Carolina Panthers QB Bryce Young and head coach Dave Canales have not clicked

Carolina Panthers QB Bryce Young and head coach Dave Canales have not clicked

15, Chris. 15. That’s where Tennerel McMillan ranks in the NFL right now in total receiving yards. 15th in the NFL in receiving yards. Tenor McMillan. Man, imagine where he’d be if uh he had a quarterback. We’re starting out hop. Let’s get this sucker started. Get dialed in, Panthers fans. Here comes an indepth look at your team. Exclusive interviews, locker room insight. Let’s huddle up for Panthers Playbook, presented by Wake Orthopedics, a Wake Med physician practice. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to another episode of Panthers Playbook. That’s Chris Lee, Dennis Cox here with you. Wake Orthopedics, the sponsor here of Panthers Playbook. And folks, uh, uh, I we really do appreciate you all leaving the comments. So, make sure you do you like, you subscribe, you hit the comments, and hit the hype as well because here’s something, Chris, that one of our commenters, and I apologize for not bringing up the name. But in our postgame episode on Sunday, one of our commenters actually called back to something that you said about Dave Canal and Bryce Young, which I think is very telling. And I and I I guess actually something that I know I I respect and appreciate the listeners for doing this. They said, like Chris said, Bryce and Dave are like oil and water. They just don’t mix. They just don’t mix. And we we heard Dave Canales on Monday say when asked about the vertical passing downfield or lack thereof say, I’ll paraphrase that he’ll call more of those if we’re more successful with them. Mhm. I think that early interception on the very first drive that Bryce Young threw that got overturned because of a roughing the passer call. I think Dave Canales because that was down the middle of the field between the hash marks. I think Dave Canal saw that and went, “Nope, nope. Nope. Not doing it.” And we see the results of it. He took the ball out of Bryce’s hands early in that game. Yeah. Uh we’ve been talking about uh Bryce Young not being willing to throw down the field and then you know as things kind of keep coming out as we’re reading the tea leaves and reading between these lines uh we also realize that Dave Canal isn’t willing to let Bryce Young throw down the field. So yeah like the truth is somewhere in the middle right there. Maybe there are some plays, maybe there are some instances that Bryce wants to throw it down the field, but then Dave, remember the Miami game? Remember the Jags game? I don’t know, man. I I don’t know. Let’s Let’s just Let’s just play it safe with with this particular call. Yeah. And it’s it’s been very interesting just to kind of see everything kind of play out. It’s also interesting to see the NFL catch up to what’s going on here. Uh because, you know, it’s clear like there’s some things that me and you also missed Sunday because, you know, we’re in the locker room, we spoke to two guys, we go out and we uh record our show. Um I and I personally didn’t hear as we were recording Dave uh uh Derek Brown. I couldn’t hear everything he was saying um just because it was so crowded. I also missed when uh Derek Brown and other folks uh I Aquinu other guys were saying we weren’t focused uh in practice this past week and I’m thinking who are they talking about? Who are they talking about? I don’t know. You heard you heard you heard the rookie Nick Scorton say yeah some guys got big headed. I’m like that’s a rookie saying that. Is is it Bryce? I don’t know. I’m not trying to start anything. No, but Who is it? I don’t know. It’s a good question. But the fact that you’re hearing young guys say it, again, I said the fact that Nick Scorton, who by the way had a tremendous game on Sunday. I I don’t want to make I want to make sure we don’t gloss over that. He was tremendous on Sunday and he’s saying, “Yeah, guys got bigheaded forgetting what it takes to win in the NFL.” I’m like, “Dude, that’s a guy that’s played in 10 NFL games.” This guy just got saying it. Yeah. like he he turned 21 after the final preseason game and I’m like, “Okay, I happy I’m happy that young dude gets it.” But if you’re having a bad week of practice or consistently aren’t playing up to your standard cuz sometimes, look, you’re going to struggle at times in practice where like you’re going to make a mistake, but at least the effort and stuff is there. As a former coach and athlete, I trust me, I get it. And I question now is okay where are the where are the vet guys you know like where are the vet guys that are you know obviously Ianu is in year four but I your captains on your team are supposed to be your quarterback and JC Horn and Derek Brown. I feel like Dererick Brown brought his agame so I’m not going to try and single that dude out cuz I thought he d was tremendous. So again I question who was it? And that’s also comes from the coaching staff as well. like it comes from that too. So it’s just the stuff that we’re hearing the stuff we’re hearing I was like n you haven’t earned the right we they earned the right to be in the playoff conversation. You haven’t earned the right to go into a game lazy. You haven’t earned that right yet as a franchise. Yeah. Especi like you can’t do that now. Especially now that you followed up a week where you beat one of the best teams in the NFL by losing to one of the worst teams