The new head coach of the Carolina Panthers doesn’t look at Bryce Young as “broken.” On the contrary, in fact.
Dave Canales, whom the Panthers hired away from NFC South rival Tampa Bay this offseason, is the team’s tenth coach in franchise history. He’ll have a chance to work alongside Young, who the team drafted No. 1 overall in the 2023 NFL Draft. Scouts were bullish on Young and Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, although plenty favored the former Alabama star.
Young struggled to get going in his first season. He wasn’t given a plethora of viable options, and the team traded away stud wide receiver D.J. Moore to the Chicago Bears before they even drafted Young. Granted, they wouldn’t have been able to had they not traded Moore away. But he was his best potential option. Young’s struggles were so prominent that some wondered if he needed more tune-ups. In Canales’ eyes? Not quite.
The new Panthers coach addressed the media on Tuesday at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana. Canales, according to reporter Sheena Quick, said there’s “no plan to fix Bryce Young.”
“No plan to fix Bryce Young. I think for me it’s about building an offense that we can be proud of,” Canales said. “Something that is tough, that is smart, that takes care of the football, number one. We gotta take care of explosives, and then of course we have to minimize damage with exotic pressures and things like that.”
More from Canales:
“So I think elevating the whole group and asking Bryce to do his part. Without getting too into the specifics of it, but I’ve had a chance to really dive into some film since the last time we’ve talked. I have a specific plan. Can’t wait to put that into play. But again, we’re not talking about a guy that there’s a big fix for, really. He’s a really accurate player, a really smart player. He’s aware of what’s happening, and we gotta build the whole thing around him. The whole offense around him. Something that we can really say, ‘This is our identity.'”
Dave Canales says there’s no plan to “fix” Bryce Young. Instead, they seek to build an offense around him that has an identity. #Panthers pic.twitter.com/Z027Z0mZhK
— Sheena Quick (@Sheena_Marie3) February 27, 2024
