Bryce Young ready to flush Seattle dud, move on to Panthers' big matchup vs. Bucs
Young threw for 191 yards and two TDs in the Panthers' Week 16 win vs. the Bucs. Can he bounce back from his Seattle performance?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bryce Young isn’t someone who likes to spend a lot of time looking back. That’s a quality that should serve the Carolina Panthers quarterback well this week, given what last week looked like for him and the team’s passing offense.
Facing a top-10 defense in the Seattle Seahawks, Young put up numbers reminiscent of the days when NFL offenses were run-oriented and coached by men with nicknames like “Ground Chuck.”
Young completed 14 of 24 passes for a career-low 54 yards in the 27-10 loss to Seattle, which cost the Panthers a chance to clinch the NFC South after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost at Miami.
The Panthers will get another chance Saturday at Tampa, a fact that Young and defensive tackle Derrick Brown were reminding their teammates as soon as they reached the locker room after falling to the Seahawks.
“In this league, you’ve just gotta turn the page,” Young said Tuesday as the Panthers started a shorter work week than normal. “Have everything in front of us, grateful for the circumstance, for the opportunity. We watched the film. We came back, we grew. But you’ve gotta turn the page. It’s all about the Bucs this week.”
Bryce Young: Gotta turn the page. pic.twitter.com/ToeQtLZ7c9
— Joe Person (@josephperson) December 30, 2025
But looking back can be instructive, which is why coaches created film review. What the Panthers saw when they cued up the Seattle tape was a Seahawks secondary that refused to get beaten deep, cornerbacks playing physical coverage that included more man looks and defenders swarming to the ball and not missing tackles.
The result: Young didn’t attempt a pass longer than 19 yards and didn’t complete one longer than 8. According to TruMedia, Young averaged just 1.8 air yards per attempt, his worst mark as a starter. His previous low was 3.0 air yards per attempt in a Week 2 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in 2024, which was the game that prompted Dave Canales to bench him.
“They did a great job staying on top and making us have to play underneath the coverage and hit some of the checkdowns. They rallied up and tackled,” Canales said. “I thought we had some opportunities in spaces that we didn’t make many yards on. A lot of credit to the Seahawks for mixing some things up and making some looks challenging, but we want to find that productivity down the field.”
Canales said Young had a couple of one-on-one shots that he didn’t take. “Again, they owned their leverage. They stayed on top,” Canales added. “The safeties kept their depth, and so they warded us off in that way.”
Young had been on a five-game hot stretch entering the matchup against Seattle, with 10 touchdown passes, two interceptions and a 107.0 passer rating that was the NFL’s third-highest over that span. But he failed to solve the Seattle secondary.