in the NFL. Yeah. It literally almost kind of erases what happened the the week before and it puts it back. I don’t want to say that the Packers lost the game more than the Panthers won it, but when you go out there and have that type of performance, that’s what it looks like. I, you know, we’ve questioned Canales. We’ve questioned Bryce and clearly um there are certain things that individually I’m not I don’t quite like that they’re doing, but it also feels like we’re headed towards a collision course and that we’re going to have to choose. Um, it’s almost kind of like Wrestlemania 6 and like, “Oh my god, I love Hulk Hogan. I also love Ultimate Warrior.” This is when I was a kid, not so much right now. I’m just Yeah, it’s different time. Different time. You learn things about guys, you know, and it was the early 90s. It’s fine. You know, I love Hulk Hogan. I love Ultimate Warrior. Who am I going to choose? And uh that’s that’s kind of where I feel like we’re we’re at. Um, I I do think that I think that Dave Canales, even with his faults, so far, you know, we still have seven games left in the season, so far has proven he deserves at least another year because I would like to see what a Dave Canal offense looks like with the quarterback that he wants. Mhm. So, it’s almost like, and I hate saying this because Bryce is a good dude. He really has been nothing but but great to the media. You know what I’m saying? It feels like I I like I know some of his his family members uh that I’ve met recently. Um, you know, it’s it’s like you you hear a lot of great things about we know we know somebody Dennis who hangs out with his parents. Oh, yeah. In in the uh in the suite every game. You know what I’m saying? Like we we hear nothing but great things about this guy, but also we’ve seen enough to really get a good picture of what he could possibly end up being. And I think we’ve seen it. Yeah. And at this point, what does a Dave Canel’s offense look like as a head coach and a play caller with the quarterback that he wants? That’s where I’m at with it. The thing that the the phrase that Dave kept mentioning on Friday, Dave Canales, I’m sorry, not Friday, on Monday. The phrase that he kept using was the we got to continue to work on the meto you factor when again asked about plays downfield. Now, you know, just got to keep working on that me to you factor. The me to you factor like the me to you factor. The me to you factor, Chris, is the throw and the catch. That’s the me to you factor. The throw and the catch. I’m like, you’re we’re now going into week 11 of the NFL season. You had all summer since the draft, all OTAAS, mini camp, the whole deal, all the off the side throwing sessions that you wanted to do in your own free time, all training camp, preeason, and now going into week 11 of the regular season, we’re still like, yeah, the the meu factor. Either you have it or you don’t. Simple as that. Either you have it or you don’t. Here’s the thing that Bryce where where Bryce has struggled with. And I Let me I’m going to actually I’m going to I’m going to pull up the uh the source just so I can make sure I can I can cite it correctly. So Fantasy Points Data, this is Fantasy Points Data. They’re if you follow them on X fantasy points data, they do a lot of different things in terms of analytics and predictive stats and things along those lines. Is this what you sent me on Sunday? I think it was. Yes. Okay. So, they went and did a breakdown of catchable pass rate. So, how many of the their of players passes between, you know, behind the line of scrimmage or catchable passes from 0 to nine yards, how catchable are the throws, 10 to 19 yards, and then 20 plus yards. Bryce Young in the NFL ranks 29th overall in catchable pass rate at 71.7%. But you know where he’s actually truly one of the lowest in the NFL? By the way, he’s actually one of the highest in the NFL in 0 to9 yards. But where he’s one of the worst in the NFL at just just over 60% 60.4%. Is in the 10 to 19 yard range. That intermediate. He only throws a catchable pass 60.4% of the time and passes 10 to 19 yards. When you have a receiver like a Teteroa McMillan that thrives on like a 14 yard dig route or 15 yard in cut or whatever it might be or a post down the middle of the field that you know skinny post whatever it is that area where you can pick up chunk plays where you can turn plays into yards after the catch. For example, the longest pass play for the season for the Panthers came in week two against Arizona. it was a 40-yard play where it was a catch and run by Tedarola McMillan. That’s where you start picking up chunk plays because then you can start loosening the defense up a little bit cuz hey, they’re killing us in that range which then will open up the it just it helps open the run game and everything up as well. It allows you to eventually take some deep shots down the field. But he has struggled throwing this season in that 10 to 19 yard range. Simple as that. If you even go back to his throw chart against the the who they played on Sunday, I can’t remember off the top of my head. Against the Saints, gosh, against the damn Saints is that he only attempted three passes beyond the 10 yard mark. Only three. Now again, that officially doesn’t count the interception going down the middle of the field. So really, you can say four. And he only completed two of those four passes. Everything else that was completed was