Head coach Dave Canales wishes he could talk about all the positive things the Carolina Panthers did on Sunday. But he can’t.
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That all “doesn’t matter,” he said.
Robert Hunt wishes he could elaborate on Chuba Hubbard’s two-touchdown game, or Jalen Coker’s brilliance, or rookie right tackle Monroe Freeling’s day. But he really shouldn’t, he said.
“We lost,” the Pro Bowl guard said. He said that exact phrase probably 10 times in the span of five minutes.
Such was the vibe in the home-team postgame locker room: coaches and players from all units wanting to expound on the many great things that happened on the field but didn’t because of the 57-39 loss at the hands of the Chicago Bears. The defense lost the line of scrimmage and allowed a franchise-most in points and an inexplicable amount of yards (552). For better but pretty much exclusively worse — the defense was the story of Sunday.
But Sunday’s loss shouldn’t be entirely discarded.
Quarterback Bryce Young played too well for all of that.
Losing never feels good — as almost every offensive-related answer began Sunday — but the fact that the franchise’s most public-facing and, in many ways, most important player performed so well is important. It matters. Or it should, at least, to the Panthers and to Young himself.
“I think he was unstoppable,” Hubbard, the team’s starting running back, said of Young. “I think he played great. He was breaking tackles running, doing everything.”
Young finished his fourth regular-season debut 23 of 37 for 361 yards and three touchdowns. Young also threw an interception that not only required exceptional athleticism by Malik Muhammad but also arrived at the end of the first half and was largely inconsequential. That entire stat-line added up to a 110.3 passer rating — and that’s without counting his 7-yard touchdown run in which he took a massive hit at the goal line in order to make happen.
Not to forget: Those 361 passing yards culminated in the second-most of his career — only behind his franchise-record-setting day against Atlanta last season, where he threw for 448 yards.
Young was creative. He took two sacks, yes, but he was decisive nonetheless. His most impressive throw came in the fourth quarter, with the Panthers making one final charge to turn the game’s result. He appeared to diagnose a Bears zero blitz and threw a perfect pass to the back-shoulder of Tetairoa McMillan, who was 1-on-1 in man coverage and turned around just in time for the ball to hit his hands and haul it in.
The endorsements rung throughout the locker room about Young — not just from those who’ve been with him for years but also the newcomers.
Darren Waller, who played his first game for the Panthers Sunday, was left impressed, for instance.
“A lot of explosive plays,” he said of Young. “A lot of smart plays, when something wasn’t necessarily there and (avoiding) a negative play. Constantly encouraging guys. Talking about adjustments. Talking about things to be alert for. … It’ll be a lot to build on for this offense.”
If Sunday marked the last game the Panthers franchise ever played, then yes, Young’s performance would be moot. His clear confidence would be silly to dwell on, his partnership with newly minted play-caller Brad Idzik would be inconsequential, his leadership would be rendered admirable but also “not enough.”
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But Sunday is far from the last game in franchise history and, if trends persist, far from the final game Young will play for the Panthers. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft had his fifth-year option picked up this summer. That means he’s in Charlotte through at least 2027 — and could potentially be in the Queen City for longer if the Panthers elect to sign him to an extension and dub him the team’s quarterback of the future.
The Panthers’ front office has acknowledged him as an ascending player, but have also been honest about his “unknown” ceiling. The rest of the league has more or less set the market for Young if he were to get re-signed: Baker Mayfield with the Tampa Bay Bucs, for instance, just signed a three-year, $165 million extension that values him at $55 million per year — and could lead to the QB market exploding.
The Panthers’ owner, David Tepper, told reporters earlier this week that Young may or may not be the team’s quarterback of the future — that’s up for Young to prove this year.
Tepper’s exact words on Young: “Success is success, and you know it when you see it.”
And Sunday, despite being dealt a loss and QBs often getting the disproportionate amount of blame and credit for losses and wins, was a success.
It was, surely, in comparison to the rest of Young’s debuts. Young’s 193 passing yards were the most he’d thrown in the first half of any game in his career; in fact, it was the most he’s thrown for in a Week 1 game … at all. His other Week 1 days:
Still, when asked if there was any frustration in playing well but still losing, Young said: “No. None of that. None of that at all. We’re a team.”
He added: “Everyone has to look in the mirror. The easy thing as a captain of this team, we all are built like that. There is no finger pointing. No one is over there trying to find excuses. We all know we got to be better.”
This loss sits on the defense, no doubt. It rests on a defensive line that struggled to win at the line of scrimmage. It rests on Pro Bowl defensive tackle Derrick Brown notching two penalties he’d later call “boneheaded” — including one in which he lined up offside that undid a Panthers red zone interception. It rests on an outside linebacker group that struggled to contain stretch runs and quarterback Caleb Williams scrambles. It also rests on a Jimmy Horn Jr. muffed punt with the score tied at 21 and with the Panthers riding the momentum with 14 unanswered points.
But the loss doesn’t rest on Young.
And for a team that’s evaluating his present as well as his future, it’s important to acknowledge that.
“I thought Bryce was rhythmic, he extended plays, made some stuff happen with his legs,” Canales said. “I really loved the way he played. Hit some nice balls down the field to Jalen and gave the guys opportunities. Gave us an opportunity to move the chains that way. I’ll be able to comment more about that once I see the whole thing. But I’m just excited about that.
“Again, I wish I could dive more into the stuff I’m excited about. I can’t.”
Then again, at least as it pertains to Young, he has every reason to.
This story was originally published September 13, 2026 at 7:34 PM with the headline “Carolina Panthers claim Bryce Young’s great day ‘doesn’t matter.’ Why it should.”
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