4 hours Ago By Sean Labar
Dave Canales is more than halfway through his first season as the head coach for the Carolina Panthers — and in his first season leading a NFL team — it’s been a grind trying to find hope for the future with a (3-9) record as Thanksgiving inches closer. While there are no moral victories in the NFL, the Panthers went toe-to-toe with the (10-1) Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. Despite a valiant fourth-quarter comeback against the back-to-back Super Bowl Champions, the Panthers fell short 30-27.
For a franchise clearly in rebuild mode with no chance of making the playoffs this season, it’s the perfect time to evaluate the young talent on the team and try to build confidence for the future. Last year’s first overall pick, QB Bryce Young, showed massive improvement on Sunday for the fourth-straight game since he got the starting job back after being benched earlier this season. The former Alabama star looked more confident than he has at any point in his NFL career on Sunday — and against one of the NFL’s most intimidating defenses — made multiple highlight-worthy throws while thriving under pressure.
Young finished the day 21-of-35 for 263 yards with one touchdown and a 92.9 passer rating. He accomplished that with David Young as his go-to receiver.
He showed poise when deciding to use his legs as a runner, totaling 20 yards on three scrambles. In the post game press conference Canales was asked if Young was proving himself as the team’s franchise quarterback . In a prime opportunity to publicly praise his young signal caller who has bounced back from tremendous adversity — his head coach made a point to make it publicly known he doesn’t believe the second-year QB has earned that title yet.
“That’s really far in the future,” Canales responded when asked if Young had proven himself as the team’s franchise QB. “Right now, I’m just trying to build off this week, have another solid week of practice, bring the guys back together and just attack the basics and fundamentals.” While Canales acknowledged Young would start next week, he whiffed on a prime opportunity to publicly endorse his young quarterback when he needed it the most.
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