It’s safe to say the Carolina Panthers are big fans of former Alabama quarterback Bryce Young. If the franchise selecting him first overall in the 2023 draft wasn’t enough proof, head coach Frank Reich just compared him to Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning.
Peter King of ProFootballTalk’s “Football Morning in America” recently spoke with Reich and discussed the exact moment the Panthers locked in on Young.
King writes of the one play that caught the franchise’s attention, “Bryce right there called a five-man slide, which is an incredibly smart and incredibly risky call,” Reich said, watching the play while dictating a voice note to me. “If you’re going to call a five-man slide, you have to be 100 percent sure you can bring that [right] tackle over. Because if you bring him and that [left defensive] end comes, you’re in trouble. And just watch the play—how smooth the call is, how sure he is. He saw overload pressure to his left, he figured he wasn’t getting pressure to his right, he had the line all move left to compensate—and he even got the back to cover a blitzer. Just look how easy he made it look.”
Reich isn’t shy when it comes to comparing Young’s abilities to those that ave played before him at the highest level possible. All of the quarterback’s named worked with Reich at some point in his coaching career.
“That play just confirmed everything we were thinking and already know. Just confirmed the level of football IQ he has that’s on par with Peyton [Manning], [Matt] Ryan, [Philip] Rivers, [Andrew] Luck. I’m telling you: There are quarterbacks in the NFL who haven’t done what he did right there—and he did it easily in his true freshman year in college. To have the confidence to make that call for Alabama in his second college game. Unreal.”
Young’s NFL career could not start in a better position. He is with an experienced head coach that is known to work well with quarterbacks, a front office that was willing to build around him before they even drafted him and a division that’s up for grabs.
Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Young and the start of his professional career as the 2023 offseason progresses.
[lawrence-auto-related count=1]
[lawrence-auto-related count=1]
[mm-video type=video id=01gzckm1zf2rvn75zmng playlist_id=01eqbz6mkdd99nyvkm player_id=01f5k5y2jb3twsvdg4 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gzckm1zf2rvn75zmng/01gzckm1zf2rvn75zmng-4dbe2581534e8325f7fc34bfddeca2bd.jpg]
Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on Twitter @SpurrFM.