Bryce Young Talks 'Humbling' Panthers Benching for Andy Dalton, Resurgence Under Dave Canales

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young endured some turbulence over his first two seasons in town, including overseeing a team that went 2-15 in 2023 before being benched for veteran Andy Dalton in 2024. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft enjoyed a solid third season, though, leading the Panthers to an NFC South title while throwing for 3,011 yards and 23 touchdowns.

Young recently sat down with the members of the Pivot Podcast to discuss various topics, including the adversity he faced.

Of note, he talked about the "humbling experience" and how being benched was even harder than dealing with the expectations of being a No. 1 overall pick.

"Honestly, getting through that was tougher," Young said. "I wasn't really a stranger to expectations. It's something I've always embraced, and I think I've been able to do that just by trying to reach onto what's tangible. Like, for me, what people expect, what people think on the outside, I'm a sports fan, too. I've been a sports fan. I'm grateful that everyone has an opinion and everyone has projections, because that's what fuels the sport, that's what keeps it going. But also, that doesn't affect me. It's not gonna be the reason, good or bad, something happens. So with the expectations, I've always been able to keep it in the building. I've always been able to 'all right, what does my team expect from me? What does my coach expect from me?'

"And I've had a lot of experience with that, but, yeah, being benched, again, there being so much in the air, I've had no experience with that, so yeah, definitely a humbling experience."

Young missed five starts in 2024 but returned to the lineup in late October after Dalton suffered a sprained right thumb in a car accident.

Young fared better down the stretch, especially in the last three weeks, when he threw for seven touchdowns and no interceptions. He began 2025 as QB1 and enjoyed his best season yet, providing hope for the future in Carolina.

Young has formed a good rapport with head coach Dave Canales, who joined the team in 2024 and led a three-win improvement from 2-15 to 5-12. That may not seem like much at first glance, but the Panthers went from a bottom feeder to a squad that played spoiler and was at least competitive in the back half of 2024. Then the Panthers made another leap in 2025.

Canales' first head coach with the Panthers was Frank Reich, but he was fired after a 1-10 start. That more or less matched Canales and Young together even though the quarterback arrived under a different regime, but things have gone well, per comments Young made after being asked about how much the relationship between him and the coach has grown.

"I think it's grown a lot," Young said in part.

"One of the things that I'm grateful for, he's someone that really encourages players to be vocal. He wants to know, 'Hey, I like this, I like that.' You know, whatever it is. So he wants the communication, and I want to be able to communicate too, but my first year, it's like, I don't want to just blankly tell you, 'Oh, I love this' when I've never done it for your system. Obviously, I could draw from past experiences, but you don't really know unless you really execute it. So now, a lot more comfortable being like, "No, no, now I have reps in this, this is the stuff I like, this is the stuff that I like called.'"

Carolina is clearly on an upward trajectory, in big part because of Young's vast improvement. He'll look to keep that momentum rising in 2026 as the Panthers search for back-to-back NFC South titles for the first time since 2015.