Panthers are in denial about Bryce Young's bust potential despite practice struggles

Where you land matters. For as talented as Bryce Young was coming out of Alabama, he went to one of the worst-run franchises I have seen in my adult life. The diminutive Heisman Trophy winner went 2-15 during his first season quarterbacking the Carolina Panthers. His first head coach Frank Reich did not even make it through the season. Through the David Tepper of it all, he did find a good successor.

For as much as I am out on the Panthers doing much of anything this season, Tepper's decision to hire former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales to be his next head appears to be outstanding. He helped revive Baker Mayfield's playing career last year, as well as being a key piece on several of the final Pete Carroll staffs with the Seattle Seahawks. He might be the real deal.

Unfortunately, Young's bad play in recent practices put Canales in a tough spot to defend his player.

"I mean, turnovers are always just something we want to continue to look at and say, 'What happened here?', and just get to the bottom of it. For me, again, the interceptions happen when we're trying, so I have no problem with that. If we're not throwing interceptions, we're not trying stuff, we're not trying to make those tight throws. And we know NFL football is tightly played, it's tight throws."

Young cannot be throwing interceptions in games on the regular if he wants to have staying power.

It might be a tad premature to throw the potential bust label at Young, but he is running out of time.

Dave Canales goes to bat for Carolina Panthers pick machine Bryce Young

Look. Even though the Panthers are bitter rivals with my beloved Atlanta Falcons, I want to see them succeed. Ever since Tepper bought the team from Jerry Richardson it has been one bad thing after another. Matt Rhule might be a bigger fraud than Harold Hill from The Music Man. Reich's brain might be more cooked than a package of hot dogs left out on a Phoenician sidewalk, but I do like Canales!

He seems to be an ascending coach, one who chose to leave Tampa for Charlotte for the opportunity of a lifetime to coach Bryce Young. Although Young is clearly a trailer as opposed to a tractor at the quarterback position, he does possess a little bit of that special magic that made Mayfield so great in college at Oklahoma, and at times in the NFL, prior to truly finding himself with the Buccaneers of late.

Overall, Canales had to have known that he would be put in several awkward positions upon being named the next head coach of the Panthers. No other NFL team seemed to be all that interested in hiring him to be their head coah. The same principle applied to another hotshot coordinator a few years ago in Mike McDaniel. Could Canales be the NFC equivalent of the Miami Dolphins head coach?

The only way this is going to work out for Canales in Charlotte is that Young has to play way better.