Mel Kiper Jr. Torched The Panthers For Ruining Bryce Young

The Carolina Panthers have once again looked like the worst team in football through two weeks of the NFL season, losing to the Saints and Chargers by a combined margin of 73-13. There are a lot of problems in Carolina, but the most glaring issue has been on offense. The defense certainly hasn’t been great, but that’s in part because they’re spending a ton of time on the field because the Panthers simply cannot move the ball offensively.

Through two games, Carolina has 352 total yards of offense, which is almost impossible to do, and second-year quarterback Bryce Young has thrown for just 252 yards through two games with three interceptions and zero touchdowns. It has been painfully apparent that Young’s confidence is just not there, which is compounding the issues he already has as an undersized quarterback. He’s struggled to make timely throws and the fear of making a mistake slows down the processing which makes things worse, as windows are closing on him leading to turnovers.

On Monday, the Panthers made the decision to bench the former No. 1 overall pick and turn things over to Andy Dalton to try and stabilize things. While it’s hard to blame them for making a change — it’s been that bad — it also brings into question how they’ve handled Young since he arrived in Carolina. On ESPN’s “Get Up!” on Tuesday morning, longtime Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. joined the show to absolutely rip into the Panthers for how they’ve managed Young’s career thus far.

For one, this is vintage Mel Kiper Jr., which I love to see. For another, the man makes some excellent points. It was understandable to go after a young offensive mind in Dave Canales to pair with the young quarterback, but as Kiper points out, you cannot expect Young to succeed in a brand new offense without giving him meaningful reps. Kiper torched the Panthers for only giving Young one drive in the new offense in the final preseason game when they were facing backups and non-roster guys. As he points out, CJ Stroud played in two preseason games to keep building on his spectacular rookie year and get more reps, while Derek Carr (who’s been incredible to start the year) played in two games as well to get used to a new offense even as a vet.

For the Panthers to not give Young those reps was setting him up for failure, which is exactly what’s happened and now they’re at a place where they’ve benched him and it’s very possible he will need a fresh start somewhere else to regain some confidence and have a shot at turning his career around. Barring something unforeseen, the Panthers trading up for Young will go down as an all-time bad deal, and while Young certainly isn’t blameless for his struggles, Carolina has put him behind the 8-ball as often as possible.