Cat Scratch Reader
Carolina Panthers general manager Dan Morgan confirmed the team’s long rumored plan to exercise Bryce Young’s fifth year option in a press conference this morning. Young, who has generated considerably mixed opinions from fans due to his low production and inconsistent play, will be under contract for the Carolina Panthers through the 2027 season.
Filing the paperwork at this point is a formality. The fifth year option will not affect cap space for the 2026 season unless the team decides to build upon the option and sign Young to a long term extension. An extension seems unlikely based on Morgan’s language this morning. The team has until May 1st of this year to formally exercise the option.
The fifth year option price tag is calculated according to a scale set forth in the 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association. The tiers and their payment requirements are as follows, per overthecap.com:
Young qualifies for the playtime tier as he has played in both 50% or greater of all Panthers snaps over his past three seasons and 75% or greater of the same across two of his three seasons. As you can see, this could have been a much harder decision if Young had earned a Pro Bowl nod.
Simply put, yes, exercising Young’s fifth year option is the right call. That’s probably true even if the Panthers aren’t hopeful that he will keep improving year over year. The $26M cap figure he will carry into the 2027 season would be good for the 15th highest cap hit for a quarterback in 2026 and the 18th (so far) for the 2027 season. That gets bumped down further by any number of potential events, such as anybody signing a long term extension, Bo Nix making a Pro Bowl, or Philip Rivers returning from retirement.
The fact of the matter is that the Panthers are not upgrading from Young for less money. Add on to that the fact that he is heading into year three under Canales, he just posted a career year in most statistics, and he just completed that career year behind an offensive line that was constantly in flux due to injury. From the team’s perspective, they are keeping a guy under contract at a reasonable rate who they are high on and have some reason to believe has not yet his his ceiling. That $26M cap figure is also not so much that they can’t keep Young and draft his replacement in 2027 in the event that the wheels fall spectacularly off his wagon.
Let’s take a look at the other directions they could have pursued with Young:
The team could have chosen to decline Young’s fifth year option, citing a lack of significant...
