Panthers HC Canales: Bryce Young 'a Courageous QB' and 'the Right Guy' for Carolina

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young may have had a nightmare season, but new coach Dave Canales wasn't discouraged in his evaluation of the 2023 No. 1 overall pick.

"I don't think it's all isolated on what I saw this year," Canales told the Panthers' official website. "The cool part is we're just a year out of doing all of these evaluations for the quarterback position, and in Tampa, we were in a position to maybe look for a quarterback. So, I was able to really dive in and what I saw there was just that really accurate passer, a courageous quarterback, not just talking about specific pocket presence but also just critical games, the amount of games he won at every level really, as a high school player, as a college player at Alabama, this guy is just a winner.

"He's got the right makeup to be able to be a champion. And so then you watch him play NFL football, and I still see the accuracy, the mobility, the courage in the pocket. All those things are still there. So now it's just about building an offense in its totality that is a good product so that he's just 1/11 of that process."

Young threw for 2,877 yards and 11 touchdowns against 10 interceptions in his rookie season. He had just two games where he threw for multiple touchdowns and eight where he failed to throw for a single score. Most concerningly, Young seemed to regress as the year went along and threw only two touchdowns in his last seven games

The Panthers hired Canales in large part due to his work with quarterbacks. He has helped turn around the careers of Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield in consecutive seasons, turning them from journeymen into 4,000-yard passers. It's not a coincidence that Smith's performance regressed when Canales left to run the Buccaneers offense, resulting in the best season of Mayfield's career.

Carolina did Young no favors as a rookie. He was surrounded by arguably the worst skill-position group in football, spending the entire year throwing into tight passing windows and relying on a nonexistent rushing attack.

Canales is not a miracle worker, so the Panthers front office will need to work quickly to surround Young with talent at the skill positions. They do not have their first-round pick, so expect Carolina to be active early and often in the free-agency period.