Panthers’ Bryce Young benched just two starts into 2024 season; Andy Dalton takes over in Carolina

How bad was Week 2’s performance by the Carolina Panthers offense? Bad enough for former No. 1 draft pick Bryce Young to get benched for Andy Dalton just two starts into his sophomore season, CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones reported on Monday afternoon. 

Young has been under fire for basically his entire career, and after a disastrous first season in 2023, the Panthers managed just 13 points in their first two games under new coach Dave Canales. 

Sunday was as bleak as it gets, with Young facing the least pressure of any starting quarterback in the NFL and still managing to throw for 84 yards (not a typo!) on 26 pass attempts in yet another humiliating loss for Carolina. 

Dalton, a former second-round pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, will take over, beginning in Week 3 when Carolina travels to the Raiders.

We’ll know more when we hear from Canales this week, but it’s entirely possible the Panthers simply decided Young needed a break from being on the field for a very bad Carolina team as the centerpiece of a dysfunctional Panthers offense. 

Young, the former No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, not only hasn’t taken a step forward this year for Carolina, he’s managed to regress. Sunday was a comedy of errors. 

The 2021 Heisman Trophy winner didn’t diagnose a third-down blitz from the Chargers on the Panthers’ second series, bounced out of the pocket and held the ball until he was unnecessarily sacked by the sideline. He threw a horrific interception into double coverage. And on a third-and-2 he missed Adam Thielen by a yardage amount that was pretty close to equaling the distance on the throw itself. 

That’s just a couple of obvious instances, but the bottom line is there’s no real way around it: Young looks broken right now. The Panthers are 0-2 and have scored a single offensive touchdown so far this season, a three-yard scramble by Young in Week 1 to trim the Saints lead down to 37-10 in an ugly blowout. 

Carolina was non-competitive against the Chargers from start to finish. 

The combination of Canales, GM Dan Morgan and EVP Brandt Tillis made the decision to bench Young, per ESPN. 

How much involvement David Tepper had/has in this decision will certainly be debated, although it’s possible Canales simply is worried about his job, given the level of play by the offense and Tepper’s propensity for firing head coaches midway through the season (he’s 3 for 3 so far in his tenure as owner of the Panthers, with Frank Reich being canned midway through his first season last year). 

Dalton’s insertion into the starting lineup will at least give us an idea of whether or not this offense is functional at all, or whether it’s simply a Bryce Young problem for Carolina. The 36-year-old Dalton is 83-78-2 in 163 starts over a 14-year NFL career. He’s not likely going to light up defenses on a weekly basis, but he will probably have more control over the offense and almost certainly possess a better level of comfort inside the pocket. 

At the very least, this gives Young an opportunity to step back, take a breath and regroup and work on the mental side of being an NFL quarterback without spending every waking minute under assault from opposing defenses and the Panthers fanbase. 

Following the road trip to Las Vegas, the Panthers have the Bengals — the team who drafted Dalton over a decade ago — the Bears — who traded with the Panthers in the Young deal — the Falcons, Commanders and Broncos. There are several winnable games on the slate for a mildly functional NFL club. 

It’s Dalton’s job to prove the Panthers can approach that level of baseline mediocrity over the next few weeks.