Frank Reich: Our offensive struggles aren’t all on Young

Panthers quarterback Bryce Young’s NFL education continued against the Saints on Monday night.

Young didn’t throw an interception after throwing two of them in his first regular season game, but he lost a fumble on one of the four sacks he took and failed to drive the team for a touchdown until the very end of the fourth quarter. That made the final score 20-17, but the Panthers’ inability to make big plays on offense — Young’s scramble for 26 yards was their biggest gain and he averaged 4.6 yards per pass attempt — hamstrung them all game.

After the game, Panthers head coach Frank Reich said he thinks Young “is handling the pressure well” and that the offensive struggles can’t all be pinned on him.

“Our struggle on offense — it’s not one person,” Reich said, via the team’s website. “I will look at the film, but I thought Bryce still did some really positive things, made some plays with his feet, made some good decisions, made good throws, showed plenty of things that we want to see. So I was encouraged by that. I know how hard it is to play that position. I’ve been around it a long time. And I know how dependent it is on everything. So we’ve all got to get better. Everybody’s got to get better — coaches and players. So that’s the way we work through it.”

Young said he’s “intentional in learning and making sure that I’m able to not just see something, but make sure that I can grow from it.” It may take some time to see the fruits of that growth and better play across the board would certainly help the rookie process all that’s happening on the field each week.