Bryce Young had a very up-and-down NFL season for the Carolina Panthers. His second year saw fewer starts than his rookie season, and it arguably saw higher highs and lower lows. Young was abysmal for the first two weeks and was benched until Week 8.
After that, the player that returned hardly resembled the one that got benched. Young was on the up for most of those games, but he did have a down outing against the Dallas Cowboys before surging again to close the year. Where does his body of work rank? One NFL insider has a surprising answer.
NFL analyst Nick Shook had the unenviable task of ranking all quarterbacks now that they’re all done in the regular season. Young came in the end-of-year list at number 14. “We’ve arrived at the best quarterback story outside of the QB Index’s top five in 2024. Young’s future in Carolina appeared doomed after two weeks when he was rightfully benched for Andy Dalton and left to pick up the pieces of his shattered confidence,” Shook said.
“Young might have never seen the field, either, if Dalton hadn’t been injured in a car accident,” Shook went on. “But as fate may have it, Young received his second chance and capitalized, appearing like the quarterback Carolina thought it was getting when making him the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft. Young grew exponentially in so many areas in 2024. He became a confident passer, found a way to sync his internal clock with the speed of the game, strengthened his composure so much that he became an out-of-structure creator, and ended up being one of the most enjoyable watches in the NFL in 2024. His future is now bright.”
Young ranked 11th heading into Week 18 on the NFL’s weekly ranking. But when evaluating the entire body of work vs. all other quarterbacks, a borderline top 10 ranking is harder to justify. There are a lot of good quarterbacks in the league, and a lot of them had really good overall seasons.
Still, Shook believes Young is firmly nearing that upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks, something that seemed unlikely last year and impossible in Week 3 of this year. Some notable names that Young outdid in this list include Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, Bo Nix, Tua Tagovailoa, CJ Stroud, Aaron Rodgers, and Caleb Williams.
NFL pundit predicts blockbuster deal between Panthers and Jets
Panthers predicted to pair Bryce Young with another top-2 pick
Why the Panthers will face major challenges in the 2025 offseason
Crazy Bryce Young stat shows how much he improved after benching
