Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young is set to start for the second week in a row on Sunday against the New Orleans Saints, who expect Derek Carr to return for the first time since Week 5.
Andy Dalton fully participated in practice on Wednesday, but Carolina coach Dave Canales decided to be cautious and give Dalton another week to recover from the thumb injury he got in a car accident last week.
Dalton will be the backup quarterback for the team. “It really was me taking the decision out of Andy’s hands,” Canales said. “If you were to ask Andy, ‘can you go?’ he would tell you yes. But he is a week removed from a thumb injury.
I just want to make sure we are putting him out there in the right state and the right framework. And I’m excited for Bryce to have another opportunity to build on the things.”
Carr practiced on Wednesday for the first time since injuring an oblique muscle during a game against Kansas City on October 7. Saints coach Dennis Allen mentioned that Carr was on “a little bit of a pitch count.”
“I’m really encouraged by what I saw today,” Allen said about Carr’s performance. “Signs are optimistic for this weekend.”
Carr has missed three games in a row, all of which were losses for the Saints, who are currently on a six-game losing streak, their longest since 2005.
Rookie Spencer Rattler started in Carr’s absence, and New Orleans lost all three games by 18 points or more. Allen stated that fellow backup quarterback Jake Haener is expected to be Carr’s backup this week.
In the season opener at the Superdome, Carr went 19 of 23 for 200 yards with three touchdowns in a 47-10 victory over the Panthers. The Saints took a 30-0 lead in the second quarter and were never challenged.
Young has a record of 2-17 as an NFL starter, with a 0-3 record against the Saints.
The No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft completed 13 of 30 passes for 161 yards and threw two interceptions in Week 1. He was benched the following week but came back to start last week, taking over for the injured Dalton. In that game, he had two touchdowns and two interceptions in a 28-14 loss to the Denver Broncos.
Young mentioned that there were both good and bad aspects to his performance and called it “something to build off of.”
Canales did not indicate who would start at quarterback after Sunday. “We will take all of the information from this week and then go forward and make the next best decision for the team,” Canales said.
The Panthers will be without wide receiver Diontae Johnson, who was traded to Baltimore on Tuesday along with a sixth-round pick in 2025. In return, the Panthers received only a fifth-round pick from the Ravens next year, showing how eager they were to move on from Johnson.
Johnson had a reputation for having locker room problems while playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and often criticized his quarterbacks.
Canales did not confirm if those issues influenced the decision to trade Johnson.
“I’m not going to get too much into the specifics,” Canales said. “A lot of those conversations we are going to protect and keep in-house. But we collectively thought that was the best decision for us.”
Young described Johnson as a “great dude, great person.” The Panthers (1-7) are hoping that veteran wide receiver Adam Thielen can return this week after missing the last five weeks due to a hamstring injury.
Canales said it is still uncertain whether rookie running back Jonathon Brooks will make his NFL debut this week. Brooks has not played since injuring his knee last season at Texas.
