Tomorrow’s Dynasty Star Today: Bryce Young

If you drafted Puka Nacua in the fourth round of your rookie draft in 2023, you know how important it can be to buy low on a young player before they explode. Not every player will turn out to be Nacua – after all, he’s statistically the greatest rookie wide receiver of all time. But one of the smartest strategies to be a successful dynasty player is to identify young talent ready to rise up in value in the future. This series will suggest ideas for players primed for a breakout later down the line.

Bryce Young, QB CAR

Bryce Young won the Heisman trophy in 2021. On top of that, he also won AP Player of the Year, the Davey O’Brien Award, the Manning Award, the Maxwell Award, SEC Offensive Player of the Year, and was a consensus All-American. He led the SEC in passing yards and touchdowns in 2021. A pretty good sophomore season.

He then declared for the draft in 2023 and was taken first overall by the Carolina Panthers, who gave up a huge package to trade up and take him. It was seen as a debate at the time who would be the first overall pick between Young and CJ Stroud, with concerns about Young’s height, but ultimately that incredible 2021 season in college was enough to confirm Bryce as the number one overall pick.

Look how that turned out. In their rookie seasons, Bryce Young threw for 1572 yards and 7 TDs, despite starting 16 games. Meanwhile, CJ Stroud had one of the greatest rookie QB seasons of all time, passing for 4108 and 23 TDs on his way to winning Offensive Rookie of The Year. From a fantasy perspective, CJ finished as QB11 in 15 games, whereas Bryce finished at QB23.

Situation

This year started off even worse – which was difficult to imagine after his disaster of a rookie season ended with Frank Reich being fired. In the off-season, Dave Canales was brought in from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the new Head Coach. Canales had great success revitalising Baker Mayfield, a similarly smaller QB – although very few quarterbacks have ever had as small a stature as Bryce Young. There was optimism, which quickly fell flat when Bryce was benched after two games. He sat out the five following weeks and it seemed like his future in the NFL was over.

I really hope you bought him in that stretch. Which, I’d like to remind you, I told you to do back on October 5th.

We’ll never know what the plan was with Bryce Young with the Carolina Panthers. The benching might have been to sit him, teach him, let him learn from Canales and Andy Dalton, before bringing him in back at the end of the season. It might have been to seek a trade candidate, play Dalton the rest of the season, and draft a rookie in 2025. But when Andy Dalton was in a car crash, Bryce took the helm again. And since then, he’s been absolutely fantastic. He’s looked an entirely different player, partly due to changing the offense to look more like the one he ran at Alabama. Bryce has also been able to establish more of a rushing floor, averaging 24 yards per game since week ten. Since week ten, he’s been PFF’s 9th highest graded passer, with the third highest big time throw rate and the sixth lowest turnover worthy play rate. That improvement is insane. From a fantasy perspective, his 17 game pace since he stepped back in week eight would have seen him finish as the QB15 on the year – nothing spectacular, but a vast improvement on expectations.

Bryce has managed to turn his future from a career backup, potentially being the bridge quarterback to a rookie whether with the Panthers or elsewhere, to the presumed future starter in Carolina. What’s even more impressive that he’s done it in six weeks. The fantasy performance hasn’t quite been there yet, but he’s been let down quite significantly by his wide receiver core outside of Adam Thielen. With improvements at pass catcher, Bryce has an incredibly high ceiling both in fantasy and beyond if he continues on his current developmental path. Perhaps the ceiling that saw him be taken number one overall just last year is still attainable. He’s certainly played better than CJ Stroud in 2024.

Value

Young is currently DLF’s consensus QB27, behind players like Michael Penix and Kirk Cousins. With the way he’s playing, that’s a clear misstep for me. Bryce is set to continue in 2025 and beyond, which can’t be said of some of the QBs ahead of him, and has shown development in his sophomore year far beyond any of the other second year QBs.

Some recent trades for him are available below:

Conclusion

Young has the upside of a low end QB1 if the Panthers can make improvements on the OL and at WR – which, given that they no longer need to draft a QB, they’re very well positioned to do. Throw Tetairoa McMillan or Luther Burden on the Panthers for 2025, or even Tee Higgins in free agency, and Bryce’s ceiling would feel much closer to being achievable. His market is definitely higher than it was – but it’s still way below where it should be.

Thanks for reading – you can find me at @FF_Pancake to tell me your thoughts on Bryce Young in 2024 and beyond.

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Lewis Wood

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Lewis is a Rams fan from the UK who is obsessive over dynasty leagues. League mates have accused him of being way too trade happy but it works out when you bring home titles!

You can hear more from Lewis on his YouTube channel 'Fantasy Pancake' https://youtube.com/@fantasypancake?si=U7BLlUCqY38dTsEv