I want to give Bryce Young a chance regarding whether or not he has a chance to break out this season. Granted, his situation in 2023 wasn’t great; he couldn’t overcome it, and a lot of that was definitely on him. But things are looking, at the very least, not as bleak in 2024 as they were last season.
In 2023, Young was last in catchable throw percentage. In turn, he had the worst off-target throw percentage. Of course, he was under duress on 40% of his dropbacks, which is an insane number – he also had the highest percentage of dropbacks resulting a sack – but he did avoid the most would-be sacks of any QB last year. It was a bad year.
Put bluntly, the offensive line in Carolina was very bad - but they really did improve the interior line this past offseason. The right side of that line is looking pretty good, so I think they’re solid there overall now.
The other thing to consider is that he’s an anticipation thrower and he had no separators on the outside last year. Diontae is literally one of the best separators in the NFL. It’s a great fit. He has a true #1 now on the outside, and a solid veteran complement in Adam Thielen on the inside. They’re not using Xavier Legette on the line, which is great to hear - so he’s an added weapon, as well.
Geno Smith was left for dead before Dave Canales got to him in YEAR 9. Everyone counted Baker Mayfield out, and he just had his best year under Canales with 4000 yards and 28 TDs… and now, Canales’ new project is a #1 overall pick just a year ago. I can totally see him identifying what Young does well now, work on those installs, and then iterate from there.
One underrated thing that Canales did with Mayfield last year was design him on runs - Mayfield had the 6th highest designed rushing attempt percentage among all QBs. Young was all the way down at 2% last year, that can easily go up, given his skillset coming out of college.
There is definitely a world where Young is a completely different QB this year - I’m not saying he’ll be a Top-12 fantasy fantasy QB, but he could break out and become a good QB.