Panthers QB Bryce Young impressing coaches with steady progress in camp

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — To appreciate just how far Bryce Young has come in recent years, consider his working relationship with fast-food restaurants.

Young revealed after Tuesday’s practice that early in his days at the University of Alabama, he delivered for DoorDash, staying low-key with a COVID mask and hoodie and trying to stick to “leave it at the door” orders so he wouldn’t be recognized as much.

“This was before NIL,” he explained with a laugh, just wanting some extra money before it was easier to come by.

Today, Young is a Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall draft pick, so before his first game with the Panthers, he has already landed an endorsement deal with Bojangles, a quintessential Carolina comfort food to help win over local fans. His go-to order is the Bo-Berry Biscuit, and fans at Tuesday’s practice had signs offering him a cool glass of “Bryced” tea.

Now, the only tips he’s getting are from NFL coaches, trying to get him prepared to start a season opener in fewer than six weeks. The Panthers were extremely thorough in evaluating the quarterbacks in this class, and the past three months have validated what they liked so much about Young.

“His accuracy and processing — those are the two things, especially early with a young quarterback, you’re excited about. You want to see those things come to life,” said longtime NFL QB Josh McCown, now Carolina’s quarterbacks coach. “It’s a work in progress with young players, but that’s what has been the most encouraging thing. The traits that were the heavy reasons for why we drafted him, we’re seeing those come to life a lot in camp. That bodes well. It’s still one day at a time, but you certainly like to see that.”

Tuesday’s practice focused on the red zone, and it was hit-and-miss for Young, taking a large share of the reps ahead of veteran Andy Dalton and backup Matt Corral. His first pass of the day was a downfield throw to receiver Adam Thielen, and he hit a run of touchdowns at the goal line, but also was picked off by corner Keith Taylor.

Head coach Frank Reich stressed that not all interceptions are a negative in training camp, that it’s a time when coaches want a quarterback — especially a completely new one — to test his aggressiveness and the limits of what he can get away with.

“I thought Bryce had a good day today in the red zone,” Reich said. “When you get down there into really tight windows, this is the stage where you have to try things out. We’re going to tell him to challenge himself: See if you can throw the ball in that window against that coverage. We need to find those things out now. I thought Bryce did a great job that way.”

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Young has known tremendous success in the past two seasons, going 23-4 as Alabama’s starting quarterback. His two-year totals were 79 touchdowns against 12 interceptions, and despite concerns about his size — he’s listed at 5-foot-10, 204 pounds — the Panthers saw enough to make him their choice, ahead of Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Florida’s Anthony Richardson, who went second and fourth overall to the Texans and Colts.

Asked where he wants to see improvement from Young as he prepares for the season ahead, Reich had a simple answer: everything. He’s seen progress in all those aspects, but he’s stressing the importance of consistent, steady progress.

“I don’t mean to say it like that, but literally, there’s no stone that can be left unturned,” Reich said. “All these players are good in so many says, but our mentality is to scratch and claw — incremental improvement in every area.”

Asked about his goal-line interception, his fourth in the first week of practice, Young already knows it was a bad throw, delivered too late in a tight window. Being even-keeled is a good qualify in a young quarterback, and he’s already showing an unflappable nature, able to process a negative play without letting it permeate to the next.

“There are ups and downs, and you have to take every rep in stride,” Young said. “The real learning is when you look at the tape, in meetings, watching and seeing how it looks from there. … I’ve been around a lot of great quarterbacks, and hearing stories about the people who have had success at this level, there’s the practice field and meetings, but it’s always that extra, whatever routine, whatever film is being watched, whatever conversations are being had. … I think that’s really what separates you. I’m just doing my best to work to get to that level. It’s something I take pride in.”

McCown, 44, is in his first year as a coach after playing 16 seasons with eight NFL teams. And while Young is his first interaction coaching a high draft pick, McCown played with several in his career, including JaMarcus Russell, drafted first by the Raiders in 2007, as well as the Browns’ Johnny Manziel and the Jets’ Sam Darnold. He has seen firsthand that even the most coveted quarterbacks don’t all work out in the NFL, and he knows some of the pitfalls that can come along the way.

“How you bring them along matters,” McCown said. “The character of that person matters, and the situation that those guys come to matters. In different cases with all those guys, one of those things happened. But there’s no doubt, in my role in those rooms, I was watching and learning. You try to help them as much as you can. So much of the vetting process matters because you need to know what they’re going to do when they leave the building and go home. You can only do so much. I tell the guys all the time, ‘The downloading of the information is on you. We can share it with you, but you have to do the work of memorizing the plays. The retention is on you.’

“If you have a player who’s wired the right way, he’s going to do the work to retain it, and if he’s not, he’s not. What I learned is there are very talented players, but guys either are not mature enough in that moment or not willing to pay the price to work and be ready to go. In New York, it was a tough go for Sam because the situation wasn’t right. This team wasn’t ready. I think he has a lot of good football ahead of him.”

So the preparation of Young continues, and while the first evaluation is a season opener in six weeks, the process will continue long after that, with the same focus on daily progress and finding a way to make a No. 1 overall pick better as he learns.

“It’s literally everything,” Reich said again. “It’s the way he is in the huddle, how he’s getting through progressions, his contributions in meetings, what he sees, what he likes, the way he leads, on the field and off. That’s the goal, right? We’re really serious about that. You’ve got to have that mentality of getting better, and he has that.”

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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