QB Bryce Young starting to flourish, put up big numbers in Panthers offense

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QB Bryce Young starting to flourish, put up big numbers in Panthers offense

2026-09-25 07:52 Last Updated At：08:21

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Entering this season, Bryce Young wasn't known as a quarterback who consistently put up huge numbers.

But in his fourth season, the 25-year-old is off to the best start of his career.

His six touchdown passes through two games are tied with Dallas' Dak Prescott, Detroit's Jared Goff and Las Vegas' Kirk Cousins for the most in the league, and his 648 yards passing are second only to New Orleans' Tyler Shough.

That puts Young on pace to throw for more than 5,000 yards and 51 touchdowns, which would not only dwarf his previous career highs of 3,011 yards and 23 touchdowns, but set some franchise records.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Panthers tight end Tommy Tremble, who has played with Young since the QB came into the league as the No. 1 overall pick in 2023. “He's making plays and he's been balling. I just keep seeing his trajectory keep going up and up. I'm excited for him."

Then Tremble joked, “if you don't have him on your fantasy team now, you better get on it.”

It's unlikely Young will be able to keep up this pace.

His numbers are likely skewed some by a Week 1 shootout with Chicago in which Carolina's defense allowed 59 points to Caleb Williams and the Bears, forcing the Panthers offense into a shootout.

Still, Young has the Panthers (1-1) finally looking like a formidable offense for the first time since the Cam Newton era.

Carolina enters Sunday’s Week 3 game at Cleveland second in the league in scoring behind only Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills, and fourth in yards per game.

Young has looked more confident, more in control of the offense in Year 4.

Panthers coach Dave Canales attributes Young's early success this season to this being his third season in the same offensive system, having the familiarity of entering this year playing alongside the same core group of wide receivers as in 2025 and the steps he's made in "taking ownership” of the offense.

Canales said the latter is vital.

He has noticed Young communicating more with the team's receivers in practice and meetings on exactly how he wants them to run routes and where he plans to throw the ball. That has helped ensure everyone is on the same page.

That was evident, Canales said, on one of Young's touchdown tosses to tight end Darren Waller in Sunday's 34-3 win over the Atlanta Falcons.

“He's talking to the skill players about what he’s expecting, the timing of when he’s going to throw this thing,” Canales said. “It's been, ‘I gotta have you with your eyes around right here.' Or, ‘I would like you to come straight back to me out of the top of this (route).’ And, 'when you make this move, keep it vertical away from the backside safety.’”

Although this is Young's first season working with offensive coordinator Brad Idzik calling plays, the offense has largely remained the same.

Canales said that has allowed the Panthers to determine the best positions to put Young in to succeed in terms of play calls and the throws he likes to make.

“We’ve been fine-tuning this offense to fit Bryce’s strengths,” Canales said. “Our goal is to try to create this so that we’re doing what he does well. Bryce is seeing that, taking that, and then he’s putting his stamp on it.”

Young could be tested this week, though.

Jalen Coker and Xavier Legette missed practice on Thursday with injuries, raising doubt about their availability for Sunday. Coker and Young, in particular, have developed a great chemistry. They have connected on 16 of 18 targets this season.

Young said the numbers he's putting up don't matter to him. He just wants to “go 1-0 each week.”

“I think it been a matter of us just trusting each other and our execution," Young said. “Brad is doing a great job on game days and throughout the week of having a plan and putting things together. And all of us are buying into that. But (past success) doesn’t entitle you to anything. The score will be 0-0 when we start on Sunday, so we have to flush it."

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Powerful Hurricane Polo drenches Mexico's coast as Nolo takes aim at Hawaii

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Residents along Mexico’s west coast stacked sandbags to fortify beachfront shops and evacuated their homes, while Hawaii’s Big Island and Maui braced for potentially catastrophic flooding, as two separate storms swirled in the Pacific on Thursday.

