Bryce Young was thrown in the fire. Now ‘we gotta cover that young man,’ Panthers say

It was one of the first team meetings of the Dave Canales era. Bryce Young was there, front row. So were his Carolina Panthers teammates. Canales, the 43-year-old coach who worked over a decade in the NFL before landing his first head coaching role at the Panthers, was sharing his vision, telling a story.

That’s when Jordan Matthews heard it.

“He used the word ‘covering,’” Matthews said.

Canales would go on to explain what that term meant. Covering, as in protecting. Covering, as in strengthening. Covering, as in “instilling confidence in you” but also “keeping the other stuff out.” Canales then related the term to his own realm, explaining why he surrounded himself with guys who spoke his language, with coaches who he knew would “cover” him — from offensive coordinator Brad Idzik to coaching development and cultural director Scott Cooper and others.

“I’ve never heard a coach use that word before,” said Matthews, who was drafted in 2014. The veteran tight end added, “And I’ve seen enough good stuff from Bryce to let me know that what he needs is: We gotta cover him. From the receivers, to the O-line, to the running backs. From the pass protection, to the pass game, to in the media. We have to cover that young man. Because he’s got a lot on his shoulders.”

In many ways, Young was tossed in the proverbial fire as a rookie. Protecting and uplifting him on and off the field — “covering him” — is what the Panthers are tasked with doing in Year 2. It’s the key to unlocking the potentials of the player and organization, whose fortunes are intertwined.

The overall No. 1 pick, after all, arrived at his first regular-season NFL snap with a reputation that preceded him. He was a record-breaker at Mater Dei. He was a Heisman Trophy winner at Alabama. Head coach Frank Reich named Young the team’s “QB1” the first day of the rookie’s training camp. For years, the Panthers were the solid team that stood “a quarterback away” from the league’s upper echelon — and the city of Charlotte celebrated Young’s arrival as if Super Bowl glory was inevitable.

Young’s season in the fire, however, was difficult. It turned out that the Panthers, after shipping generational running back Christian McCaffrey to the 49ers and then trading DJ Moore and a bunch of other assets to Chicago for that No. 1 pick, were no longer a quarterback away from greatness.

But the offense had issues all around. The offensive line, injured as it may have been, was inadequate. Receivers failed to get separation downfield. Young proved the he’s-too-small-to-be-durable-in-the-NFL naysayers wrong — suffering a league-second-worst 62 sacks while still managing to start and play 16 games as proof — but new doubts cropped up as his 11-touchdown, 10-interception, two-win rookie season concluded.

Some questioned his field vision. A report suggested he’d been given too much to process too soon. A former teammate said he had “too many voices” in his ear tugging him in different directions. A common narrative that stuck to Young, its fairness notwithstanding, was that he’d never been asked to navigate adversity before in his decorated football life — and that such an NFL awakening might be too much for Young to handle.

We gotta cover him.

Now 2024 awaits. The Panthers have shied away from articulating expectations for Young and the team all the same. Canales faced any doubts head-on at the NFL Combine, saying there was “no plan to fix Bryce Young” — that the QB isn’t someone who needs fixing to be great in the NFL.

And even though Panthers brass has stayed consistent with their messaging that they were focused on elevating the entire team, it’s clear they’re doing their part to help Young succeed. It only makes sense.

Team owner David Tepper hired a young head coach oozing with positivity with a robust track record of rejuvenating the careers of quarterbacks, from Geno Smith in Seattle to Baker Mayfield last year in Tampa Bay. The team signed right guard Robert Hunt to a $100 million deal. Damien Lewis, another sought-after interior OL free agent, came on board, too. The Panthers signed a route-running master in Diontae Johnson and drafted a tantalizing wideout in Xavier Legette — all the while doing what they can to prevent a fallout on defense, extending record-breaking defensive tackle Derrick Brown and picking up the fifth-year option on the contract of top cornerback Jaycee Horn.

Still, there are no expectations, the team says.

We gotta cover him.

“I think you can sit down every quarterback, and we all understand that it’s part of the position that we play,” Young told The Observer, when asked of the pressure he’s felt since arriving in Carolina. “I love being in the position that I’m in. I love everything that comes with it. And that’s the beauty of the sport — whether it’s on your side or it’s against you. Through the ups and downs, I’m grateful to have my teammates to lean on, coaches to lean on, through all of it.

