Bryce Young has gone from barely on the MVP board to at least making people look twice.
Kalshi currently lists Young at 2% to win NFL MVP, a number that was below 1% before Sunday night’s 32-26 win over Detroit. That still doesn’t make him a favorite, or even close. But after four games, it’s hard to ignore what he’s putting on tape.
Young threw for 329 yards and two touchdowns against the Lions, adding another strong performance to a four-week stretch that has steadily built into something real. He opened the season with 361 yards and three touchdowns against Chicago, followed that with 287 yards and three scores against Atlanta, then posted 291 yards against Cleveland before the Detroit game. Through four games, he has 1,268 passing yards and nine touchdown passes.
The bigger change might be the way those numbers feel. There hasn’t been a game yet where Young walked off and looked like the reason Carolina lost, and that wasn’t always true before.
Early in the season, it was easy to keep moving the goalposts - one good game, then waiting for the next one, then waiting again. After Chicago, the Panthers lost, so the performance felt unfinished.
He answered against Atlanta. Then came Cleveland.
Then Detroit, on Sunday Night Football, with no turnovers and another big night.
That doesn’t make him an MVP lock. It doesn’t even put him in the top three right now.
But it does mean the conversation has changed. At some point, a month of quality football stops being a tease and starts being the story.
Still, the team context matters. Carolina is 2-2, and it’s tough to picture an MVP coming from a club that finishes 8-9 or 9-8. If Young is going to force his way into the race, the Panthers need far more wins to go with the production.
That’s why the next stretch matters, especially Philadelphia after the bye. A month ago, the idea of Young going into Philadelphia and throwing for 300 yards and winning probably would’ve been easy to dismiss.
Now it’s at least worth watching. If he does it again there - especially if Carolina wins - that 2% starts looking awfully thin.
The MVP chants on Sunday night drew a quick reality check: it’s only four games into the season, and nobody is handing out the award in October. But Panthers fans have been waiting a long time for quarterback play worth getting excited about. Right now, they’ve got a quarterback stacking 300-yard nights and beating Detroit on prime time.
Kalshi still says 2%. That’s not a prediction worth betting on. But it’s no longer something to shrug off, either.
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For Carolina, the broader picture still matters because the division keeps shifting around the quarterback spot, and Saints rookie Tyler Shough is now the latest voice acknowledging how quickly fan patience can wear thin after a loss to Atlanta. He also pointed to the importance of crowd energy in the games ahead, a reminder that the mood inside the dome can still travel with a team even when the results on the field are hard to take. [Read more 🡒]