Bryce Young’s latest spotlight moment had nothing to do with a spiral or a stat line. On Monday night, the Panthers quarterback got ambushed by nostalgia on ESPN’s Monday Night Football ManningCast, where Peyton and Eli Manning pulled up a vintage photo that caught him completely off guard.
The image showed Young as a middle-schooler at a youth football camp, standing next to Kliff Kingsbury. The reveal got an immediate reaction from the broadcast crew, and Young couldn’t hide his surprise when the brothers dug that far back into the archives.
"Where are you all getting these clips from?"
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) October 13, 2026
Bryce Young is shocked Peyton and Eli have this photo of him in middle school 😭 pic.twitter.com/h3k7zXlv64
“Where are you all getting these clips from?” Young exclaimed.
It was a quick, funny detour from the kind of attention Young has earned lately for what he’s doing on the field. He went into Carolina’s Week 5 bye leading the league with 1,268 passing yards through four games. He’s also thrown nine touchdowns against two interceptions, while posting a 100.0 passer rating and 7.8 yards per attempt.
That production has helped put him firmly in the NFL conversation, and it’s been coming in spite of injuries around him. Young kept rolling in Carolina’s most recent game, throwing for 329 yards and two touchdowns without a turnover in a win over the Detroit Lions.
The Panthers are 2-2 after a choppy start, but Young’s growth has been one of the brighter stories in the league this season. On this night, though, the quarterback’s biggest challenge was simply surviving the Mannings’ teasing-and he handled that part just fine.
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Dave Canales Used The Bye Week To Address A Panthers Concern
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The timing matters, too, because Carolina comes out of the break with the Eagles next on the schedule. Canales referenced the kinds of controversial calls made by Nick Sirianni and Dan Quinn that altered outcomes for their teams, a reminder that late-game choices can shape far more than the final minute. For a Panthers team that has shown enough to lead the division but still has plenty to clean up, the bye became a chance to stress how quickly those decisions can turn a good week into a frustrating one. [Read more 🡒]