When will the Panthers start replacing Bryce Young with backup QB Andy Dalton?

The Panthers’ embarrassing Week 1 loss to the New Orleans Saints caused some (understandable) unrest among the Carolina faithful.

Naturally, Panthers fans have questions about the team’s potentially bleak future. That’s why The Observer has brought back the weekly mailbag to answer fans’ questions and concerns.

Here are some notable questions from social media:

Dalton’s take on QB1

Jay asks: How soon will Andy Dalton start for our Panthers?

Mike Kaye: There were several questions that fit this one, so we’ll use Jay as the standard bearer here.

The Panthers are in a tough spot because of how heavily invested they are in Bryce Young. Not only did they trade for him and give up a ton of assets for him — including top receiver DJ Moore — but they also hired a young “QB whisperer” in head coach Dave Canales to fix him this offseason. They also hired former assistant general manager Dan Morgan to run the front office, and he’s invested in Young since the decision to trade him in 2023.

While the internal message this year has been “it’s not all about Bryce,” that’s certainly the case for anyone outside the organization. Fans know how much the team has invested in Young, and they (rightfully) want to see a major return on that investment. The Panthers’ management knows it, the coaching staff knows it, and the locker room knows it.

Young was elected captain, regardless, and his teammates have sung his praises all year. A dismal performance shouldn’t shake that foundation, especially since everyone who played Sunday against the Saints was part of the problem. The 47-10 loss was the wrong kind of complementary football, as all three units failed or worse.

That said, I expect the Panthers to stay the course with Young until they literally can’t anymore, for the sake of the locker room’s sanity.

Young’s performance against the Saints was the worst of his career. But the Panthers have invested two full offseasons in him, and to stop doing so in the first month of the season after a summer of being a hot commodity would be foolish, despite his early returns.

He’s been bad, but he’s also the No. 1 overall pick in 2023. It’s September 2024 (if you needed a reminder after Sunday’s scary “Back to the Future” afternoon).

The schedule is going to get really tough after the first six games or so. If the Panthers start 0-6 or 1-5, that might be the point where the team needs a change for the sake of its employees, and probably its employer.

The Panthers’ postgame message, “It’s a loss,” implies that everyone will have to learn from this defeat, including Young. And to be fair, giving him more opportunities to prove himself is really the only solution at this point. Going 6-11 or 5-12 with Dalton does nothing for this franchise in the grand scheme of things, other than keeping the team away from another No. 1 pick.

Is the lack of pre-season a problem?

@95KeepPounding asks: In his press conference, head coach Dave Canales said we had a group of new players who didn’t play together, due to communication issues. He said this after not playing them together in our three practice games. He took charge of a 2-15 team, not a winning team. Do you think he regrets missing those reps?

The Observer immediately followed that opening statement with a question about the lack of preseason reps for starters and how Canales views that decision in hindsight. Here’s his response:

“It all counts, it all counts, it’s something we have to think about. But again, we had a chance to play football today. We played a lot of football, especially defensively, so we’re going to learn a lot from being able to bring this group together and work together.”

While I understand the urge to blame a lack of preseason reps for Sunday’s failure, performance, in my opinion, goes beyond potentially playing six series in the exhibition schedule. Blaming a lack of preseason reps for a 37-point Week 1 loss, in my opinion, is like blaming a 35-year-old’s eating habits on his parents. Sure, how that person — or team — was raised and developed impacts the outcome, but ultimately, as an adult or professional, it’s time to figure things out when it matters.

The first quarter, if you want to blame it on the preseason player shortage, is fine, I guess. But honestly, the rest of the mess was just as bad, and blaming the lack of reps is kind of giving talent some sort of mulligan.

Do I think the Panthers’ starters should have played more in the preseason? Yes. Do I think the lack of repetitions caused this titanic disaster? No.

Execution was certainly an issue. But on defense, Ejiro Evero had a ton of familiar faces looking to stop Derek Carr and company. Most of the starters were familiar with last year’s defense or previous stops, and yet they played like they thought the uphill was the downhill.

On offense, the patterns and play choices were good, if nothing particularly extraordinary.

While Jonathan Mingo was playing in the preseason, he fumbled the ball (almost twice). Young got a TON of reps in joint practice and still got past receivers for two interceptions.

Sometimes execution is just poor play. Sure, the team looked ill-prepared, but I’m not sure two series in each of the three preseason games would have made a significant difference.

Canales probably thinks that in hindsight it would have been wiser to play the starters. But I’m sure he can also justify it by saying that many of those starters were injured and wouldn’t have played much anyway.

In some ways it’s worse against the race

@CzechPanther asks: How is the defense worse against the run? The defensive line was pushed around all game long and gave up 180 yards with an average of almost 5 yards.

It was pretty awful. The Panthers’ defenses did a much better job tackling themselves than they did bringing down Alvin Kamara and Taysom Hill. Despite investing in A’Shawn Robinson and Jadeveon Clowney, two well-known run stoppers, the defensive front took a huge beating against New Orleans.

Last season, the Panthers allowed 4.1 yards per carry and 122.4 rushing yards per game.

On Sunday, as @CzechPanther points out, they gave up 180 rushing yards at 4.9 yards per carry.

I think there are two important takeaways here: 1) Hill has historically given the Panthers a hard time on the ground due to his tight end size and mediocre QB-type passing ability that can freeze the opposition immediately after the snap, and 2) the Panthers were down 17 points before their own QB completed his first pass to someone outside the Saints.

The Saints wore down the Panthers defense early and continued to step on the gas on the ground. Of the Saints’ 66 offensive snaps, New Orleans ran the ball 37 times. The Saints’ offensive line, with a super-loud crowd behind them, was able to intimidate the Panthers on the second level and their runners were able to move the field.

Three of the Saints’ 10 biggest gains came on the ground. Kamara had two runs for 17 yards, while Jamaal Williams gained 14 yards on a touchdown run in the fourth quarter.

It was bad, but I think the context of the game mattered. I’m interested to see how JK Dobbins and Gus Edwards look against the Panthers in Week 2 before making any major judgments on whether the run defense is actually worse this season.