Where would the Panthers be if they sat Bryce Young last season?

[hepcat]

Hypothetical offseason question. If the Panthers sat Bryce in 2023 and played Dalton instead, where would the Panthers be going into 2024? One thing is certain, things would be VERY different. 

1) Frank Reich doesn’t get fired. Dalton is a veteran and operated Frank’s offense far more effectively in the one game he started than Bryce did. The Panthers likely look a lot more competent early on and Frank doesn’t get fired mid-season.

Caveat - It’s also been quietly mentioned in some media outlets that Frank and the staff preferred to draft CJ Stroud and might have tanked the season intentionally to get fired, all speculation. But the vanilla offensive scheme might have been a coincidence due to lack of talent and competence, or perhaps malicious compliance. 

2) The Panthers wouldn’t have been the worst team in the NFL. The defense was fairly good in 2023 despite the fact the offense was the worst in the NFL with Young under center. With a veteran starting at QB, the offense would possess the ball for longer periods of time and could have lead to even better performances from the defense. 

3) Scott Fitterer doesn’t get fired. A move I think was needed either way, but if the Panthers resembled anything in the way of competency in 2023, Fitterer doesn’t get the axe especially because they hadn’t seen what Bryce can do on the field yet. 

4) David Tepper doesn’t throw a drink at a fan. I think we’re all tired of the owner of this franchise embarrassing the fans with his immature behavior but hey, I have to imagine that his rage wouldn’t have been at level 10 if they hadn’t had the disaster of a season they did in 2023.

5) Bryce has a good 2024? Biggest leap I can make in this speculation but I think if Bryce sat in 2024, and the team makes similar moves to build the offense around him, he would come into a much better situation after having a chance to learn on the bench behind a veteran instead of the situation he was thrust into. 
 

We will never know how this would have played out but it is fun to speculate!

[Camp Fodder]

Yea we easily win 6-7 games with Dalton but prefer the way it played out in getting the HC and GM fired

[rayzor]

stuck...again.

[Harbingers]

With a mass of fans completely outraged foaming-at-the-mouth because we weren’t starting our #1 pick QB. That’s where we would have been. 
 

Instead “we are/were playing too old dalton, we could have gone 15-0 with Bryce!”

Edited May 2, 2024 by Harbingers

[cmichd08]

1 hour ago, hepcat said:

Hypothetical offseason question. If the Panthers sat Bryce in 2023 and played Dalton instead, where would the Panthers be going into 2024? One thing is certain, things would be VERY different. 

1) Frank Reich doesn’t get fired. Dalton is a veteran and operated Frank’s offense far more effectively in the one game he started than Bryce did. The Panthers likely look a lot more competent early on and Frank doesn’t get fired mid-season.

Caveat - It’s also been quietly mentioned in some media outlets that Frank and the staff preferred to draft CJ Stroud and might have tanked the season intentionally to get fired, all speculation. But the vanilla offensive scheme might have been a coincidence due to lack of talent and competence, or perhaps malicious compliance. 

2) The Panthers wouldn’t have been the worst team in the NFL. The defense was fairly good in 2023 despite the fact the offense was the worst in the NFL with Young under center. With a veteran starting at QB, the offense would possess the ball for longer periods of time and could have lead to even better performances from the defense. 

3) Scott Fitterer doesn’t get fired. A move I think was needed either way, but if the Panthers resembled anything in the way of competency in 2023, Fitterer doesn’t get the axe especially because they hadn’t seen what Bryce can do on the field yet. 

4) David Tepper doesn’t throw a drink at a fan. I think we’re all tired of the owner of this franchise embarrassing the fans with his immature behavior but hey, I have to imagine that his rage wouldn’t have been at level 10 if they hadn’t had the disaster of a season they did in 2023.

5) Bryce has a good 2024? Biggest leap I can make in this speculation but I think if Bryce sat in 2024, and the team makes similar moves to build the offense around him, he would come into a much better situation after having a chance to learn on the bench behind a veteran instead of the situation he was thrust into. 
 

We will never know how this would have played out but it is fun to speculate!

The fans had to have Byrce starting. The only way he could learn the game. When we have seen in the past sometimes sitting a 1st round QB can be just as fruitful as starting him. We saw what Dalton could do with the same line up Byrce had and he came within a whisker of pulling it out.

[Ricky Spanish]

I still don't see how people think Dalton ran the offense "So much better than Bryce". It was better, don't get me wrong, but it was for one game against one of the worst defenses in the league when he threw for 360 yards (47 of which came on a busted coverage) off of 60 passes (which is the lowest YPA of his career btw), completed less than 60% of said passes, and we still got blown out.

I'm sure we would have won 1 or 2 more games at MOST, but he wasn't going to fix everything wrong with that offense last season. The offense as a whole was absolutely poo regardless of who the QB would have been, yes, even Stroud. Probably would have looked better, but it still would have sucked and been a complete clusterfug due to all the cooks in the kitchen and Reich and co would have still been rightly fired.

