Former NFL bust skewers Panthers for benching Bryce Young - "This organization is horrible"
Bryce Young's time with the Carolina Panthers is off to an awful start. After a horrific rookie year and two horrible performances to start his second season, head coach Dave Canales decided to bench him in favor of Andy Dalton - the veteran will start in Week 3 against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Young's play has been nothing more than awful, but there's also no doubt that the Panthers have done nothing to help him develop. This has become a toxic situation for all parties involved, and the 'bust' label is already circulating over the quarterback.
One former NFL player who knows what's about not being helped by your own team is Ryan Leaf. The biggest bust of all time spoke about how he thinks the Panthers are to blame for Young's awful performances so far.
"They screwed this thing up from the get-go, though. I mean, this organization is horrible," Leaf said. This organization has done nothing to try to help and develop a player that has so much expectation on him. And so, I laid this at the feet of the organization completely. He has zero confidence right now. No one believes in him and no one has his back. And I know what that feels like. You don't want to go into the office. You don't want to be around anybody. Football seems so toxic to you because you've always had that. You've always had success. And you've always been the guy that everybody loved to lift up and follow and everything like that. "And right now, there's no one in that locker room that seemingly feels that way. And that is a hard place to be as a leader of men when you're 22, 23 years old."
Ryan Leaf was the second overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. There was a legitimate debate about him or Peyton Manning for the Colts with the first pick, but Indianapolis decided to go with the latter. This proved to be a wise decision.
What's Bryce Young's contract with the Carolina Panthers?
He's still in the second year of his rookie deal, so there's still a lot of money to be paid. He signed a four-year, $37.55 million deal after the 2023 NFL Draft and all of it is guaranteed.
The Panthers would incur a major dead cap if they decide to move him to another team, whether that's via a trade or even an outright release.