It’s a harder trade to judge now that we lost his second-most reliable target, second year receiver Jalen Coker, to a quad injury for 4-6 weeks. Long story short, we’re going to have to see how Xavier Legette, Tetairoa McMillan, and Hunter Renfrow step up. They’re all either young, new to the team, or both. There’s a lot of chemistry there that we haven’t really seen on the field, good or bad.
Long story long, the last time the Panthers opened at Jacksonville, in 2015, they went to the Super Bowl. Cam Newton lost his leading receiver and favorite target from 2014, Kelvin Benjamin, right before the start of the season. He leveled up and dragged a corps of no-name receivers and an aged Jerricho Cotchery to a dominant 15-1 regular season record. Once is history, but if Young can do it again then it becomes a tradition. These are the kinds of realistic expectations that we’re placing on the shoulders of our quarterback.