With 4:10 remaining in the Carolina Panthers’ week five 36-10 loss to the Chicago Bears Panthers’ head coach Dave Canales put 2023 number one overall draft pick Bryce Young in at quarterback. While the decision to play Young in a blowout wasn’t shocking, Canales’ post-game reasoning for the move was.
“Just saw it as an opportunity there. We had a couple of injuries on the offense line. Again, wanted to get him in there to get some live reps. He did a fantastic job playing with energy, extending plays, finding some completions downfield – that was fantastic. It is a hard situation, but at that point with the different things happening on the offensive line it was something where I wanted to get (QB) Andy (Dalton) out of there and just give Bryce an opportunity to play some good
football while we still had time.”
When asked a second time about Young getting in the game, Canales again mentioned the injuries along the offensive line and need to protect starting quarterback Andy Dalton.
“It really goes back to just some injuries that we had and really getting Andy out of there, protecting him in that situation, and then giving Bryce a chance to get
out there and play football.”
With speculation that the Panthers’ poor offensive line play last season contributed to Bryce’s slowed development, this answer was especially confusing.
While Dalton gives the Panthers the best opportunity to win now, the 13-year veteran who turns 37 this month is not the long-term franchise answer at quarterback. Bryce Young, who Carolina gave up a lot of assets to get less than two years ago, can still turn things around. So putting him in a game behind a weakened offensive line for protection is more than head-scratching. Was Canales saying that if someone was going to take a hit against that line he’d rather it be the number one overall draft pick from just a year ago?
Dave was given the opportunity to clarify his post-game remarks Monday.
“The game was out of hand. This is an opportunity to get Bryce in there and let him play football. We had some time on the clock and the cool part was we manufactured a pretty good drive out of that.”
Questions still remain about what direction Canales and the Panthers will go regarding their former number on overall draft pick, but what isn’t a question is all the capitol the franchise gave up to acquire him. Off that alone all options should be exhausted before the Panthers give up on him and he certainly shouldn’t be used a stop-gap to shield Andy Dalton from getting hurt.
