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Ben Solak, ESPN
Happy Week 2 of the NFL season, everyone! If you’re like me, you’re wondering what the heck just happened. The Buccaneers, Saints and Raiders all won their games as 6-point underdogs, almost every first-round pick in fantasy football got banged up and Will Levis continues to lead the league in screengrabs per week at a blistering 1.0 pace. What a Sunday!
Every Tuesday, I’ll spin the previous week of NFL football forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean for what comes next. We’ll take a first look at the consequences of “Monday Night Football,” break down a major trend or two and highlight some key individual players and plays. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.
Jump to a section:
The Big Thing: Young gets benched
Contender or pretender: 2-0 teams
Mailbag: Four questions from … you
Second Take: Pass-game concerns?
Next Ben Stats: Four wild Week 2 stats
Monday Night Football: Prime-time Kirk
The Big Thing: Bryce Young gets benched
Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous Sunday of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season? To start this week, we dig into the Panthers’ decision to bench their second-year quarterback just two weeks into the season.
In one of the greatest organizational failures of recent memory, the Carolina Panthers have benched 2023 No. 1 pick Bryce Young exactly 18 games into his NFL career. Of the QBs with at least 10 starts since the beginning of last season, Young is worst in expected points added (EPA) per dropback, success rate, explosive pass rate, completion percentage, NFL Next Gen Stats’ completion percentage over expectation, yards per dropback, yards per attempt, adjusted net yards per attempt and Total QBR.
Nope, wait. Sorry, he is second worst in Total QBR. (Zach Wilson is worst.)
In order for a top pick to fail this spectacularly, several things needed to go wrong.