Panthers predicted to fail spectacularly and reconsider Bryce Young in 2025

The Carolina Panthers are at a bit of a crossroads with Bryce Young. He appears poised to break out and take another huge step forward, like he did at the end of last year. Presumably, that would make this revamped Carolina team fairly decent, and they might contend for the playoffs. They might also just be average and miss out, but that'd be a huge step up, too.

What if that doesn't happen? What if what can go wrong does in fact go wrong? The floor for Carolina could be so bad that they're forced once again to pivot from Young and have no direction as a franchise. That's the worst-case scenario in CBS Sports analyst Cody Benjamin's eyes, and it's possible.

He predicted a worst-case outcome for Carolina, saying, "Young goes backward, once again saddled with unproven weapons out wide, including two young starters in Xavier Legette and Tetairoa McMillan, and Carolina is forced to consider a bigger-picture pivot."

That would certainly be the worst case. Even if the Panthers don't make the playoffs this year, which they don't necessarily have pressure to with how bad their defense was and how young their head coach and QB combo is, the world isn't ending.

But it would end if Young regresses somehow and leaves them with yet another glaring hole at quarterback. Sure, they could just draft someone in 2026 like Arch Manning or Cade Clubnik, but that just starts over and gives them yet another unproven prospect to try to work with.

The ideal scenario is for Young to, at the very least, continue to showcase good play and good traits, thereby preventing the need for another quarterback. For 10 games last year, the Panthers seemed to have found their guy, so it'd be a real shame if that ended up being a false positive.