Bryce Young saved his best for the last game of the 2024 season.
The Carolina Panthers quarterback diced up the Atlanta Falcons, throwing three touchdown passes with a 123.5 passer rating, both career highs, in a 44-38 road win.
Young's play has the Panthers beaming heading into the 2025 offseason.
"A real good win. I think we've got our QB here," owner David Tepper told NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe after the game.
Young's early-season benching had the Panthers looking like a franchise that would have to start over at the QB position yet again, a particularly excruciating thought considering all the team had given up to acquire the former Alabama slinger.
Then came his return to the lineup and a late-season surge. Young generated two-plus pass TDs and zero INTs in his past three games -- the first Panthers QB to hit those figures since Cam Newton in 2018 -- with a 100-plus passer rating in each contest.
Sunday, Young looked every bit the playmaker the Panthers believed they were drafting. The second-year QB was calm in the pocket, making the correct reads while showing pinpoint accuracy and an ability to make things happen outside the structure of the play. Young joined Josh Allen as the only players in 2024 with three-plus pass TDs and two-plus rush TDs in a single game -- also becoming the first Carolina player to do so in a single game.
As Young's play has improved by the week, the belief in Young has been palpable. Instead of heading into the offseason needing another reboot, the club can focus on continuing to build around the quarterback.
"It's huge. It's a great feeling," head coach Dave Canales said, via The Athletic. "It allows us to look at the whole roster, to see what the investments need to be. It helps us to think about free agency and the draft with a lens knowing we got our guy. Now we can build this team with the right mentality and find the guys that can challenge our roster, which we plan on doing every year."
The 44-point outburst was the team's most points in a game since Week 10, 2017, which marked the last time Carolina made the playoffs with a franchise quarterback at the helm.
