The Carolina Panthers’ optimism for quarterback Bryce Young’s second NFL season took a hit on the team’s first snap of the 2024 campaign when the former Alabama All-American threw an interception.
It didn’t get much better for the Panthers, as the NFL’s worst team in 2023 started 2024 by getting walloped 47-10 by the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
With the Saints already ahead 7-0, New Orleans safety Will Harris picked off Young’s opening pass at the Carolina 47-yard line.
“Any time that the ball is in peril, and, obviously, it’s a turnover, that’s on me no matter what,” Young said. “So, again, got to do a better job.”
The Panthers trailed 17-0 by the time Young got his first completion of the season on the final play of the first quarter.
While the game included the first rushing touchdown of Young’s NFL career – on a 3-yard scramble with 4:55 left in the third quarter – the former Alabama All-American finished the game on the bench as backup Andy Dalton ran the Panthers’ final possession.
“I thought about getting Andy in the drive before,” Carolina coach Dave Canales said. “But I was really just trying to get one more shot at: Can we just get our rhythm? Can we get some completions? When it didn’t happen, it was very obvious at that point with the score, and so I probably could have gotten him out of there a drive earlier.”
Young completed 13-of-30 passes for 161 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions. Young’s passing-efficiency rating of 32.8 was the worst of his 17 NFL games.
Ask what he saw positive from Young in the season-opening game, Canales said: “Just the pre-snap operation. That was kind of my biggest concern, and I thought we did a really good job. We had one delay of game, I think. We were pretty close enough against the clock there a few times, but I think from that standpoint, gives us a chance with a good starting point to be able to have success in our plays.”
The Panthers put Canales, who had been the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator, in charge of the team in January after the Carolina offense, with the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft under center, produced the fewest yards in the NFL last season.
While the Panthers produced one touchdown, one field goal and three turnovers on offense on Sunday, the New Orleans offense scored the first nine times it had the football.
“Certainly not the outcome that I was hoping for,” Canales said. “Before I even got to watch the film, if I could just talk about three turnovers in the teens and explosives that we gave up on the defensive side, a block punt. Those are critical factors. It flips the field. It gives them more possessions. And even when we had our chances, we didn’t get our first completion for a while there. So just all around, just poor execution in all phases, and particularly when you turn the ball over and you give that offense chances. And what we found out is that is a pretty good offense.
“And we learned a lot about ourselves today. I think a group of guys that haven’t played a lot of football together, the communication, working off each other, playing those things, that’s all stuff that we got to get to as we look at the film. And so for me, I think the positive I can take out of it is the way that the guys stuck together and just kept playing hard. There’s nothing more I can ask for when you’re faced with a situation where we’re so far behind already in the first half, can we just keep playing football? And I asked them to do that, and they responded. And the defense ran and tackled the whole time at the end. The offense just played all the way through, trying to execute until the very end of the game.”
