Panthers to pick up 5th-year option on QB Young

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Carolina Panthers will pick up the fifth-year option on quarterback Bryce Young and discuss whether a contract extension makes sense from the “big-picture view,” general manager Dan Morgan said Tuesday.

The option keeps the top pick of the 2023 draft under contract through 2027, when he’ll be guaranteed $26.5 million.

“Bryce has shown flashes of greatness this year against high-level competition,” Morgan said at his season-ending news conference. “Just as a team we weren’t as consistent as we want to be on a game-to-game basis, but that’s part of what happens with a young team.

“Bryce did a great job this year, and I’m just really excited about moving forward and still developing chemistry with our receivers and just the pieces around him.”

Morgan noted Young’s work ethic and the way he has taken command of the huddle as areas that showed growth.

“And then really having that translate into Sunday or Saturday,” Morgan said. “I just felt he had a lot more command out there this year, and in reality just kind of coming into his own and getting better every week … just attacking every day.

“That’s really all you can ask for from any player.”

Inconsistency was Young’s biggest issue. He had a career-best 147.1 passer rating during a regular-season win against the Los Angeles Rams just one week after posting a career-worst Total QBR of 14.2 in a Monday night loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

He also had a franchise-record 448 passing yards in a win against Atlanta followed by 124 yards in a loss to the New Orleans Saints. Young finished with a QBR of 47.7 that ranked 22nd among qualified quarterbacks. Carolina didn’t win consecutive games since mid-October and lost its last three, including the NFC wild-card game against the Rams in which Young played well in a 34-31 loss.

Young had a QBR of 74.3 in his first playoff game, running for a touchdown and throwing for one.

While Morgan said he’d like to get another young quarterback to develop behind Young and veteran backup Andy Dalton, he didn’t totally rule out giving Young a long-term extension.

“We are still talking through the roster and where things look from a big-picture view,” Morgan said. “That is still stuff that is up in the air that we are still working through at this point.”

Morgan liked the way Young not only performed, but fought through a right ankle sprain that hampered him the rest of the season after injuring it during a Week 7 win against the New York Jets and forced him to miss one start.

“He’s a tough dude. He’s a really tough dude,” Morgan said.

Young also tied for the NFL lead this season with six winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime, giving him 12 for his career. But his overall record is 14-30 despite going 8-8 this year.

Morgan said this season’s team, which finished 8-10 (including playoffs), developed a culture where “we expect to win,” but he acknowledged improvements that need to happen before getting to the next level.

A ruptured patellar tendon in the right knee of left tackle Ickey Ekwonu will force Morgan and his staff to address that position with the start of next season — and potentially the whole season — in jeopardy for Ekwonu during the recovery process.

Running back Rico Dowdle, who led the team in rushing with 1,076 yards, is a free agent; he indicated Sunday that his decrease in carries during the last part of the season will impact his decision. Morgan said he had a good meeting with Dowdle and didn’t get the impression the Asheville, North Carolina, native was set on playing elsewhere.

In terms of staff, the Panthers feel good about where they are. Morgan confirmed defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero got an extension last year that will keep him under contract through 2027.