under 10 yards. Well, technically the interception was completed. I mean, well, there’s that, too. But the the interception that actually did count to the right side was 10 yards downfield. Yeah. So, he had 17 completions in the game. 15 of them were actually eight yards or closer. Speaking of callbacks, at the beginning of the show, we talked about Ted Roy McMillan. What could he do with a quarterback that actually can throw the ball? And you just pointed out ah I’m I’m tired of the no weapons excuse from people. I’m sorry. You pointed out a mind that where he is most effective and he’s not getting the ball where he’s most effective. That’s kind of like when you have a great 7 foot center in basketball and you only have him setting screens and popping uh at the top of the key for threes. How about you put him in a paint? Yeah, try some lobs. Let’s try some lobs. Let’s try to get some high percentage shots out there because like you want to use people where they’re where they’re most effective. And um going also back to people saying he has no receivers. Like we all have criticisms of of Xavier Legette, right? Sure. He’s open a lot. There’s been some times he’s been open. He’s open a lot, bro. Like if you get a chance to see the all 22, we get we get a chance to sit in a in the the press box. So if you’re just literally just watching from home, it’s kind of hard to see the full play develop, who’s open and where and that type of stuff. We get a chance to see that. Then also if you go back and see the all 22 shot um you know camera shots and like he’s he’s open and sometimes you just gotta try to hit him. I want to go do another call back. I was worried with the Adam Thelen trade and I think that subconsciously I didn’t have the information in my head now to where I can explain it the way I can explain it right now. But I think subconsciously back then I I guess I kind of knew without having the words that if Adam Thielen wasn’t going to be on his team, Bryce Young’s going to have some problems have getting some completions because we saw now I think now the new Adam Thielen from this past week was uh Jatavian Sanders. Um yeah, it was on Sunday. Those, you know, really short, you know, routes, the comfortable like, you know, I’m not going to even try to read the defense. I know where I’m going ahead of time. I’m not going to even try to, you know, see if I can get something further down the field. He he pretty much already has his mind made up. This is where I’m going beforehand. Um, and that could have been Adam Thielen, but then that also means that he we probably would have had more completions earlier in the season. And I know that you said, “Hey, if we’re worried about a 35year-old wide receiver, we have more problems.” Boy, and I said it, we got problems. Like, and so if we’re continuing to have these problems, then you know, as Dave Canales is saying, he’s trying to be nice. He’s like, well, we’re still working on it, trying to improve. 10 weeks into the season, we’re trying to improve. That just means y’all, it’s hard to say this. We need a new quarterback. At what point like I had to learn how to stop banging my head against the wall, too. This is not about anything personal. Bryce is a great guy. Yes, great. I would hang out with him any day of the week. I don’t know if he’s right as the starter for my NFL team. I’m not saying he can’t be a starter for somebody else. Mhm. But I I think I’ve seen enough. I’ve seen enough to to to say it, you know, like there’s enough information out there. Mark Slareth even called it out on a podcast after the game. uh like from what he saw from the Saints. Essentially, the Saints are like, “We’re going to take a way to run. We’re going to dare you to complete some passes down the field. We’re going to do single high safeties because we were seeing that all game.” Hey, we’re not going to even help our corners out. Complete something down the field. Yeah. Box. Dare you to do it. We’ll dare you to do it. Guess what the one and eight team did? Became two and eight. And you know Atlanta wants to get back. You know Atlanta wants to get back this weekend after the 30 to nothing loss earlier this year. You know Atlanta wants to get back. And guess what? The schedule ain’t going to get any easier for this Panthers team. It’s not cuz then after Atlanta you still have I mean the easy part the 49ers. Yeah. Atlanta and then New Orleans again. Like those are the only two teams that you have left that aren’t in the playoff picture because you again you have lineup and then you have the 49ers, you have the Rams, you still have the Bucks twice, you have the Seahawks. All those teams are in playoff spots. It’s not going to get easier. It’s not going to get any easier. And you it you have to find out something fast. But I think the the final thing my final thought on this, Chris, is that after two and a half years, fool me one time, shame on you. Fool me twice, can’t put the blame on you. fool me three times. Nuh-uh. The Bryce Go ahead. At the end of his rookie I I know that’s the second time I’ve referenced that song, but if remember the end of his rookie season, he had that big game against Green Bay. We’re all like, “Oh, okay. There it is.” And then we saw the struggles in the first half of last year, the benching, and then some some good games, some mediocre games, and they finished hot there with the end Atlanta last season. Right. I was