‘That’s single-handedly on me.’ Bryce Young shoulders mistake that defines Panthers’ loss

Bryce Young brought up the play on his own.

You know which play. The brutal one. The one that unfolded in the middle of the third quarter, with Carolina up 13-7 and moving down the Bank of America Stadium turf with unprecedented aplomb. The one that, if only disaster was avoided, could’ve extended Carolina’s lead to two scores and kept the team on the path to avoid going 0-4 for the first time since 2010.

The one that began with Young running for his life in the backfield, and then turned bad after he lost it on a strip sack, and then turned catastrophic when DJ Wonnum scooped up the fumble and ran it in for a game-changing score.

Yes, that play.

Young mentioned it himself.

“Turning the ball over is something we talk about a lot,” Young told reporters at the podium about a half-hour after the final whistle of the 21-13 loss, still in his shoulder pads, despondent. “That was a huge, huge, huge swing of the game. Again, that’s solely, single-handedly on me. That’s no one else but me.”

The rookie quarterback and overall No. 1 pick had a great day up until that point. It was surely his best game as a pro: He finished 25 of 32 for 204 yards — career highs in completions and yards — and didn’t throw an interception. He also connected on a few deep attempts, including a 22-yard strike to Adam Thielen and an 18-yarder to DJ Chark. (Those may not be the real deep shots Panthers fans have been clamoring for — the closest that came was a toss-up to Chark that drew an illegal contact penalty — but they’re something nonetheless.)

But what Sunday will be remembered for will be the third quarter fumble and plays like it. Young was sacked five times on Sunday for 55 yards. All of the sacks came in the second half, and two came from safety Harrison Smith in the final three plays — one that forced a third-and-18 and the other that effectively ended the game.

And not only will Young remember Sunday for those plays — he decided to take the blame for them, too.

“We talked about it and had plans for it, and I didn’t do a good enough job of executing that, whether it’s getting the ball out of my hands when they are bringing too many we can block, or when it is blockable looks, making sure we’re getting to the right people, things like that,” Young said. “I have to do a better job of communicating, executing. Again, credit goes to them. They did a great job.

“But it was stuff that we had prepared for... I didn’t do enough to make sure that we executed and were on the same page. That’s my job. That’s on me.”

No one else shied away from taking responsibility. Take Miles Sanders, for instance. Carolina’s rushing offense only notched 83 yards on 31 attempts, and its longest play run was for seven yards.

Sanders, in fact, thought Young played well, all things considered.

“He’s doing everything he can to escape the pocket and still keep his eyes down field,” Sanders said, adding, “We gotta do better on the scramble drill, all types of stuff. All over, on offense, we just need to be better.”

Head coach Frank Reich didn’t shy away, either. “I’m the head coach,” he said about the 0-4 start before adding that it’s “my responsibility to get the team to play better.”

Thielen, who tallied seven receptions for 56 yards in a contest against his old team, defended his quarterback. Thielen knows that wins are determined at the margins in the NFL, and that single plays can change everything.

“Man, I love that guy and he has got such a bright future,” Thielen said of Young. “I’m thankful for him and just want him to know that this is a tough league. That’s just how it is. It’s tough and you just have to keep fighting. I have so much confidence in him and so much respect for him, this offense and this team. It doesn’t make it feel any better, but that’s just what I was telling him.”

Members of the offensive line took accountability, too — answering a familiar line of questioning.

“We gotta be better,” center Bradley Bozeman said. “It’s unacceptable. We’re just going to continue to work to keep him upright, not let him get touched. I think we started off pretty decent, but we didn’t maintain. So we just gotta continue to work on that, make him feel comfortable back there and give him all the time in the world.”

It’s difficult to resist hyperbole in moments like this. The Panthers are without a bunch of veteran talent and leadership on defense. They’re struggling on offense. It appeared like more than half of the stadium was Minnesota Viking purple; they started their trademarked SKOL chant in the final seconds of the fourth quarter while Panthers fans headed for the exits.

Carolina is now one of two winless teams (the other is Chicago) in the NFL. Young feels that the most — the quarterback who’s a few plays (or perhaps one play) away from taking credit instead of absorbing blame.

Absorbing blame hurts more. For everyone.

But give Young credit: He did it anyway.

“It’s tough right now,” Young said. “We all care a lot. We’re all passionate. There are multiple things that I could have done better that I have to improve one and keep getting better at. All I can do now is put my head down and try to keep working.”