On eve of NFL Draft, Panthers and Bryce Young sound like they’ll try to grow together

Bryce Young laughed Wednesday when I asked him a question he’s been asked, in one form or another, for most of his life.

It was about his height. Young is the presumptive No. 1 pick in Thursday night’s NFL Draft, as well as the next Carolina Panthers quarterback. He’s also 5-foot-10.

“I focus only on what I can control,” Young said on the eve of the draft as we stood on a high school football field in Kansas City. “I can’t grow.”

The Panthers have apparently made their peace with Young’s height. It is expected that Carolina will take Young, the former Alabama quarterback, at No. 1 on Thursday. He will walk across a giant stage set up in downtown Kansas City and then, soon, into Charlotte and toward a franchise that is desperate for another star quarterback.

When you’re in Kansas City, the shadow of Patrick Mahomes is everywhere. His smiling face and his jersey are omnipresent, which is what happens when you win the Super Bowl or else narrowly miss doing so just about every year.

The Panthers had that once. In the mid-2010s, they made the playoffs four times in a five-year stretch and got to the Super Bowl once. They had their own charismatic star at quarterback in Cam Newton, and he made Carolina’s engine go.

But Newton got hurt midway through the 2018 season and everything slowly disintegrated after that. The Panthers made a bold move in March trying to change all that, trading up from the ninth pick to the No. 1 pick to find their QB of the future.

So Young better be worth it.

Or if it’s not Young and this has all been a heck of a smokescreen by the Panthers, Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, Kentucky’s Will Levis or Florida’s Anthony Richardson better be worth it. You don’t give up four high draft picks and your best wide receiver to pick another Sam Darnold or Baker Mayfield. You do it in search of the next Mahomes.

I had never met Young until Wednesday. When I introduced myself as being from The Charlotte Observer, he grinned a Cheshire cat sort of grin, but then denied the Panthers had told him they were picking him at No. 1.

“No, no, I haven’t heard anything, from any team,” Young said. “I don’t have any expectations. ... Where I get picked and what happens, I don’t have a say in that.”

Stroud was originally the betting favorite for the Panthers’ No. 1 pick after Carolina made its big trade in March, owing partly for new coach Frank Reich’s penchant for starting QBs that are 6-foot-3 or taller. But things seem to have changed over the past several weeks, and Stroud sounded doubtful Wednesday that the Panthers were going to pick him.

“If you had asked me a couple of months ago, I probably would have had a different answer for you,” Stroud said.

Kentucky’s Levis suddenly became the second betting favorite behind Young by some oddsmakers this week, owing largely to an anonymous Reddit post claiming that Levis had told family and friends the Panthers were going to choose him.

“All I have to say is don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Levis said Wednesday.

Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer made a point last week of saying that Young had only two balls batted down at the line of scrimmage in his final season at Alabama.

In the SEC, Young was able to move in the pocket and find throwing lanes against a lot of elite defenders who will join him in the NFL. Much like Steph Curry did at Davidson and then in the NBA, he has long compensated for his lack of ideal height for the position he plays.

“I’m myself,” said Young, who is at least five inches shorter than Stroud, Levis and Richardson. “I know who I am. I’m comfortable in my abilities. … I’ve been this height, relative to the people around me, for my entire life.”

When I saw Young get off a bus with a half-dozen other future No. 1 draft picks, he did look small. And compared to Newton, a giant of a QB at 6-5 and 245 pounds, Young looks very small.

“I can’t get any taller,” Young said several times Wednesday.

But the two men had similar success in college, both winning the Heisman Trophy. Young was asked if he would be OK going to the same franchise that Newton starred for, given that at least in Alabama terms, Newton went to the “wrong” school.

“I have the utmost respect for Cam Newton,” Young said. “Him being able to come in and have the success he had, being the MVP, playing at such a high level, getting to the Super Bowl … all the stuff he does in the community. So all of that Alabama-Auburn aside, obviously that would be a huge honor.”

All of Young’s answers are sort of like that one. He’s polished in front of a camera and will be comfortable as the face of the franchise. And he can play, too — there’s no doubt of that. The question to me is durability — if he can stay healthy.

But if he can, the trade will be worth it, the Panthers will be worth it, and Charlotte may one day even feel like Kansas City does right now.

Young can’t grow. That’s true. But he does have the ability to elevate, and that’s what he must do for the Panthers.