One of the most iconic Newton moments in his Panthers history is when he called out Clay Matthews at the line. The Green Bay Packers linebacker identified that the offense was lined up to run a wheel route, to which Newton responded, “You’ve been watching film too, huh? That’s cool, watch this,” and then threw a touchdown to Christian McCaffrey.
So it was fitting that when Newton asked Young how he wants to self-scout this offseason, Young mentioned getting to the line faster so he could have more time to diagnose and pick apart defenses.
“One thing I’ve looked at and we’ve been able to talk about in the building too, just in this offseason is that next step in command with the offense. We talked about it a little bit, and we got to that, especially towards the end of the season, some ‘Hey, let’s get on the line, let’s get in a formation we know, and let’s try to diagnose coverage so I can get us into that play. Let’s have one options, let’s have a call, and that be a base point so we can get to checks, we can get to adventurous looks.’
“Stuff like that is stuff I want to continue to grow in. Making sure (if) we get into plays that are bad plays, I have those answers, and it’s more frequent than those double plays, alert stuff.”
Offered Newton, “Dictating to the defense rather than the defense dictating to the offense.”
“Exactly,” responded Young. “So I think that’s the next step of growth I’m excited for.”