Back in 2023, the loudest takeaway from draft night was that the Carolina Panthers had picked the wrong quarterback. While Bryce Young struggled through a rocky rookie year, C.J. Stroud delivered one of the most impressive debut seasons in league history.
The verdict across the NFL felt unanimous; Carolina made a franchise-altering mistake. But three years later, the conversation sounds very different.
In a pre-draft piece, Brad Gagnon of The Bleacher Report ranked the 10 worst quarterback situations in the NFL entering 2026. The Panthers weren’t on it. The Texans were.
That’s not a small detail.
Carolina Panthers and Bryce Young are growing together, and the league is noticing
For the past three seasons, Carolina was the easy punchline anytime quarterback stability came up. Since the end of the Cam Newton era, the franchise had been viewed as permanently stuck in purgatory at football's most critical position. That’s no longer how the Panthers are viewed.
Gagnon wrote that Stroud “fell off a cliff” after his historic rookie year and pointed to seven turnovers across two playoff games as a low point. Meanwhile, Young’s steady improvement, late-season play, and playoff performance have quietly changed how evaluators see Carolina’s situation.
Young’s 2025 stat line won’t make highlight reels. He threw for 3,011 passing yards and 23 touchdowns. The former Alabama star conceded 11 interceptions. He finished the campaign with a 63.6 percent completion rate and an 87.8 passer rating. But context matters.
He led Carolina to an NFC South title. Young helped deliver the franchise’s first playoff appearance since 2017. He topped 200 passing yards only once in the first 10 weeks, then threw for a career high 448 in Week 11 against the Atlanta Falcons.
The season itself wasn’t about dominance, but about growth. And after his rookie year and a 2024 benching just two games into head coach Dave Canales' tenure, growth is exactly what the Panthers needed to see.
When general manager Dan Morgan sat down with Kay Adams on the Up and Adams Show at the league meetings, he talked about Young like a plan.
“Bryce is definitely our future. We’re building around him and what he does. For somebody to get benched, come back and be as resilient as he is… he’s a special person.”
Young still has to prove he can string together dominant weeks. He still has to show more consistency. The Panthers still need to add weapons around him in the draft. But something important has changed.
He’s no longer being discussed as the quarterback Carolina regrets drafting. He’s being discussed as the reason this team is no longer viewed as a quarterback problem.
That’s the kind of respect Panthers fans have been waiting three years to see.
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