Around these parts, the ceiling is the roof. And for Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young, the roof may still be sky-high.
Pro Football Focus analysts Sam Monson and Steve Palazzolo recently chopped it up about Young over at The 33rd Team. Monson believes, even after one of the lowest rookie campaigns in recent memory, that there’s plenty to look forward and up to for last year’s No. 1 overall pick.
” . . . I still think the ceiling is pretty high,” Monson told Palazzolo. “No. 1, those flashes were there. But No. 2, look at a guy like Tua Tagovailoa and Miami, right? Disastrous early on in his career, and then we saw him completely turn it around once the situation around him improved.
“And that’s a huge part of the Carolina thing last season. People got fired at the end of that season. It was a bad situation, top to bottom around Bryce Young. And obviously—he did very little to elevate it, to make it a better situation. But I think Tua demonstrates the ceiling can still be incredibly high.
“Bryce Young at Alabama, I think, was better than Tua and better in the same kinds of areas. Anticipation, throwing across the middle, reading those kinds of plays and route concepts.”
Well, this wouldn’t be the first time Tua has been considered a sort of prototype for Bryce. In fact, Young himself has talked about Tagovailoa’s impact on his path to the pros.
“I think as far as my college career, definitely was really big,” he said of Tagovailoa’s influence back in October.. “It was a big reason why I went to Alabama. It was a big transition from when he was there—just, what the offense looked like and what they kinda moved to offensively. And it’s flourished since then. And I was a recruit when all that was happening. So, that was a really, really big reason for me being there.”
Over the past two seasons, Tagovailoa has averaged 272.4 passing yards per game while completing 67.4 percent of his throws. That’d be a pretty nice roof for Young, who chucked for just 179.8 yards and a 59.8-percent completion rate in 2023.