What Panthers’ Frank Reich said about play of Bryce Young, offense in loss vs. Bears

The Carolina Panthers are 1-8 and still searching for answers.

Following a 16-13 nationally televised loss to the Chicago Bears (3-7) on Thursday, Panthers head coach Frank Reich failed to hide his frustrations with his team’s growing list of letdowns.

“Today was not a question of beating ourselves,” Reich said. “We just didn’t execute as well as we needed to execute to win a football game. So we got to own that and keep working at it. I believe we have the players and coaches to get that done. You know, players have a long weekend, then we’ll come back in here next week and get ready to go.”

The Panthers’ offense, in particular, failed to execute against the 28th-ranked passing defense, as Chicago limited rookie quarterback Bryce Young to 185 yards with a 55.3% completion percentage. Young and the offense were responsible for just six points, as the lone touchdown of the night for Carolina came on a punt return by wideout Ihmir Smith-Marsette.

Young was sacked three times, hit nine times and had multiple passes dropped. Reich was asked about the impact those struggles — which pop up weekly — could have on the rookie’s confidence.

“I’m not worried about Bryce’s confidence,” Reich said. “I think he is mentally tougher than a lot of rookie quarterbacks. ... I see aggressiveness. I see resolve. I see determination. I feel like he’s taking ownership of it. He’s taken probably more ownership than he should because it’s a group effort.”

Reich touched on several other topics following the game. Below are some highlights:

No solution in sight for the offense?

“All I would say is we’re not — we’re not scoring points on offense. We got to be better. I believe we will be better. Yeah, I mean, that’s how I feel. Listen, when we say — I don’t think we have any unrealistic expectations. It’s not like we’re saying — we’ve talked about it before. Scoring is down.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to play well enough to win football games. That’s what I’m concerned about: winning. I’m not worried about how many yards or what the stats are. I’m concerned about playing winning football. I don’t want to get caught up in the stats. I want to get caught up in winning. We’ve had too many close games where if we play a little to focus on how many yards or what the run/pass ratio is. Those are all fair questions. Ask away. For us right now it’s just making plays to win football games.”

On Bryce Young’s performance

“He made a couple key fourth-down conversions, made some good plays in the clutch to kind of keep us in it and give us a chance at the end. ... But I thought he did some good things. I thought he did some good things today. I really did. You know, we have to be better. It’s so easy to put it all on the quarterback and it’s just not the case. We all have to be better.”

The offensive line’s weekly struggles

“I don’t think there is any one thing. Obviously the protection has to be better. I think there (are) multiple things that go into that. We’re always evaluating all those. First of all, evaluate each individual one, how we’re picking up games and stunts. You evaluate the situations we’re in, the teams we’re playing. You always evaluate every aspect of it.”

Why Reich is confident in the team and the staff

“Bunch of close games that you look back at and you say, we make one play or two plays here, and I know we can make those plays. So that’s where it stems from.”

Potential staff shake-up during the weekend or beyond

“No. There has been no thought to that.”