Bryce Young has QB whisperer he needs for sophomore leap with Panthers

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Can Dave Canales do for Bryce Young what he did for Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield?

Quarterback whisperers are among the most valuable coaches at any level of football, due to their abilities to make the best out of the game’s most important position. That’s been true for everyone from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bruce Arians, and even the negative examples (hello, Josh McDaniels) prove that when you have a knack for getting quarterbacks in the best possible frame of mind to succeed, your value as a coach will rise exponentially.

The latest example of this is new Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales. Part of the reason Canales was named Carolina’s new main man was the work he did with two quarterbacks who were thought by many to be ready for the scrap heap – Geno Smith with the Seattle Seahawks, and Baker Mayfied with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

It’s obviously important that Canales is able to salvage quarterback Bryce Young’s NFL potential, because the 2023 first overall pick’s rookie season was an unmitigated disaster. Young’s Passing DYAR -1,078 was the third worst in FTN’s (formerly Football Outsiders’) recorded history, behind only the rookie seasons of David Carr and Josh Rosen. Young’s rookie campaign was right down there with Jared Goff’s 2016 rookie season with the Los Angeles Rams, and we will never know what might have become of Goff had Sean McVay not walked in that door in 2017.

Now, it’s Canales’ turn to do for Young what McVay did for Goff – use all his schematic and psychological expertise to turn his literal franchise quarterback into what that phrase really means.

In Canales’ case, we can point to two recent successful examples: Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield.

Smith’s career had flamed out with the New York Jets, New York Giants, and Los Angeles Chargers before the Seahawks took a flier on him in 2020. Smith was actually released and reclaimed in Seattle before it all kicked in for the 2022 season, and Smith to this day credits Canales (who had been with the Seahawks since 2010, and was the team’s quarterbacks coach in 2022) for a lot of it.

“When it comes to his relationship with the quarterback with Bryce, he’s a guy who has been around a lot of great quarterbacks, and he knows how to coach him,” Smith said of Canales in January. “He’s coached some really good quarterbacks, and he has a system; he has a style. He knows exactly what he wants done and how he wants it done and he’s going to get Bryce to do that through repetition, through practice. Through meeting time in the classroom and the film room. I think that’s going to pay off a bunch for Bryce because he’s already, I think, a talented quarterback. And I think having Dave is going to help him become even better.”

Similarly, Mayfield found his way out of Cleveland after the Browns (who selected him with the first pick in the 2018 draft) traded him to the Panthers in July 2022. That pairing lasted less than a season after Mayfield requested his release from Carolina after he was bumped from the starting role. Mayfield then helped the Los Angeles Rams with little time to learn the playbook at the end of the 2022 season, and signed a one-year contract with the Buccaneers in March 2023.

That’s when Mayfield started to work with Canales, the team’s new offensive coordinator, and put forth a season which led to the Bucs giving Mayfield a three-year, $100 million contract with $50 million guaranteed.

“His calmness, number one,” Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles said at the 2024 scouting combine on the traits that allowed Canales to bring out the best in Mayfield. “His calmness, his attention to detail, his positivity, [and] he’s always building him up. There were quite a few coaches on the staff that kind of did that – Thad Lewis, the quarterbacks coach, did that as well, wide receivers Coach Brad Idzik did it, and the offensive line coach [Joe Gilbert] helped him as well. But Dave was very good at bringing everybody together, hearing ideas and, you know, helping Baker be the best he could be.”

Idzik is now Canales’ offensive coordinator in Carolina, and Gilbert is the Panthers’ new offensive line coach, which obviously plays well for continuity.

That’s all well and good, but the real factor that will allow Young to thrive under Canales is time.

Getting Young in a rhythm – quickly

Last season, Young was pressured on 40.7% of his dropbacks (253 of 622, and the fifth-highest rate in the NFL among quarterbacks who took at least 50% of their teams’ snaps), and when under pressure, he completed 66 of 169 passes for 675 yards, one touchdown, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 43.4. That was the NFL’s lowest passer rating under pressure, and Young’s 39.1 completion rate was also the NFL’s worst.

The first thing Canales plans to do in order to help Young out here? Get him in a rhythm. Canales said in his first press conference with the Panthers that he wanted Young to get the ball out in 2.7 seconds or less. Last season, Young averaged 2.91 seconds per dropback (ninth-highest in the league), and on throws of 2.5 seconds or more, Young completed 142 of 263 passes (54.0%) for (5.9 yards per attempt), three touchdowns, eight interceptions, and a passer rating of 63.0. On throws of less than 2.5 seconds, Young completed 173 of 263 passes (65.8%) for 1,313 yards (5.0 YPA), eight touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 84.7.

