Carolina quarterback Bryce Young’s rookie season didn’t satisfy anyone but the Panthers’ opponents.
Carolina’s NFL-worst 2-15 record and the former Alabama All-American’s anemic output caused second-guessing about the Panthers’ decision to chose Young at No. 1 in the 2023 NFL Draft.
But others looked at Young’s 2023 stat line and Carolina’s win total as inevitable for a team with a receiver corps that created too little separation, an offensive line that allowed 62 sacks and guidance that changed the play-caller three times – from head coach Frank Reich to offensive coordinator Thomas Brown to Reich again and then to Brown when the head coach was fired with six games to play.
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For 2024, the Panthers have appeared to try to improve some of those shortcomings to give Young a fighting chance to succeed.
“Have some new pieces,” Young said on Monday after Carolina’s first practice during Phase 3 of its offseason program, “and now it’s on us to put the work in, to build the chemistry, to get the reps on the field and to make it translate. I’m grateful for the guys coming in. They all have really good work ethics, great attitudes, great outlooks. We all want the same thing. We all want to win, and we all want to contribute to winning in whatever capacity we can.”
This offseason, the Panthers signed guards Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis in free agency, traded for wide receiver Diontae Johnson and drafted South Carolina wide receiver Xavier Legette in the first round, Texas running back Jonathan Brooks in the second round and Texas tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders in the fourth round.
Carolina also hired Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales as its head coach after his work produced Pro Bowl seasons with quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Geno Smith with the Seattle Seahawks and Baker Mayfield with the Bucs.
Young said it’s “always exciting to have new juice.”
“It’s been a great learning experience for me,” Young said. “Learning all the new concepts, learning the footwork that we have with it, learning reads. Football’s very similar. You do a lot of the same things, but we definitely have some new stuff. For me, it’s just been a good opportunity to learn and step back and look at things from a different perspective. You look at football from one lens for a long time, and then you get super locked in with whatever the way is of a specific coaching staff. This is new energy, a lot of new philosophy.”
Canales said Young was “doing fantastic” learning the new playbook.
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“The formations are pretty vanilla so that we can just teach the concept and what we want out of each route, the depth, the footwork for Bryce,” Canales said after Monday’s practice, “… so that’s the approach right now. As I expect him to do, he’s really mastering that part of it.”
But the coach also wasn’t sugar-coating where the Panthers are after Day 1 on the field. Canales said the offense needed to improve its tempo coming out of the huddle and “there’s some fine-tuning that still needs to happen” overall.
“We got a ways to go,” Canales said, “but it’s good stuff, and now we get to have actual film against the defense to be able to watch our guys doing it. I think they’re probably getting sick and tired of us watching Tampa, Seattle, historic clips from different teams.”
Commonly called OTAs (for Organized Team Activities), Phase 3 practices allow NFL teams to expand their offseason on-the-field work to include 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills matching the offense and defense. Contact is still not allowed, but group drills can proceed at more than a walkthrough pace now.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.