The Panthers benched Bryce Young for Andy Dalton. It’s absolutely the right thing to do

Well, that didn’t take long.

Less than 24 hours after Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales said repeatedly that “Bryce is our quarterback,” he benched Bryce Young on Monday.

This was the season where Canales, a first-year head coach hired largely because of his reputation for resurrecting QBs, was supposed to fix Young’s career. Instead, with the Panthers sitting at 0-2 and after getting outscored 73-13 in his first two weeks as a head coach, Canales will turn to 36-year-old veteran Andy Dalton to direct the Carolina offense starting Sunday in Las Vegas against the Raiders.

It’s stunning in some ways, but it’s also the right move. The only wrong thing about it was that Canales didn’t pull the plug on the Young resurrection experiment at halftime, when it was apparent to everyone watching the game that Young had no chance of getting it done.

Canales’ news conference announcing the move Monday afternoon was notable mostly for all the questions he wouldn’t answer. Normally a genial font of information on all topics, Canales wouldn’t answer directly address Panthers owner David Tepper’s level of involvement (if any) in the move, nor what specific areas Young needs to improve, nor whether Dalton is supposed to take over for the rest of the season or just for a week or two.

“Andy Dalton gives us our best chance to win this week,” Canales kept saying. The head coach did say the decision was ultimately his. “I made the best decision for the team,” he said.

What Canales did say, though, is correct. Dalton is better right now than Young. He was last year, too. If you want a short-term solution, he’s already in the locker room. Dalton has started 163 NFL games and has gone 83-78-2. He’s old, yes — Dalton came into the NFL the same year that Cam Newton did, in 2011. But he can still play.

Dalton started one game for an injured Young last year and threw for 361 yards in a loss, which is more yards than Young has thrown for in his NFL career.

Listen, I know there’s a counter-argument here that Young is the future and Dalton is nothing more than a stopgap. The latter is true. The former may not be.

After watching Young start 18 games and go 2-16 in them, I think Young represents sunk costs to the Panthers. Yes, it was a poor trade. Yes, they’re paying him a lot of money and have a lot tied up in him. So what?

At some point, you have to move on, not so much to keep the fans happy as to make sure you keep the locker room believing that QB play isn’t going to wreck the rest of the team. Either way, you’re not getting that No. 1 overall pick back.

Young will still suit up as the Panthers’ No. 2 quarterback Sunday, but Dalton will now get most of the snaps in practice and will try to lead the Panthers out of the doldrums. They are an NFL-worst 31-70 since Tepper bought the team in 2018, and once again this year they are the NFL’s favorite punchline.

Something big had to change, and Tepper isn’t going to fire Canales after two games. So it had to be Young, who looked so shell-shocked and disjointed Sunday that he hardly threw the ball more than five yards past the line of scrimmage. He completed 18 passes and yet they went for only a career-low 84 passing yards.

Fans chanted for Dalton. Young was booed more often and more vociferously than the heel at a professional wrestling match.

The thing is, of course, Young isn’t a heel. He’s a nice fellow, only 23, and it’s not his fault that the Panthers blew it and selected him with the No. 1 overall pick when they could have had C.J. Stroud.

But he’s also obviously not ready for the job the Panthers have thrust upon him. How big of a sample size do you really need? Young is not only 2-16 as a starter, but he also has thrown only 11 touchdown passes in those 18 games. He isn’t even a passable NFL starting quarterback at this point. Maybe he will be one day. Not today.

And it’s not all about size. Yes, Young has to get up on his tiptoes sometimes to make throws, which robs his arm of some core strength. But Drew Brees and Russell Wilson made it work. Where Young has failed is why the Panthers drafted him in the first place: His brain was supposed to be a computer, one that would always spit out the right answer of where to throw the ball and when based on a million different variables.

Instead, Young has looked overmatched, over and over.

Young was asked Sunday what his confidence level was like.

“I draw my confidence from the Lord,” Young said. “So I’m very blessed, and I’m grateful for this challenge.”

And a challenge it will be.

Young will now sit and watch — at least for a while. He won’t be hearing any home-field boos like he did Sunday.

Those boos were, as I’ve written, the worst I’ve heard in 30 years of Panthers’ home openers. Usually the fans wait until at least midseason to be that angry.

Dalton, at least, provides a steady hand. And some hope for a team that desperately needs some.