CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When it comes to quarterback comparisons and Bryce Young, the Panthers have 30 years worth of players to choose from.

There were many times, especially in that 2-15 rookie season, that Young looked to me like another unfortunate version of Jimmy Clausen: Jittery and overwhelmed. There have been a few times that he’s resembled Cam Newton, as in when he threw that no-look touchdown pass into the end zone late last year.

But I’ve now settled on the truest Panther comp for Young, and it’s a compliment to him and the way he’s playing in this surprising 3-3 start for the Panthers.

Who’s the player?

Baker Mayfield.

Not “Panthers Baker,” because that experiment (owing partly to Matt Rhule, then the team’s head coach) was catastrophic. I’m talking about “Bucs Baker” — the swashbuckling quarterback that just keeps winning in Tampa Bay and now sits third in the 2025 NFL Most Valuable Player odds, trailing only superstars Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.

Young and Mayfield are vertically-challenged former No. 1 overall picks who won the Heisman Trophy in college, then experienced numerous ups and downs in the pros without ever wavering in the belief that they were pretty damn good.

Mayfield is certainly further along in his NFL journey than Young, and he’ll always have a brasher personality. But I’d argue that what we’re seeing now from Young is very similar to the sort of play Mayfield has produced in Tampa the past three seasons.

Did you catch Sunday, for instance? Young led his second consecutive game-winning drive, this one against Dallas, running off the final 6:07 of the clock to set up a game-winning field goal as the clock struck 0:00. Carolina 30, Dallas 27. Cue “Sweet Caroline.”

Only the week before, Young had led another comeback, producing a monstrous fourth-down throw to a little-used receiver to win the game against Miami. Then it was rookie Jimmy Horn Jr. On Sunday, it was veteran Hunter Renfrow, who hadn’t caught a pass the entire game.

Mayfield, meanwhile, made one of the most amazing runs on third-and-14 that you’ll ever see in a win Sunday against San Francisco while catapulting Tampa Bay to a 5-1 record and once again in control of the NFC South (Carolina sits in second place). But more than that scramble, what Mayfield did with the Bucs receivers on the field was remarkable.

By the end of the game, every big-time receiver Mayfield has was out due to injury. No Mike Evans. No Emeka Egbuka. No Chris Godwin.

Nevertheless, slinging the ball around to a bunch of no-names, Mayfield willed the Bucs to a 30-19 win over the 49ers, throwing for 256 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

On Monday, I asked Panthers coach Dave Canales — whose good work with Mayfield in 2023 as Tampa’s offensive coordinator helped propel him to the Carolina head job in 2024 — what sort of similarities he sees in the way Mayfield and Young are playing at the moment.

“Probably the biggest similarity would just be belief,” Canales said. “Belief and confidence. It’s the return to the sideline after a touchdown — or after an interception — and it’s the refocus. It’s the return to, like, ‘All right, we’ve got more football,’ and just having that type of mentality where: ‘But the next play could be a touchdown.’

It’s that trait, Canales continued, that allows him to not have to baby his quarterback.

“That (belief) makes me feel confident that I can just continue to call the game that’s supposed to be called,” the coach said, “versus having to make adjustments based on what the quarterback feels. And Bryce gives me confidence to just call whatever’s on the sheet for whatever the area is, and we can just build from there.”

Young is currently playing the best ball he ever has in his NFL career, especially in Charlotte. But what he hasn’t done yet at all is win on the road. He’s currently 1-15 as a starter away from home, which is tied for the worst any QB has ever done through his first 16 road starts.

So while playing at the New York Jets (0-6) may not seem like much of a challenge on paper Sunday, in fact it will be for Young and the Panthers, who are 3-0 at home but 0-3 on the road this season.

That is the sort of challenge Mayfield has successfully met over and over in the past three seasons. You could write a book not many people would want to read about everything that went wrong for the Panthers in 2022, when they employed two NFL-caliber starting quarterbacks in Mayfield and current Seattle starter Sam Darnold and let them both slip away. (Darnold, to me, doesn’t play at all the same way Young does. His taller, brawnier build is much more standard issue for NFL QBs, allowing him to stand in the pocket and not have to move around as much as Mayfield and Young do).

The short version of why Mayfield didn’t make it here is this: He went 1-5 as a starter. He turned the ball over too much. He got little help from Rhule and his staff in terms of offensive creativity.

One Panthers source with direct knowledge of the team’s inner workings in 2022 told me earlier this year in a piece about why both Mayfield and Darnold succeeded elsewhere but not in Charlotte: “The environment on the football side wasn’t set up for success, no matter how talented the players were.”

Another source once told that there was a train of thought inside the Panthers locker room that Mayfield in particular was used incorrectly, too often throwing from a stagnant pocket as Carolina didn’t utilize the movement and shifts that had been so effective for him in Cleveland. (It should also be noted that Rhule has succeeded once he left Carolina, too, rebuilding the Nebraska football program and now in serious contention for the vacant Penn State head coaching job).

By halfway through the 2022 season, Rhule had been fired by owner David Tepper , interim head coach Steve Wilks had been installed and Mayfield (after famously taking a few snaps at defensive line for the scout team at one practice) had asked for and had been granted his release. He was quickly picked up by the L.A. Rams, won a nationally-televised game just two days later for them and began Mayfield’s redemptive arc.

Will Young ever generate as many wins or headlines as Mayfield has? It’s impossible to say as of yet. Mayfield, remember, has a five-year head start on his pro career. He entered the NFL in 2018, while Young started his in 2023.

But at least we can see there’s a possibility of that now.

The Panthers obviously made huge mistakes with Mayfield, all the way around.

With Young, they must not repeat them.

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