Panthers don't want to trade Bryce Young, and it actually makes sense

It seems safe to say that, just over one year after taking the quarterback No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft, the Bryce Young Era is officially over in Carolina. It's tough to imagine the Panthers turning back to Young as starter at any point; he seemed to be getting worse with each passing game, and any effort to pin his struggles on the supporting cast around him went out the window after Andy Dalton shredded the Las Vegas Raiders with that very same supporting cast in Week 3. All that's left now is to cut bait and figure out what's next.

And yet, despite the writing being very much on the wall, the Panthers don't seem to be in any rush to send Young elsewhere. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported last week that Carolina had no interest in trading him, and FOX's Jay Glazer added that the team had already shot down several offers in the days since his benching.

You might take this to believe that, in spite of everything we've seen to this point, Young remains in the Panthers' long-term plans—this is just a reset that Carolina hopes will help him come back stronger down the road. But it looks as though there's another, simpler explanation behind this impasse: The Panthers haven't traded Young because his value around the league is shockingly low.

Bryce Young's trade value appears to be in the basement right now

Per The Athletic's Mike Jones, NFL teams aren't viewing Young as a talented player who just needs a change of scenery. "The consensus around the NFL is that although he went first overall in 2023, Young's value on the trade market is a Day-3 draft pick," Jones reports, adding that "a fourth-round pick seems like the most value Carolina could command if team officials decided to trade Young."

If true, that's a pretty staggering state of affairs. This is a league so desperate for quarterback play that it's willing to take a shot on anyone who's shown even a glimmer of promise, no matter how faint and no matter how long ago. The Arizona Cardinals landed a second- and fifth-rounder when they dealt Josh Rosen to the Miami Dolphins back in 2019; heck, the Dallas Cowboys sent a fourth-rounder to the San Francisco 49ers for Trey Lance last August, despite Lance having made just four starts in his first two seasons in the league.

That Young's value is even lower than Rosen's speaks volumes about how he's seen around the NFL, and it helps explain why the Panthers are reticent to cut bait. It's hard to imagine that Young's market will ever be colder than it is right now. Again, this is and will remain a QB-desperate league; all it takes is one injury or unforeseen dip for a team to get desperate and start looking around for any remotely viable options.

Carolina can cash in that Day 3 pick at just about any time, and for as well as he played last week, it's not like Dalton represents a long-term answer at the position. With Young under contract for at least the next two seasons, why not hold on to him and see whether his value — or even his play — improves from here?

That might create a bit of an awkward situation in the locker room, but so did watching Young be non-competitive on a weekly basis, and to the young QB's credit, he seems to be doing and saying all the right things publicly. From an asset-management standpoint, refusing to sell at Young's lowest point makes plenty of sense.