Former No. 1 NFL draft pick benched as 0-2 team changes QBs

Bryce Young will be taking a break.
The Carolina Panthers have benched the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 draft, who was acquired at great cost 18 months ago, in favor of veteran backup Andy Dalton.
“Andy gives us our best chance to win right now,” rookie head coach Dave Canales said in a Monday afternoon news conference. “I’m excited for Andy.”
Canales informed Young and Dalton of the depth chart switch Monday morning but would not publicly commit to Dalton as the starter beyond Week 3.
It’s been a rocky season-plus for the 2021 Heisman Trophy winner, who has not lived up to his draft billing for a variety of reasons. In Young’s 18 professional starts, Carolina has lost 16 times. On a personal level, Young has completed fewer than 60% of his passes with a 70.9 passer rating. He’s accounted for 12 touchdowns and 19 turnovers and frequently looks uncomfortable on the field. His ability to process and cycle through reads, perhaps considered his greatest trait leading up to the draft – and a perceived offset to his slight frame (5-10, 204) – has not yet borne fruit in the pros.
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However Young is already dealing with this third head coach, Canales in this case, a series of play callers and amid one of the NFL’s least-talented rosters. He passed for a career-low 84 yards in Sunday’s 26-3 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers − a disastrous home opener where fans in Charlotte headed for the exits early.
“I think I just got to do a better job with decision making,” Young said in the aftermath. “You always want to make a play. You want to do something. Obviously, part of the position is being the game manager. Some bad instances of that on film today. I definitely take accountability for that.”
Asked Sunday after the loss to the Chargers if Young’s job was in jeopardy, Canales indicated it wasn’t.
“Bryce is our quarterback,” he said a day ago. “We’re going to just continue to shore up and fix the things we need to fundamentally, from a scheme standpoint, all those things. These are all valuable reps, all valuable games. We’ll learn a lot from this game and hopefully will take another step (next) week.”
Dalton, 36, is a three-time Pro Bowler who has passed for 38,511 yards and 246 touchdowns during his 14-year career. He passed for 361 yards and two TDs in his only start of 2023, a 37-27 loss at Seattle which Young sat out due to injury.
The winless Panthers will face the Raiders in Las Vegas this Sunday.
Young’s benching is all the more galling for Carolina fans considering the assets the organization surrendered in order to secure his rights.
About six weeks prior to the 2023 draft, then-general manager Scott Fitterer obtained the No. 1 pick from the Chicago Bears in exchange for wide receiver DJ Moore – the Panthers’ best offensive player at the time – a first- and second-rounder that year, a Round 1 selection in 2024, which ultimately translated to the No. 1 pick Chicago used on USC quarterback Caleb Williams, and a Round 2 slot in 2025.
It’s still early-ish, but the deal has the potential to go down as one of the more lopsided in league annals given Williams was widely considered a better prospect than Young a year after he was taken. Moore had a career-best 1,364 receiving yards for Chicago in 2023, the fourth-highest single-season total in the Bears’ lengthy history.
2023: Games (16); record (2-14); 315 completions in 527 attempts (59.8%) for 2,877 yards, 11 TDs, 10 INTs; 73.7 QB rating; 253 rushing yards, 6 fumbles lost
2024: Games (2); record (0-2); 31 completions in 56 attempts (55.4%) for 245 yards, 0 TDs, 3 INTs; 44.1 QB rating; 18 rushing yards, 1 TD
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Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis on X, formerly Twitter, @ByNateDavis.