Bryce Young creates – and then fulfills – great expectations whenever he plays football. His high school career saw him total 13,520 yards and 152 touchdowns and was ranked as the national No. 1 quarterback prospect when he committed to Alabama. He was also the USA Today High School Offensive Player of the Year.
Young backed up Mac Jones as a freshman and then assumed the starting role as a sophomore when he passed for 4,872 yards and 47 touchdowns when he reached the College Football Championship but lost to Georgia. He won the Heisman Trophy in his first starting season in college, the first Alabama quarterback to win the prestigious award. He also won the Davey O’Brien and Manning awards for the best collegiate quarterback.
His second season wasn’t as decorated while the Crimson Tide’s offense suffered a letdown with an absence of the usual stack of elite receivers. He also sprained the AC joint in his throwing shoulder but only missed one game. He was sixth in Heisman voting and ended his career as the Crimson Tide’s all-time leader with five five-touchdown games.
Height: 5-10
Weight: 194 pounds
40 time: 4.43 seconds
Young did not work out at the combine but interviewed with teams and will perform at the Alabama Pro Day on March 23. His only question mark entering the NFL is his physical size. While listed at 6-0 and 194 pounds on Alabama’s official roster, he bulked up to 204 at the combine while shrinking two inches to 5-10 when NFL officials were holding the tape. He was the shortest quarterback at the combine while the other Day 1 quarterbacks are 6-3 or taller.
Table: Player NCAA stats (2019-22)
| Year | School | Games | Runs | Yards | TD | Pass | Complete | Yards | Avg. | TD | Int |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Alabama | 7 | 9 | -23 | 0 | 22 | 13 | 156 | 7.1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | Alabama | 15 | 81 | 0 | 3 | 547 | 366 | 4872 | 8.9 | 47 | 7 |
| 2022 | Alabama | 12 | 49 | 185 | 4 | 380 | 245 | 3328 | 8.8 | 32 | 5 |
Pros
- High intellect with excellent instincts
- Highly accurate, particularly with short to intermediate throws
- Very elusive with great start-and-stop and burst
- Master at creating plays when he goes off-script
- Confident and never rattled
- Superior skills at reading defenses, locating the open receiver
- Quick and compact release
- Not a cannon arm but can make all throws
Cons
- His only real knock is size – not only short, but also thin build
- Mobile enough to extend plays but won’t add much via runs
- Joins Kyler Murray as shortest quarterback in NFL
- Will be the lightest starting quarterback in the NFL
Fantasy outlook
There is a distinct chance that Young becomes the first pick of the NFL draft, currently owned by the Carolina Panthers. There will be a batch of quarterbacks likely taken within the first ten picks and Young will immediately start wherever he ends up. Since he’s primarily a pocket passer, the quality of his receivers and offensive scheme will have a large bearing on his early success. Young is mobile enough to buy time for a play to develop (or turn into something new), but he’s likely to remain behind the line of scrimmage instead of taking off on a downfield scamper.
He has to prove that his height will not be a limitation and he correlates closely with Kyler Murray in size though less so in playing style. Murray ran for 1,001 yards in his final year at Oklahoma and at least 400 yards in each NFL season. Young never ran more than 185 yards in any college season and for just 81 yards in his Heisman year.
Young is a gifted passer and dominated at every level that he’s ever played. Pin-point passes, leading receivers on deep routes, masterfully creating plays whenever he needed to improvise. When he had two great receivers in Jameson Williams and John Metchie in 2021, he threw for 47 scores and won the Heisman. His success will be a little more reliant on his receivers than a running quarterback, but this is a highly intelligent quarterback that puts in the work while owning elite instincts.
Young has to play bigger than 5-10. He’s not going to abandon plays and take off on a run like Murray. He’s in the bigger and faster NFL but his formidable success has been entirely built on elite passing skills and that always translates well.