Bryce Young: Biggest Draft Bust Ever?

Is Bryce Young the biggest draft bust in NFL history? After he was benched for Andy Dalton just two weeks into the 2024 season, the question has been circulating around the football world.

Let’s start by saying something that is obvious but needs to be said anyway: Young is … well, young. Baker Mayfield put it best: “His story is far, far from over.”

His benching this early in Year 2 is shocking because it’s just so soon to do it. The Panthers are hardly giving him a chance. Nobody is fooled that the team is a potential playoff contender with someone else under center.

But analyze we must. So, we’re taking a look at whether Young is the biggest draft bust in NFL history. This, of course, is just based on what we know so far, which is that Young is now a second-string quarterback.

The Candidates

First, some rules:

• Must be a QB. As the faces of their franchises, when a highly touted quarterback flops, it’s much more painful and bust-y than when any other position craps the bed.
• Must be an early, early pick. Johnny Manziel flopped as a first-round pick, but he wasn’t a top-tier pick to begin with.
• Career not derailed because of injuries. That’s just bad luck. Robert Griffin III was dealt a bad hand.

Now, the candidates:

• Bryce Young, Panthers (2023, first overall)
• JaMarcus Russell, Raiders (2007, first overall)
• Ryan Leaf, Chargers (1998, second overall)
• Trey Lance, 49ers (2021, third overall)
• Zach Wilson, Jets (2021, second overall)

I’m going to go ahead and say Leaf would be the biggest bust ever – and probably insurmountably so – if the Colts selected him first overall. But Leaf went after Peyton Manning, which means the biggest blunder of them all was avoided.

Wilson and Lance can get a pass for similar reasons. The entire quarterback class has just fallen completely flat. Even Trevor Lawrence hasn’t lived up to his crazy expectations, but at least he’s a good starter. Every other QB in the 2021 class has just missed. For what it’s worth, Lance is more bust-y than Wilson because of what the 49ers gave up to get him and the fact he lost his job to Mr. Irrelevant.

So that leaves us with JaMarcus Russell vs. Bryce Young for the title of biggest bust of all time. For now, Russell holds the unfortunate mantle. He was completely out of the league in just three years. Young at least still has a chance to bounce back and perhaps even escape the Panthers.

But we won’t just end the article there. We will put Young’s struggles into historical context.

What the Panthers gave up for Bryce Young

Here’s the real “ouch.” If Young never emerges as a starter again, this is what people will remember most.

Panthers get: Bryce Young

Bears get: Caleb Williams, DJ Moore, Jalen Carter, Tyrique Stevenson, Darnell Wright, 2025 second-round pick

To make it worse, the Panthers also selected Young over C.J. Stroud, who instantly became a star NFL player and looks every bit as good so far in Year 2.

The Worst Rookie QB Years by Adjusted DYAR and Pass DVOA

Let’s put Young’s 2023 campaign into context. He had the fourth-worst rookie quarterback season ever by Adjusted DYAR, which gives proper value to quarterback runs:

And the 11th worst rookie quarterback season ever by Pass DVOA (min. 200 passes):

Now here’s the good news: A lot of these players ended up being really good! Josh Allen is a superstar. Matthew Stafford is a Super Bowl winner. Donovan McNabb was a six-time Pro Bowler, and Jared Goff and Alex Smith both had turnarounds that saw them develop into excellent mid-range quarterbacks.

The bad news is that the rest of the list totally stinks.

Quarterbacks since 2023

Now let’s look at Young since the start of the 2023 season, including the first two weeks of 2024. We’ll include all quarterbacks that have had at least 150 dropbacks and we’ll look at both total EPA and EPA per play:

It really does not help Young’s case for “biggest bust” that he’s going to be forever compared to Stroud, who is already taking the NFL by storm. Since joining the league, Stroud is fifth in EPA per play!

But there’s other key differences between Stroud and Young – namely, the organizations they play for…

The very bad, no good Panthers

Most people will point out that Young was placed in a losing situation to begin with. Those people, generally speaking, are not wrong.

We’ll start with something that is kind of Young’s fault, though, even though some people don’t see it that way: He took 60 sacks as a rookie, or 10.2% of his dropbacks. However, he was pressured 31.9% of the time. That’s still high (ninth last year) but consider how a veteran like Kirk Cousins had a higher pressure rate (32.9%) but a much lower sack rate (5.2%). Brock Purdy is another good example: 29.9% pressure rate but 5.7% sack rate. (This is what people mean when they say sacks are a QB stat.)

But it’s not a lie to say that the Panthers are just completely devoid of talent. They relied on geriatric Adam Thielen as Young’s WR1 during his rookie season. They made the dreaded “second contract on a mediocre running back” decision by overspending on Miles Sanders. Sure, they added Diontae Johnson in the offseason and spent the 32nd pick on Xavier Legette, but that felt underwhelming in a free agency class that featured Mike Evans, Calvin Ridley, Tee Higgins, Michael Pittman Jr., and Hollywood Brown. Plus, they only gave Young two games with those new additions!

Compare that to the Texans, who went out and picked up Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon despite already having Tank Dell and Nico Collins. Talk about putting your young quarterback in a position to succeed! It’s a night and day comparison with the Panthers and Young.

Young’s poor play, combined with a bad team in general, has led to a historically bad start for the 2024 Panthers. Here’s what FTN’s Aaron Schatz had to say about the Panthers in an ESPN article:

“The Panthers have been historically bad to start the 2024 season, according to my DVOA ratings. They have the ninth worst overall DVOA of 1,397 teams since 1979 through Week 2, going back to 1979. The offense is even lower, ranking as the seventh-worst offense of any team through Week 2. It’s not just Young who’s been awful, as the Panthers are dead last in pass DVOA and 31st in rush DVOA, ahead of only this week’s opponent, the Raiders.”

I’ll reiterate: “It’s not just Young who’s been awful.”

There’s also the fact that ex-Panthers quarterbacks like Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield have looked good outside of the Panthers organization. In fact, really nothing has gone right for the Panthers at the quarterback position since Cam Newton’s peak superhuman abilities made the team good (on and off) for three years between 2013-2017.

It’s looking like an organizational problem, not (just) a Bryce Young problem.

Is Bryce Young the biggest draft bust in NFL history?

If Young never starts another game in the NFL, I don’t know how you could not label him as the biggest bust ever. Especially if Stroud continues on his trajectory and if Caleb Williams lives up to the hype. (Those are things outside of Young’s control, obviously, but these factors are weighed in, fair or not.)

However, the odds of Young never getting another chance feel really low. Perhaps he gets another shot in a month with the Panthers. Or perhaps (and this would be better) he gets out of Carolina within the next year or two.

Given that Young’s career feels far from over – and given everything he’s had working against him to start his career – JaMarcus Russell still holds the crown.