That low yards-per-attempt rate would lead you to believe that Young was just dinking and dunking on his quicker throws, but that wasn’t the case. Young had 22 explosive completions in 2023, and nine of them came on those quicker throws – 2.7 seconds or less, just like Canales said. And on eight of those completions, Young was in the Pistol formation – 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

There were definite reasons for that.

“Pistol” starts with the letter P, and so does “Pressure” – that’s where we need to go next.

Transcending his own offensive line

The Panthers did a lot this offseason to improve an offensive line that needed a ton of help. They signed former Miami Dolphins right guard Robert Hunt to a five-year, $100 million contract with $63 million guaranteed, and former Seahawks left guard Damien Lewis to a four-year, $53 million contract with $26.215 million guaranteed. This is where the quick game — as well as Young’s frame — comes into the equation. At 5’10 and 200 pounds, Young needs his interior offensive linemen to help him clear lanes so that he can see around the defensive behemoths coming after him. And with those interior reinforcements, along with the directive to get the ball out more quickly, Young shouldn’t be as affected by his offensive tackles – especially the one Carolina selected with the sixth overall pick in the 2022 draft.

Last season, Panthers left tackle Ikem Ekwonu allowed 11 sacks, nine quarterback hits, and 24 quarterback hurries in 730 pass-blocking snaps. Only Andre Dillard of the Tennessee Titans and Mekhi Becton of the New York Jets allowed more sacks (12 each), and those quarterback takedowns showed Ekwonu’s unfortunate predilection for getting owned by edge-rushers with all kinds of technical issues. It’s up to Gilbert to fix all of this.

But the point is, a quicker passing game will also help Ekwonu, because those edge-rushers won’t have time to get to Young, even if they clear through unobstructed. The Panthers are much better set at right tackle with Taylor Moton, so the personnel and schematic improvements should help Young pick up the slack. Ekwonu allowed no sacks and just seven pressures on throws in which Young got the ball out in 2.7 seconds or less, so there’s a lot of wisdom in that landmark.

Canales has been true to his word on this. In 2022, Geno Smith’s average time to throw dropped to 2.56 seconds from 2.76 in 2021. In 2023, Baker Mayfield’s average time to throw dropped from 2.53 from 2.64 in 2022. It may not sound like much, but in the NFL, fractions of seconds can feel like minutes – and quarterbacks feel it more than most.

The first read is the best read

One of the first things Sean McVay did to help Jared Goff back in 2017 was to promise the young quarterback that his first read would be schemed open as often as possible. Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy did the same thing for Tim Tebow in 2011, which allowed Tebow to mitigate his severe limitations as a pure passer. Young has much more on the ball than Tebow ever did, but without a first-read open plan, we may never know. The list of rookie quarterbacks who can legitimately read all progressions in the timing of the down? Well, you could list them all on your hands and have fingers left over. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

Canales already realizes the importance of tying the quick game to this first-read idea.

“That 2.7 seconds just happens to fall into a natural rhythm of throwing it to the first or second guy,” Canales said at the 2024 scouting combine.

Panthers passing game coordinator Nate Carroll (son of Pete, for whom Canales worked for all those years) says that it’s all about lining things up for Young so that he doesn’t have to think as much – it’s about athletic reaction. Because if you get caught thinking in the NFL, it’s already too late.

“It all starts with our feet, it all starts with the rhythm and timing in the pass game, whether it’s under center play-actions or in the gun with our drop-back passes,” Carroll said in June.

“[Bryce has] a lot of nuances that he’ll do depending on the type of route that he’s reading so that he can time up exactly as the receiver’s breaking; he’s breaking off his back foot as well. So, we’re breaking at the same time or even with anticipation before the receiver breaks.

“We’re trying to get the ball out faster. We’re trying to get guys out of the backfield, trying to get guys in the flat, trying to create space for him to throw. It all starts with the consistency of his footwork and his preparation before the snap, so that he can assess the defense quickly and get the ball out appropriately.”

Last season, eight of Young’s 10 interceptions came on plays in which he was asked to read through progressions. It’s not to say that he won’t ever be good with it, but in this space in time, with all the issues that ruined that passing game last season, why make things more complicated than they need to be?

Be quick, but don’t hurry

And as Carroll said, the whole idea is to tie the quick game to all the progressions seamlessly. If that comes together, everything else should be fine.

“Building it as a progression type of offense for him, where number one happens fast, so he gets to number two and number three quickly as well. Less than three seconds is the average time it takes you to get through two reads.

“Just get through your progression, get on to the next play, and don’t let the pass rush beat you.”

Sounds simple right? But if it all works, Bryce Young will actually have a chance to succeed in the NFL. Canales is ready to be that quarterback whisperer again, and Young is ready to listen.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus unless otherwise indicated).