Bryce Young’s college coach still believes in his future as an NFL quarterback. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban unleashed an emphatic response to Young, the No. 1 pick of the 2023 NFL draft, getting benched earlier this week by the Panthers heading into Week 3.
Quarterback is a really hard position to play if the people around you don’t play well,” Saban said Friday on The Pat McAfee Show. “… Do they have the type of players around Bryce Young to even give him a chance to be successful? That’s one of the bad things about being the first guy picked in a draft. You may go to a team that doesn’t have all the pieces that you need.” ” … [The Panthers] have to build this thing from the ground up. I hate to see Bryce get benched. But I also don’t see a lot of opportunity for him to be successful based on the skill players they have around him, the offensive line they around him.”
And I think he’s the type of player that can operate well when he has good players around him.”
The Panthers already weren’t a very deep team when they decided to trade up from the No. 9 pick in the 2023 draft to the No. 1 pick on March 10, 2023. They sent a significant package to the Chicago Bears to move up, trading away star receiver D.J. Moore as well as two first-round picks and two second-round picks. Of course, Carolina doesn’t draft Young without making that trade. But it certainly has set the franchise back in its attempt to surround the quarterback with talent. Young’s rookie season did not go as planned, as Carolina finished with a league-worst 2–15 record and had to watch as the Bears used their 2024 first-round pick to select highly-touted quarterback Caleb Williams. Young threw for 2,877 yards, 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions as a rookie-adding up to a 73.7 passer rating.