Heavy rains from powerful Hurricane Polo could cause life-threatening flooding and landslides in Mexico, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. In places like the port city of Lazaro Cardenas, seawater swept through homes Thursday and left wooden planks and furniture strewn on the streets.

Polo has gone back and forth between Category 4 and 5, both major-hurricane strength. The strongest winds were expected to remain offshore as the storm’s center skirts the coast before moving out to sea. But Polo was forecast to hook back toward Mexico’s coast farther north on Saturday.

Far off the southern tip of Hawaii’s Big Island, Tropical Storm Nolo was gathering strength, and forecasters expect it to become a hurricane soon. Hawaii is likely to see heavy rains starting late Thursday and winds reaching hurricane levels by early Saturday. Nolo could dump more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of rain across islands still recovering from a string of storms.

The series of powerful storms comes as the weather phenomenon El Niño prompts major environmental shifts across the world, fueling drought in some areas and flooding in others. El Niño traditionally dampens the Atlantic hurricane season, while it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific with moist air and little wind shear.

Hawaii has been battered this year by major flooding in the spring, an earthquake and two other hurricanes since mid-August.

“In my 20 years of experience here, I’ve never seen three hurricane watches for the islands in the same year,” said John Bravender of the National Weather Service in Honolulu.

Mexican authorities were opening shelters and clearing people from beaches, while coastal residents tried to protect businesses from getting swept away. People in high-risk areas were being evacuated, though authorities didn’t immediately say how many.

Much of the worry from locals comes from hurricanes in past years that devastated cities along the Pacific coast. Hurricane Otis in 2023 unexpectedly plunged Acapulco into turmoil for weeks.

“So many people said it wouldn’t happen and then it did. After that, you’re left on edge,” said Gonzalo Ramírez, a bartender in the city.

Polo posed the biggest threat to Guerrero and Michoacán, neighboring states in southwest Mexico that share a long coastline scattered with small ports, tourist towns and fishing villages. Much of the area is marked by poverty, and residents routinely complain they are left to fend for themselves during natural disasters.

Mexican authorities have deployed 15,000 security personnel across the coast and suspended schools.

In Lázaro Cárdenas, a port city in Michoacán that was hit with high surf, locals and government officials were clearing out piles of wooden planks from a number of destroyed ramadas and shoveling thick mud coating much of the town.

Alicia Contreras said the walls and roof of her restaurant had been severely damaged by 15-foot (4.5-meter) waves. As officers and family helped pick through the damaged house, Contreras worried how she would economically recover.

“This is huge because we have no other source of income. Now we’re just surviving,” Contreras said.

Forecasters said Tropical Storm Nolo might grow into a major hurricane and could drop 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain on the Big Island, with even higher amounts possible through Saturday.

The island of Maui could also be hit with life-threatening floods and mudslides, the hurricane center said.

While the Big Island is expected to bear the brunt of the storm, its full path remains uncertain, according to Bravender, the weather service's warning coordination meteorologist in Hawaii.

Most concerning, he said Thursday, is that the heaviest rain is likely to fall over the same southeastern region of the Big Island hit in August by Hurricane Lala and where grounds are still wet from additional precipitation.

“There are several communities that were isolated, flooded, roads that were washed out,” he said. “It’s that same area that is most under threat,” Bravender said.

Hawaii officials told residents to put together emergency kits and the governor issued an emergency proclamation, activating more than 230 Hawaii National Guard members. Schools were closed for the rest of the week.

Hawaiian Electric, the state’s primary utility, said crews that had been helping restore power in Kauai after this month’s Hurricane Lowell would return to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island in preparation for the coming storm.

A third storm in the Pacific, Hurricane Odalys, was centered far from land roughly 1,110 miles (1,785 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

In the northern Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Fay re-formed early Thursday, the U.S. hurricane center said. It was nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) west-southwest of the Azores.

Aoun Angueira reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Jeriel Vargas Ambriz in Lázaro Cárdena, Mexico, contributed.