When Bryce Young was benched after two games last year, people questioned whether he needed a fresh start on another team.
Young is still in Carolina and has the Panthers in the playoff chase.
The third-year quarterback threw for a franchise-record 448 yards and three touchdowns against the NFL’s No. 1 pass defense to lead the Panthers to a 30-27 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
Carolina (6-5) trails the Tampa Buccaneers (6-4) by a half-game in the NFC South, and the two teams will meet twice in the final three weeks.
Both have tough road games in Week 12. The Panthers face the San Francisco 49ers (7-4) on Monday night. The Buccaneers take on the Los Angeles Rams (8-2) on Sunday night.
Young bounced back from an ankle injury in the first quarter against Atlanta to lead a comeback from a 21-7 deficit a week after a disappointing 17-7 loss to New Orleans. If Young continues to play at this level, the Panthers could end Tampa Bay’s streak of four consecutive division titles.
“To me, it’s just my expectation for Bryce to take every game plan and every opportunity and attack it, and he’s been doing that,” Panthers coach Dave Canales said. “(Sunday) was a day about the whole group. It was about all the guys, the time on task, the side conversations in practices, working together in between drives and really just making it come alive. Finding the completions where they were and extending the play when he needed to. I’m just proud of the way that he just pushed through for his teammates. It just speaks volumes to the type of leader that he’s continued to grow into, and to be able to be available for his guys and find a bunch of different guys in different situations.”
Canales was two games into his first season as an NFL head coach when he decided to bench Young for veteran Andy Dalton. Young, the 2023 No. 1 draft pick, struggled in his rookie season under former coach Frank Reich. He needed more time to learn Canales’ system, watch from the sideline and grow as a player. Canales helped develop Geno Smith in Seattle and Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay. His patient approach with Young is coming along.
Performances like the one against Atlanta should give Panthers fans reason for optimism that Young can still be a franchise QB.
He has completed 62.7% of his passes for 1,962 yards, 14 touchdowns, seven interceptions and a career-high 86.0 passer rating.
“Everybody in the locker room knew it was bound to happen. We knew that we had in our bag, and specifically Bryce,” rookie wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan said. “But I mean, to turn the tape on, man, Bryce went out there and balled for sure.”
Stuff the tush
The Detroit Lions may have found a formula to stop the tush push. They stopped Jalen Hurts five of six times on Philadelphia’s version of the QB sneak. Two of the stops were negated by penalty. Still, the Lions had more success than any team against it. They also were one of the 10 teams to vote not to ban the play. None of the other nine teams will play the Eagles in the regular season.
“Respect,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “They did a good job stopping it.”
The Lions sent a rusher off the edge to pull Hurts back from trying a second effort and also pushed their frontline defenders up the middle.
Bills safety Damar Hamlin overcame suffering cardiac arrest during a game against Cincinnati on Jan. 2, 2023, to not only return to the NFL but was a starter for Buffalo last season.
A pectoral injury sent Hamlin to injured reserve last month, but he says he was built to handle adversity long before he nearly died on the field.
“The toughness and adversities that I’ve already had in my life to even just make it to the point where I’m able to be an NFL athlete, that was the toughest part of my journey,” Hamlin told The Associated Press. “That was really like the toughest navigation. I was built for the chase and I was built to overcome the adversity to be able to persevere through something so heart-wrenching, no pun intended, but you know something so heart-wrenching and something so scary to life, to be able to get myself to a point where I wanted to be able to show that I can compete again at the highest level in the world. So, I think just the foundation that my parents built in me, the foundation of things I had to overcome and the mindset that I had to build myself up into a person carries me through life.”
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