{"id":674897,"date":"2026-01-13T21:04:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/674897\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:04:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:04:19","slug":"carolina-panthers-make-26-5-million-decision-on-bryce-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/674897\/","title":{"rendered":"Carolina Panthers make $26.5 million decision on Bryce Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Carolina Panthers had a decision to make about the contract of quarterback Bryce Young<\/a> this offseason. Three days after the Panthers\u2019 first postseason appearance since the 2017 campaign, Carolina general manager Dan Morgan said he had made it.<\/p>\n

The Panthers will exercise their option for a fifth season on Young\u2019s four-year rookie contract, Morgan said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to pick up his fifth-year option,\u201d Morgan said<\/a>. \u201cI think Bryce has shown flashes of greatness this year against high-level competition. I think just as a team, we weren\u2019t as consistent as we wanted to be on a game-to-game basis, but I think that\u2019s part of what happens when you have a young team, you have a young team that\u2019s building continuity and kind of figuring themselves out. So I think Bryce did a great job this year and just really excited about moving forward, and him still developing chemistry with our receivers and just the pieces around him that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each NFL Draft choice signs a four-year contract, and the deals for the first-round picks include a team option for a fifth season. But a team must pick up its option in the offseason before the player\u2019s fourth season. <\/p>\n

The deadline for the fifth-year option decisions on the first-round picks in the 2023 NFL Draft is May 1. When a team exercises its option, the fifth-year salary becomes guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Because of his playing time in his first three seasons, Young was eligible for a fifth-year base salary that is the average of the third- through 20th-highest salaries for quarterbacks over the past five seasons, which the sports financial website overthecap.com estimates<\/a> will be $26.53 million for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

The former Alabama<\/a> All-American was the No. 1 selection in the 2023 NFL Draft and signed a four-year, $37.955 million contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FOR MORE OF AL.COM\u2019S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE<\/a><\/p>\n

As a rookie, Young started 16 of the Panthers\u2019 17 games, missing one with an ankle injury. He completed 315-of-527 passes for 2,877 yards with 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and ran 39 times for 253 yards as Carolina won two games. Young\u2019s passing-efficiency rating of 73.7 was the worst among the NFL\u2019s 32 regular quarterbacks in 2023.<\/p>\n

Two games into Young\u2019s second season, first-year coach Dave Canales benched the quarterback after Young threw for 245 yards with three interceptions in one-sided losses to the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Chargers.<\/p>\n

Veteran Andy Dalton started at quarterback for five consecutive games. But when Dalton sustained a thumb injury in an automobile accident, Young went back into the lineup with Carolina at 1-6 for the 2024 season. The Panthers won four of their remaining 10 games.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Young completed 234-of-384 passes for 2,403 yards with 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions and ran for 249 yards and six touchdowns on 43 carries. Among the quarterbacks with at least 10 starts in 2024, Young\u2019s passing-efficiency rating of 82.2 ranked 26th.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Young started all but one game, with an ankle injury causing him to miss a 40-9 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Oct. 26. Young completed 304-of-478 passes for 3,011 yards with 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions and ran for 216 yards and two touchdowns on 54 carries as Carolina won the NFC South spot in the NFL playoffs. Among the quarterbacks with at least 10 starts in 2025, Young\u2019s passing-efficiency rating of 87.8 ranked 22nd.<\/p>\n

RELATED: BRYCE YOUNG: \u2018I FEEL LIKE I\u2019M GROWING\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Morgan said he was \u201csure\u201d the ankle injury nagged Young for the rest of the season. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the type of guy, he\u2019s never going to complain,\u201d Morgan said<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s going to go out there, he\u2019s going to practice, he\u2019s going to push through. And that\u2019s what you really respect about Bryce is he\u2019s a tough dude. He\u2019s a really tough dude. And if his ankle was bothering him, he sure enough didn\u2019t tell me, didn\u2019t tell Coach. He just went out there and played, and again, he\u2019s selfless and he\u2019s a great teammate, and those are the type of guys that we want around here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers\u2019 season ended on Saturday in a 34-31 loss to the Los Angeles Rams<\/a> in a Wild-Card Weekend game. The Rams needed a touchdown pass from All-Pro quarterback Matthew Stafford with 38 seconds to play after Young twice rallied Carolina into the lead with fourth-quarter touchdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say if you look at Bryce on a day-to-day basis out there,\u201d Morgan said<\/a>, \u201chis work ethic out there, his ability to command the huddle out there, take control of the line of scrimmage, make the proper checks, make proper protection calls and then really having that translate into Sunday or Saturday or whenever we play, I just felt like he had a lot more command out there this year and really just kind of, like, coming into his own and getting better every week and just attacking every day. And that\u2019s really all you can ask for just from any player, let alone your quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Panthers had a decision to make about the contract of quarterback Bryce Young this offseason. Three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2075],"tags":[235,260,2567,7,6,31185,236],"class_list":["post-674897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-nflraw25","tag-panthers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115889823071561569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}