If it wasn’t already clear that the Carolina Panthers have their guy, it is now.
Quarterback Bryce Young led his Panthers to a 44-38 overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons to close out their 2024 season on Sunday. The second-year passer had himself a career day, throwing for 251 yards and three touchdowns while running for 24 yards and two more scores.
Head coach Dave Canales wasted little time getting to his quarterback during his post-game press conference.
“And how about Bryce?” Canales said to reporters. “Being able to call whatever I wanted to call on the call sheet knowing that he was going to find a positive outcome. He was gonna find a throwaway, a big play, a scramble for a touchdown. Just the different things and how freeing that is just to be able to call whatever fits that area and not have to second-guess the calls—he gave us the ability to do that today.”
Young completed passes to nine different receivers on the afternoon. He spread the end-zone love around as well—finding three different targets (running back Miles Sanders, tight end Tommy Tremble and wide receiver David Moore) on his three touchdown throws.
Canales, who had taken his quarterback decision between Young and Andy Dalton on a week-by-week basis for much of the season, was later asked about the future of the position for the franchise.
“Well, I’d say we’ll take it week to week, but we got no more weeks,” Canales joked. “Yeah, Bryce is our quarterback. I’m so proud of the way that he just took the challenge, and he just grew every week. He just took new lessons, new things applied it to his game, was engaged, challenging the guys, the whole thing.”
He was also asked how important it is to know that his team has their quarterback heading into another important offseason.
“It’s huge,” Canales replied. “It’s a great feeling. It allows us to just look at the whole roster and see what the investments need to be. It helps us to think about free agency and the draft with the lens knowing we got our guy.”
That lens wasn’t clear after the first two weeks of the campaign, when Young was benched following a disastrous start to 2024. But since returning to the lineup in Week 8, he completed 197 of his 319 passing attempts (61.8 percent) for 2,104 yards, 15 touchdowns and six interceptions while leading the Panthers to a 4-6 record.
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