In first win, Young shows why Panthers took him No. 1

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Carolina Panthers were down 13-12 and staring at an 0-7 record Sunday when rookie quarterback Bryce Young gathered teammates at their own 9-yard line with just over six minutes to play.

Lose, and the noise suggesting the Panthers should have used the No. 1 overall draft pick this year on C.J. Stroud — standing on the opposite sideline with the Houston Texans — instead of Young would grow louder.

Losing never entered Young’s mind.

There was just the quiet confidence from Young that he shows every day in practice.

“He said, ‘Hey, guys. This is what we do. We can do this. Let’s go put it on tape,”’ wide receiver Adam Thielen recounted after the 15-13 victory on a walk-off 23-yard field goal by Eddy Pineiro. “It’s not even the fact of what he said, it’s the confidence he put in his voice, in his mindset.

“You can say all you want, but when you feel the energy, you feel that kind of confidence, it gives you confidence that, ‘Hey, he’s gonna dish it, he’s gonna find us. Do your job and see what happens.”’

What happened is Young made the types of plays during that 15-play drive that made the Panthers comfortable acquiring the No. 1 overall pick from the Chicago Bears and selecting him over Stroud, who went No. 2 to the Texans.

Three in particular stood out. The first came on second-and-19 from the 36 when Young spun out of trouble for a 7-yard scramble. It showed his awareness and shiftiness in avoiding defenders.

That was followed by a 10-yard completion to Thielen on a screen play, as Young changed the angle of his throw to a sidearm to avoid oncoming defenders.

Then came the fourth-and-2 completion to Thielen out of an empty backfield. Not only was it a tight window, Young had to deal with running back Miles Sanders running a bad route and bringing an extra defender into the picture.

As Thielen later said without calling out anybody, it was a “broken play.” Young went out of his way not to call out Sanders while praising Thielen.

“There ended up being a lot of people there,” he said. “Tough contested catch with the game on the line. Not surprising at all for Adam. That one is a got-to-have-it moment.”

How rare was Young’s game-winning drive for Carolina? Not since 2018, when Cam Newton helped the Panthers erase a 17-0 fourth-quarter deficit, have the Panthers come from behind in the final period for a win.

These are the types of plays Young made at Alabama and throughout his football career that convinced the Panthers they had to have him and his undersized (5-foot-10, 204 pounds) frame over his long-time friend and rival Stroud, who, at 6-3, 191 pounds, better fits the prototypical mold of an NFL quarterback.

These are the types of plays that kept Carolina from listening to the noise when Stroud began the season with 191 consecutive passes without an interception — breaking the record of 176 set by Dak Prescott in 2016 — while Young started off with two in his NFL debut against the Atlanta Falcons.

“You can’t put a label on a guy after six weeks or even a year,” Reich said. “I’ve seen guys have Pro Bowl seasons and then a year later fighting to be a backup somewhere else.

“What we’re looking for, not just from our quarterback but at every position, is sustained success at a high level for a very long time. And you can’t measure it in weeks.”

In Young, the Panthers believe they have a player who can sustain success over the long haul. That’s why they put so much on him early in terms of installing the entire playbook while the Texans were more select in playing to Stroud’s strengths.

“My eyes and our eyes were on Bryce Young from start to finish,” Reich said. “You look at the film. You talk to the man. You get a sense for the leader, the player, and what he is and what he can be, and how he fits into what we want to do.

“We got the guy for us.”

Sunday, while it wasn’t a thing of beauty and the offense still produced only one touchdown with offensive coordinator Thomas Brown taking over the playcalling for Reich, further cemented that decision.

If all goes as Carolina and Houston hope, this was just the start of the NFL version of the Young-Stroud rivalry that goes back to their days as eighth-graders growing up in California — Young for the Inland Empire Ducks and Stroud for the Pomoma Steelers.

Young made it no secret earlier in the week that Stroud had the upper hand in their youth.

“They killed us, like terribly,” he said with a laugh.

Perhaps that’s what Young and Stroud were talking about in the bowels of Bank of America Stadium an hour after Sunday’s game. Or maybe they were recounting some of their days playing against each other in AAU basketball that Young loved discussing earlier in the week.

“We have different game,” Young explained. “I’m more of a point [guard]. He’s a shooter.”

They both play football with similar styles. Young likes to distribute the ball to as many as he can. He targeted nine players Sunday, with eight catching passes, as he finished 22-of-31 for 235 yards and a touchdown for a career-best 103.6 passer rating.

Stroud likes to sit in the pocket and gun it between defenders, which he did well early Sunday before almost disappearing en route to completing 16 of 24 attempts for 140 yards and a 78.0 passer rating.

Both are mentally tough and good leaders.

It was just hard to see that in Young through the 0-6 start, but it came shining through on the winning drive.

“There’s no panic,” Thielen said of Young. “There’s no stress. There’s no down look on his face. It’s just, you can tell that he is just ready to get back out there and go to work. It’s not an easy thing to do. That’s impressive, especially with a rookie.”