Bryce Young Facing A Make-Or-Break Season
Fantasy

Bryce Young Facing A Make-Or-Break Season

Ian Hartitz analyzes the ceiling for QB Bryce Young for fantasy football during the 2026 NFL season.

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The flashes are what get you with Bryce Young, and they remind you why this QB went first overall in the 2023 NFL Draft. A 448-yard, 3-TD performance in a Week 11 30-27 OT victory over the Falcons is just one example of what could be. But can he put more solid-to-great performances together to become more than a bench stash in fantasy football? Ian Hartitz breaks it down as part of his Carolina Panthers Team Preview.

Does Bryce Young *really* have a ceiling in fantasy land?

It's tough to paint too pretty a picture based on the returns through three seasons: Young worked as the QB29 (9.8 fantasy points per game) as a rookie, QB24 (13.9) in 2024 and QB25 (13.6) in 2025. There have been high-end flashes—usually against the Falcons—but it's just been tough to get too much upside out of someone who has struggled to clear even 3,000 passing yards annually.

This begs a different question: Is there reason to believe Young can ascend to new heights in 2026? After all, he caught fire down the stretch of 2024 upon getting his starting job back after Andy Dalton got in a car crash (crazy!), and we aren't exactly dealing with an older quarterback here (Young turns 25 in July). The Panthers have generally deployed average-to-bad supporting casts around him. The dude can scoot, his deep-ball advanced metrics are up there with anyone, and at his best, Young deploys Prestige-level magician ability when the play breaks down.

But man, it REALLY seems like we're doing some heavy lifting to paint a picture of optimism here. Just look at Young's ranks among 59 quarterbacks during their respective first three seasons since 2000 (min. 30 starts):

  • Passing success rate: 39.7% (53rd)
  • Yards per attempt: 6 (55th)
  • Yards per game: 180.2 (50th)
  • Touchdown rate: 3.5% (47th)
  • Passer rating: 80.9 (41st)
  • Sack rate: 7.8% (50th)

If Young is really poised to be a great quarterback … why don't any stats that we overly care about reflect that? Even the aforementioned deep-ball success is a bit tough to hang your hat on considering the year-to-year volatility with those sorts of stats (Young ranked 16th in PFF passing grade and 38th in yards per attempt when throwing deep during his first two seasons).

Ultimately, I'm cool throwing a LATE-round dart at Young–I'm the highest Fantasy Life ranker at QB24–but he's only really preferable to guys with major questions regarding how many starts they'll actually have (Geno Smith, Fernando Mendoza, Jacoby Brissett) and fellow young signal-callers with #bad numbers like Cam Ward. Could Young take another step forward and work out? Sure, but based on our initial three-year sample: It's really tough to be overly optimistic about that outcome.

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. Bryce Young
    BryceYoung
    QBCARCAR
    PPG
    14.3
    Proj
    242.6

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