5 points.
- Panthers bring a better offense to New Orleans this time for QB, with McMillan and Dowdle.
- In 3rd year, Young has displayed improved command of offense and elite late-game heroics.
As all Carolina Panther fans know, there are “Good Bryce” and “Bad Bryce” days. When you get one of Bryce Young’s good Sundays — and those have been popping up more often in 2025 — you’ve got a great shot to win.
But when you get a “Bad Bryce” day, there’s not much of a chance. And there’s nowhere that Young — the third-year quarterback for a 7-6 Carolina Panthers team that is surprisingly tied for first in the NFC South — has played worse than in road games at New Orleans.
Young’s record in the Caesars Superdome as a starter is 0-2 heading into Sunday’s critical game at New Orleans (4:25 p.m. kickoff). Not only that, he and his offensive teammates have played terribly in both of those previous games, losing them by an average of nearly 30 points.
In the NFL, the Superdome has been a personal house of horrors for Young. His stats in those two games bear looking at, as painful as they may be.
2023 (28-6 loss): 13-for-36, 137 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs
2024 (47-10 loss): 13-for-30, 161 yards, 0 TDs, 2 INTs
Nasty, right? And we’re not even factoring in Young and the offense’s most recent dud against New Orleans — a 17-7 loss at home on Nov. 9.
The point this week, of course, is to win at New Orleans (3-10). And the Panthers are taking a different and more weaponized offense to the Big Easy this week compared to what they did in Young’s first two seasons — this one includes wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan and running back Rico Dowdle.
Young’s nature is to walk through his NFL career with blinders on — never looking back and never looking more than a week in front of him. He’s not nostalgic. The past is never prologue to him.
So it’s not surprising that he answered my question about his previous lack of professional success in the Superdome like this: “We look forward…. I’m not a look-in-the-past type of person. It’s a new game. You can’t carry over the good or the bad.”
Having covered about two dozen of the Panthers’ previous 30 games in New Orleans, I can say with some certainty that the Superdome is one of the more difficult places for a road team to win in the NFL. The building is ancient by NFL standards. The noise reverberates. Football is king. Even when the Saints are bad, the fans are passionate.
“It’s a great environment,” Young said. “Super-unique atmosphere. They have a great fan base. It’s fun to play in and be a part of that… and the challenges that brings, going into a hostile environment.”
Young is more equipped to deal with that challenge this year than he has been before. As he noted in his press conference Wednesday, his “overall command” of the Dave Canales offense is greater. The communication errors are fewer. His mistakes are down. The Superdome noise should (you would think) affect him less this time around.
And — if the Panthers can avoid getting way behind early — Young has been terrific in close games just about all season. In Carolina’s most recent game, Young led the Panthers back over and over, finally throwing a 43-yard touchdown pass to McMillan on fourth-and-2 in the fourth quarter for the deciding score in a 31-28 upset win over the L.A. Rams.
Since entering the league in 2023, Young now has 11 game-winning drives, which is the most of any QB in the league in that time frame. Part of that is owing to the fact that the Panthers have been playing from behind for most of his three seasons, but a lot of it is that he really does possess a clutch gene.
And if he did need to look in the past for a good Superdome memory, he could skip the NFL days entirely and return to his final collegiate game at Alabama. In that one, Young played rather than opting out of the bowl game (he was headed for the NFL Draft). He then threw five touchdown passes in a 45-20 Sugar Bowl blowout win over Kansas State.
Ah, what it would be like to face a Kansas State defense again. There aren’t any of those in the NFL.
The Saints dared Young to beat them a month ago by stacking the box against Dowdle, which they will undoubtedly do again Sunday. “They did a great job defensively, schematically, and playing well,” Young said. “They gave us some heavy boxes and made it hard in the run game.”
Heavy boxes are often catnip for an elite quarterback, because that means there are eight defenders very close to the line of scrimmage and a whole lot of room behind them for deep balls.
But the Panthers never could make that work. Young threw for a paltry 124 yards, a yardage total that was actually worse than in his two contests at New Orleans, as hard as that is to imagine. His 124-yard effort included a late interception that allowed the Saints to seal the game.
This game will be the first time Young has played an NFL contest in December when the Panthers are still in the thick of a division race. “It’s a cool fact,” Young said. “But again we understand that in this league, we’re not entitled to anything.”
If the Panthers are to win Sunday, though, they’re going to need more than a cameo appearance from “Good Bryce.” Carolina has a real opportunity to do something nice this December.
To do so, Young has to be at the center of it, and “Bad Bryce” must be left outside the Superdome on Bourbon Street. He can watch the game from a sports bar or something. He just can’t show up.
This story was originally published December 11, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
