It’s no secret that last year’s No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young had a tough rookie season.
But in the aftermath of the Panthers’ offseason program, veteran receiver Adam Thielen said this week that he’s optimistic about the young quarterback entering 2024.
“It’s been awesome. Not only him, just a lot of the young guys, a lot of the staff. It’s just been a great offseason to just see some of these guys who haven’t been in the league very long — just the way that they’ve come in with confidence,” Thielen said during an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show. “You can tell, Bryce’s demeanor in the building — he’s just more comfortable, right? And you don’t realize it when you start getting to be a veteran guy, just because you forget about those times.”
Thielen noted that last year, Young wasn’t even a part of the early offseason program because he hadn’t been drafted yet.
“I’m thinking back to that like, now he’s there,” Thielen said. “Now we’re getting routes on air, we’re around each other, we’re in the locker room together, we’re BSing, talking about how great the Timberwolves are — because I’m a Timberwolves fan. So, you have that time together that we didn’t have last year.”
Thielen added that just going through the process of entering the league can be a whirlwind for a young QB between learning the playbook and getting to know new teammates before the summer break. Then once training camp begins, everyone has to hit the ground running — and that’s not including some of the clear issues the Panthers had with their systems in 2023.
“So, it’s been a really cool offseason to see how he’s come back with, OK, I’ve got urgency, I’ve got confidence, I have comfortability in the system, in the facility, the locker room, and what that does for a player,” Thielen said. “I’m excited about what that looks like going into training camp.
“Again, like I said last year and I’ll never not talk about this — things are always great this time of year. There’s no wins, no losses, there’s no adversity. It’s all good right now, every single team thinks they can go to the playoffs and have a chance to win the Super Bowl. So we’ll see how it goes when the bullets start flying, but we’re in a good place.”