Panthers' Bryce Young could see more man-to-man defense after major flop against Seahawks

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Bryce Young could see more man-to-man coverage looks from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday in a game that could determine the NFC South champion.

On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks surprised the Panthers (8-8) by employing mostly man coverage against Carolina's wide receivers and it worked to near perfection.

Young was limited to 54 yards passing, completed 14 of 24 passes and was intercepted once as the Panthers lost 27-10 and squandered an opportunity to wrap up their first division title in 10 years.

Carolina's top three receivers — Tetairoa McMillan, Xavier Legette and Jalen Coker — struggled to get open and combined for just four catches and 24 yards.

In this copycat league, it's conceivable the Buccaneers might employ a similar strategy Saturday — provided they feel they have the personnel to do it.

Young had one of his better games against the Buccaneers on Dec. 21, completing 21 of 32 passes for 191 yards and two touchdowns in a 23-20 win. He led a winning field goal drive in the fourth quarter that gave the Panthers the upper hand in the race for the NFC South title.

“They played a little bit more man than they had shown on film," Panthers coach Dave Canales said of the Seahawks. “So where we’re trying to attack some of the fire zones and different things like that, we shifted to some more run-away type of concepts in case they threw the man out there.”

Carolina couldn't get anything going downfield and the team's longest pass completion was 8 yards.

“They did a great job having discipline, staying deep on a lot of our concepts,” Canales said. “What you saw is a lot of balls go to the checkdowns in different ways. They rallied up and tackled us really well. We didn’t end up getting a lot of yards out of some of those checkdowns. ... We called some passes to try to go down the field, and they did a great job of making the ball get to the checkdown and rallied up and made some tackles.”

Young credited the Seahawks with employing a successful defensive strategy and took ownership of the team's struggles moving the ball through the air.

“Credit to them,” Young said. “They made adjustments. They came out with a game plan. They did a better job of executing it than we did. That’s the league. You’re going to go up against different schemes. People are going to make adjustments and we didn’t do a good enough job of being able to react to that and counter it. We’ll watch the film. We’ll learn and grow from it. That’s the NFL.”

Carolina can snap a seven-year playoff drought with a win Saturday.

The Panthers can still capture the division title with a loss, but would need Atlanta to beat the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night and New Orleans next Sunday to give them the three-way head-to-head tiebreaker with Tampa Bay and Atlanta.

The Panthers are a combined 3-0 against the Bucs and Falcons.

Despite allowing 27 points, the Panthers defense didn't have a bad game.

Carolina held Sam Darnold and the high-powered Seahawks to just 3 points in the first half, but allowed three touchdowns in the second half working with short fields due to turnovers. Seattle's three touchdown drives in the game were 21, 29 and 25 yards.

The Panthers forced two turnovers, including an interception of Darnold in the end zone.

Carolina made a push into the playoff race due to a dominant running game led by Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard. But the run game has lacked punch in recent weeks.

Dowdle was still productive Sunday, rushing for 59 yards on 12 carries, a 4.9-yard average. But he isn't getting the quantity of carries he had earlier in the season and has struggled to get into a rhythm. Hubbard had 12 yards on four carries and his costly fumble in the third quarter led to a Seattle touchdown and put his team in a huge hole.

It'll be interesting to see if Hubbard's turnover will prompt Canales to play Dowdle more moving forward.

With two-time Pro Bowler Jaycee Horn on the other side of the defense, cornerback Mike Jackson is seeing plenty of balls thrown his way — and he's responding well.

Jackson continued his breakout season with another strong game against his former team Sunday, recording a team-high 11 tackles with one interception in the corner of the end zone and two pass breakups. Jackson leads the league with 19 passes defensed.

Carolina's run defense struggled against the Seahawks, allowing Zach Charbonnet to rush for 110 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries. As a team, the Seahawks racked up 163 yards on the ground and averaged 4.5 yards per carry.

The Panthers lost starting tight end Ja'Tavion Sanders to a broken ankle. That means Tommy Tremble and Mitchell Evans will see more playing time. However, the tight end position has not been a huge part of the team's passing game this season. The news came after linebacker Trevin Wallace was placed on injured reserve before the Seattle game.

1 — The Panthers were just 1 of 11 on third-down conversions vs. Seattle. They were 2 of 5 on fourth downs.

The Panthers take on the Buccaneers. They lost four straight games to their former QB Baker Mayfield since he signed with rival Tampa Bay in 2023 before finally beating him two weeks ago in Charlotte.

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Seattle Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet. is tackled by Carolina Panthers linebacker Christian Rozeboom during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Rusty Jones)

Carolina Panthers running back Rico Dowdle is tackled by Seattle Seahawks safety Ty Okada during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman)

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young passes against the Seattle Seahawks during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman)

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young passes against the Seattle Seahawks during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Rusty Jones)

Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young celebrates after scoring against the Seattle Seahawks during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman)

GENEVA (AP) — The United States on Monday announced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian aid as President Donald Trump’s administration slashes U.S. foreign assistance and warns United Nations agencies they must “adapt, shrink or die” in a time of new financial realities.