[MechaZain]

1 hour ago, hepcat said:

Caveat - It’s also been quietly mentioned in some media outlets that Frank and the staff preferred to draft CJ Stroud and might have tanked the season intentionally to get fired, all speculation.

Why is it so hard to accept that Reich just can't coach? There doesn't have to be a conspiracy behind it. Indianapolis knew.

Doesn't even make sense. If Reich didn't want him why protect him with that Fisher Price ass playbook? He could have just drawn plays without any regard for Bryce's ability and let the kid embarass himself if he couldn't execute.

[CRA]

I don't think Dalton survives as the starting QB.  I mean, if you really look at the Seattle game... he was a fraction of a second from getting smashed pretty much the entire game and Seattle had a weaker D.   And it took a career high in attempts for Dalton to make us look respectable vs a meah D.  A better D, given those pass attempts required, feasts on Dalton. 

I mean, you turned injuries off he has a better season and record.  Bryce's escapability and youth helped him survive that season.  Dalton ain't got it at his current age. 

I think if Dalton played and largely stayed on the field. Frank is still the HC. 

[strato]

In the first place he wouldn’t ever have sat the whole season. I agree that it is likely Reich wasn’t fired when he was

Dalton though... he didn’t get reps with those players and it was a new playbook too. i feel like had he gotten more reps and a couple or three games to get comfortable taking reps all week we’d have seen better results than in Seattle. 

Which okay the defense may have been weak but the crowd and noise made up for it. Weren’t there like, 8 false starts or something?

[BEASTfromdaEAST]

Exact same spot.....we had easily the LEAST TALENTED TEAM IN THE NFL!

 

Dalton maybe gets us one to two more wins tops. This team needed an overhaul and Morgan has started it 

[jayboogieman]

6 minutes ago, CRA said:

And it took a career high in attempts for Dalton to make us look respectable vs a meah D

I don't think they looked respectable. Seattle's defense being as bad as it was is the only thing that made the Panthers' offense look even below average.

7 minutes ago, CRA said:

I think if Dalton played and largely stayed on the field. Frank is still the HC

I'm not so sure about that either. Tepper has proven that he shifts course with the wind and has his spiteful streak. Frank still might have gotten fired just because he didn't play Young.

[Waldo]

They were screwed after picking Young regardless. You can't sit the #1 pick while Stroud is out there lighting it up. So they played him and will have to do it for another year. Young was always going to be a lose-lose situation at #1 but the 'experts' and CFB fans just wouldn't admit it pre-draft last year. Yes Young needed to sit but he should have never gone #1 anyways. Reich was a bad HC, Young was a bad pick and nothing that happened last offseason can change those facts. 

Dalton would have been more fun to watch for sure but it's such a low bar because of how historically bad Young was not because how great Dalton would have been. Reich might have stayed longer with Dalton out there but it didn't sound like he had a lot of love working under Tepper and he came into the job with one foot in retirement. Stroud might have saved Fritterer in 23 but the team would have a franchise QB and Fritterer would just find another way to get himself fired with his team building ability. 

[Navy_football]

16 minutes ago, CRA said:

I don't think Dalton survives as the starting QB.  I mean, if you really look at the Seattle game... he was a fraction of a second from getting smashed pretty much the entire game and Seattle had a weaker D.   And it took a career high in attempts for Dalton to make us look respectable vs a meah D.  A better D, given those pass attempts required, feasts on Dalton. 

I mean, you turned injuries off he has a better season and record.  Bryce's escapability and youth helped him survive that season.  Dalton ain't got it at his current age. 

I think if Dalton played and largely stayed on the field. Frank is still the HC. 

It's like folk didn't even watch the game. Dalton took a beating, and barely avoided a lot more violent hits. No 35 years old QB is going to survive a season like that. Imagine him against Dallas or Houston or Indy or Detroit or New Orleans twice! He played better than Bryce in that 1 game, but he wouldn't have lasted half the season. 

[Bear Hands]

I saw an interesting point the other day about our type of situation.  It could have been wise to hold him off for 1-2 weeks, but that would not have anything to do with Bryce and you could easily communicate that from a PR standpoint.  

Why? Well, we just brought an entirely new staff into town, new offense for the returning OL, and had wholesale turnover elsewhere.  So just run Dalton out there the first game or so to see how things are shaking out.  Dry run to make sure we won't kill the kid.  We weren't eyeing the SB.  Get a sense of the line, the receivers, the playbook. 

It gives you a glimpse of what Bryce would be stepping into and a good barometer on where things stood sans him.  I suppose we sort of did that with Dalton, but that was a reactive switch and like @Ricky Spanish mentioned, it was against an injured SEA defense where we threw a ridiculous amount. 

Who knows, maybe we could have at least won a game or two more that way.  You can adjustments prior to Bryce stepping in, better tee it up for him, and maybe we end up winning game 1 or 2.

Last year was such a sh*tshow.  One of the worst seasons I've ever experienced in any sport for any team.  Absolutely nothing made sense together.  Happy we cut the cord early, but should have never hired that crew in the first place.