ready to blame all of last year on Tyrese Maxi, man. Right. Okay, that was the second time. And then this year it’s like, no, no, no. I’m not going to sit there and like drink Kool-Aid if you start having a couple hot games towards the end of this season. I’m not I’m not I’ve seen too much bad. I’ve seen too much inconsistent play. The the good nowhere near outweigh the bad. It just simply doesn’t. The fact that we can actually point to just specific games for Bryce Young two and a half years in, be like, “Oh, remember the the Kansas City game? There’s the Green Bay game. There was the the Philly game. he played pretty well. There was the Atlanta game where he played pretty well and then the Dallas game this year. I thought Dallas game this year was his best game this whole season. I thought he actually played extremely well that game. Let let me let me be a little bit more hand I want to be a little bit more nuanced here because um I want to say this too. Um I do think that the Carolina Panthers in 2023 failed Bryce Young. Oh yeah, 100%. Specifically, David Ter, this is the guy he wanted. He was trying to orchestrate this mastermind thing that, you know, and he he completely failed. He put him on the field with uh an an inept coaching staff. He put him on the field with an inept uh you know, offensive line. Uh he had no weapons. And my man, they they teed off on him. He he got sacked over 60 times. Was 61 or 62 times that year. Um, I also want to give him grace with I don’t know how that can mentally change somebody if that is your situation. That had to have been a t a tough year. So, I don’t want to just say that like he’s trash. But also, if we’re two years removed from that and all of that has been fixed, you have a consistent coaching staff with uh a pretty good, you know, upand cominging coach. We’ll see how it ends up shaking out. Better receivers, right? You’re not going to go from, you know, uh having uh Amir Smith uh uh what’s his name? You don’t have Jonathan Mingo out there. You don’t have Jonathan Ter Marshall Jr. out there. You don’t have Terrace Marshall. You’re not going to jump from here to, you know, Jamar Chase, right? Um but it’s it’s a lot better than what it was two years ago. Um, you know, it’s it’s like where are you are you going to try to improve with it? I never hold 2023 against Brighton at all. I’m I’m basically going off of last year and what I’ve seen this year. And look, like it’s it’s you can’t really you can’t defend going back. But I can also say that, hey, maybe this guy is is a little messed up from what happened to him mentally. Maybe for him, he could still ball out in a new situation with a fresh start. I’m not saying he’s a complete bust. I’m not saying he can’t be an NFL quarterback. I don’t know if it’s going to work with the Carolina Panthers. And that is the main thing I just want to put out there. So, for people who think that I’m being a hater or whatever, I’m being realistic about the situation. Like, you can start off, first impressions are everything. You could start off at a job and think that everything is going to be great and all of a sudden you get into arguments with co-workers on the first week. Uh you’re you’re being uh you know promises that were given to you in the interview process are being yanked back all of a sudden. Then you get docked pay or whatever and then three years later you think you’re going to be feeling good about this company. No, you’re just trying to pay job pay your bills. Mhm. You’re just going to try to, you know, make sure you you stay open because this might be the only opportunity uh for the thing that you want to do. That could a lot of what he went through could still be impacting him. And so maybe for him, what could be best is a new start. And what could be best for the Carolina Panthers is a new quarterback. And that is okay. There’s plenty of people who have found success after another team with the Carolina Panthers and plenty of people who have found success after the Carolina Panthers with another team. It’s just what happens. There’s no hard feelings. This is not attacking his character or anything like that. Great guy. Not sure it’s going to work here. I’ll leave it that. I just want to have a more nuanced conversation around it. Tener McMillan’s on pace for 78 catches and 1,50 yards his rookie season. It’s good. That’s awesome. And I hope it gets I hope it keeps getting better. Hope it keeps getting better. We want you all folks. What if that was Drake May the ball? Okay, I want to say this real fast. Drake May last year, awful situation, right? First year head coach Dro Mayo and just nothing to work with there. He looked like a really damn good quarterback on a really bad team. You look last year and then now look at him now. But you saw it his rookie season on a bad team. He looked like a damn good quarterback on a bad team. So, I know you mentioned the stuff about Bryce’s rookie year, and I 100% agree. The situation was awful, but you can still look like a damn good quarterback on a bad team. That was a mic drop moment. We’ll see y’all Sunday. Let’s go to ATL. Take me through there. Take me through there. Where we going, twin? [Music]

Dennis Cox & Chris Lea discuss the lack of downfield passing by Carolina Panthers QB Bryce Young, and how there’s still a level of disconnect between Young and head coach Dave Canales.

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