The money is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past but reflects what the administration believes is still a generous amount that will maintain America's status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.

“This new model will better share the burden of U.N. humanitarian work with other developed countries and will require the U.N. to cut bloat, remove duplication, and commit to powerful new impact, accountability and oversight mechanisms,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media.

The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which money will be doled out to agencies and priorities, a key part of U.S. demands for drastic changes across the U.N. that have alarmed many humanitarian workers and led to severe reductions in programs and services.

The $2 billion is only a sliver of traditional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-coordinated programs, which has run as high as $17 billion annually in recent years, according to U.N. data. U.S. officials say only $8 billion to $10 billion of that has been in voluntary contributions. The United States also pays billions in annual dues related to its U.N. membership.

“The piggy bank is not open to organizations that just want to return to the old system," Jeremy Lewin, the State Department official in charge of foreign assistance, said at a press conference Monday in Geneva. "President Trump has made clear that the system is dead.”

The State Department said “individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.” Critics say the Western aid cutbacks have been shortsighted, driven millions toward hunger, displacement or disease, and harmed U.S. soft power around the world.

The move caps a crisis year for many U.N. organizations, including its refugee, migration and food aid agencies. The Trump administration has already cut billions in U.S. foreign aid, prompting the agencies to slash spending, aid projects and thousands of jobs. Other traditional Western donors have reduced outlays, too.

The U.S. pledge for aid programs of the United Nations — the world’s top provider of humanitarian assistance and biggest recipient of U.S. humanitarian aid money — takes shape in a preliminary deal with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, run by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and government official.

Fletcher, who has spent the past year lobbying U.S. officials not to abandon U.N. funding altogether, appeared optimistic at the deal's signing in Geneva.

“It’s a very, very significant landmark contribution. And a month ago, I would have anticipated the number would have been zero,” he told reporters. “And so I think, before worrying about what we haven’t got, I’d like to look at the millions of people whose lives will be saved, whose lives will be better because of this contribution, and start there.”

Even as the U.S. pulls back its aid contributions, needs have ballooned worldwide: Famine has been recorded this year in parts of conflict-ridden Sudan and Gaza, and floods, drought and natural disasters that many scientists attribute to climate change have taken many lives or driven thousands from their homes.

The cuts will have major implications for U.N. affiliates like the International Organization for Migration, the World Food Program and refugee agency UNHCR. They have already received billions less from the U.S. this year than under annual allocations from the Biden administration — or even during Trump’s first term.

Now, the idea is that Fletcher’s office — which has aimed to improve efficiency — will become a funnel for U.S. and other aid money that can be redirected to those agencies, rather than scattered U.S. contributions to a variety of individual appeals for aid.

Asked by reporters if the U.S. language of “adapt or die” worried him, Fletcher said, “If the choices are adapt or die, I choose adapt.”

U.S. officials say the $2 billion is just a first outlay to help fund OCHA’s annual appeal for money. Fletcher, noting the upended aid landscape, already slashed the request this year. Other traditional U.N. donors like Britain, France, Germany and Japan have reduced aid allocations and sought reforms this year.

“This humanitarian reset at the United Nations should deliver more aid with fewer tax dollars — providing more focused, results-driven assistance aligned with U.S foreign policy,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said.

At its core, the changes will help establish pools of funding that can be directed either to specific crises or countries in need. A total of 17 countries will be initially targeted, including Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres also welcomed the announcement, saying that “every dollar counts."

Two of the world’s most desperate countries, Afghanistan and Yemen, are not included, with U.S. officials citing aid diversion to the Taliban and Houthi rebels as concerns over restarting contributions.

Also not mentioned on the list are the Palestinian territories, which officials say will be covered by money stemming from Trump’s as-yet-incomplete Gaza peace plan.

The U.N. project, months in the making, stems from Trump’s longtime view that the world body has great promise but has failed to live up to it and has — in his eyes — drifted too far from its original mandate to save lives while undermining American interests, promoting radical ideologies and encouraging wasteful, unaccountable spending.

“No one wants to be an aid recipient. No one wants to be living in a UNHCR camp because they’ve been displaced by conflict,” Lewin said. “So the best thing that we can do to decrease costs, and President Trump recognizes this and that’s why he’s the president of peace, is by ending armed conflict and allowing communities to get back to peace and prosperity.”

Lee reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed from New York.

FILE - A woman and her children, survivors of Sunday night's 6.0-magnitude earthquake, wait for assistance in the village of Wadir, Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Nava Jamshidi, File)