“Throughout my life, there’s been good, there’s been bad, and that’s really what pushes you more toward others.”

Young not playing like ‘so much is on his shoulders’ anymore

Ask around about the good and bad Young is referring to and you can find one guy who has seen Young overcome obstacles when the rest of the world wasn’t watching.

That’s his father, Craig.

“One, it’s hilarious,” Bryce’s father said of the narrative, before listing a few moments when his son had had to overcome adversity. Some of those times were in the shadows, yes, but they were nonetheless real to the Young family. That included Bryce having to shine among quarterbacks who were taller and bigger in stature; constantly having to play bigger than he was; constantly having to prove himself to people who hadn’t seen him up close.

“People forget, his first year at Alabama, he didn’t start,” Craig said. “He had to wait his turn behind Mac Jones. And that was a difficult time, a time when he was a freshman, and he played spot minutes, and he wasn’t really able to show everything he could do, and had some uneven performances. There were some people out there who didn’t think he’d be able to beat out the backup. They were like, ‘Yep, he’s a bust.’

“He got the job his second year and had a breakout season. So we’ve always faced adversity.”

His teammates who watched him last year knew that Young was battle tested. He was consistent, players said, never flying too high or dwelling too low. He stuck to routines, many of which he still does to this day: practicing mindfulness, doing a core workout after training camp practices.

Still, there was a sense that he put a lot on his shoulders, a product of how much was expected of him.

“I think there was a lot of that last year. Everyone was kind of waiting for him, right?” starting center Austin Corbett told The Observer, addressing the unproductive expectations hanging over his quarterback last year (When will Bryce Young save the Panthers?)

“And then (after any one thing) it was, ‘Oh perfect, he did it, now it’s all going to click.’ But guys, we still gotta do our job.”

This year, Corbett said “he’s got a quieted mind. It allows him to be that SoCal Bryce that he is, who’s nice and chill and deliberate with everything he does. Everybody last year was just kind of waiting for that moment. Now, we all gotta understand that we all gotta make this happen.”

Adam Thielen, the veteran wide receiver who had a resurgent year in Carolina during Young’s rookie season, agreed.

“I think this year, he’s been able to kind of just slow down,” Thielen said. “And be confident in our offensive line and confident in the playmakers around him to just be able to not feel like so much is on his shoulders.

“That’s just my observation. I don’t know if that’s actually how he feels. It just feels he’s a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more patient and able to let guys do their jobs at a high level. … There’s a lot that leads into confidence as a quarterback. And that’s our job as receivers to go out there and make some of those plays in camp, in OTAs, to make him feel comfortable: ‘OK, I don’t have to put this all on my shoulders. This is a team thing, an offense thing, and we can do this together.’”

‘You don’t just wake up one day and win a Heisman’

Guys who were with Young a year ago aren’t the only ones confident in his abilities. Everyone can see it, it seems.

Johnson, the seasoned receiver the Panthers acquired from the Steelers, said their connection is strong. That was evident, Johnson said, in the team’s final preseason — when Young, on fourth-and-3, rolled to his left and found Johnson on the sideline for a completion that felt less like a first down catch and more like possibility.

Chau Smith-Wade, the rookie nickel/corner, remembers one play Young made that’ll always stick with him. During OTAs, the second-year QB rolled to his right and made a no-look pass seem natural — maneuvering as if he would throw to the flat while launching a deep corner route instead.

“I’d never seen a no-look pass while I was on the field,” Smith-Wade said with a smile. “So that was one of those moments where it was like, ‘OK, this is the NFL. This is the top, best of the best.’”

“Best of the best” is a place where some teammates think Young can one day reach.

“Gah-lee, he’s a winner,” Matthews said of Young. “I mean, you don’t just wake up one day and win a Heisman. You see somebody at the top of the mountain? They ain’t get dropped off there, right? They climbed it.”

Then came that word again.

Covering.

“I was with 13 (Brock Purdy) down in San Fran back when he was running with the 3s,” Matthews said. “And I was calling (around), like, ‘Hey, this guy’s kinda nice.’ And obviously look at what he’s been able to do.”

“He’s got some covering,” Matthews said of Purdy. He then related it back to Young. “And we’ve gotta be able to do that for him.”