Pete Prisco's Bryce Young Take After Crushing Loss Shows How Far We've Come

Two things can be true at once: the Carolina Panthers got outclassed in every way by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Bryce Young had his worst start of the season. The two facts are undeniably related, but they're both true statements.

In the past, Young would've been blamed for the disaster. Why did he fumble and throw two interceptions? That's probably why they lost, right?

That was the running narrative for Young's first three years. If the Panthers lost, it was because they didn't have a good quarterback. Now, though, it's abundantly obvious that they do have a good quarterback.

So, while the temptation to blame the quarterback is there, even Pete Prisco, who notably has been slow to praise Young ever, believes it wasn't Young's fault in particular.

Pete Prisco refuses to blame Bryce Young for ugly loss

Pete Prisco admitted earlier this year that he was wrong about Bryce Young and that he deserved to be in the MVP conversation. It was honestly the first bit of praise for either Young or the Panthers from the CBS analyst in a long time.

Until Sunday's contest, Prisco had picked the Panthers to lose every single matchup. He was wrong this time, so perhaps he'll be back to it, but obviously, he's never been a big fan of the Panthers or Young. Even he can't deny how bad the team failed on Sunday.

Prisco said, "I'm not going to sit here and blame that loss on Bryce Young. By no means was that on him... He didn't play well, he threw interceptions, but the bottom line is, that was a team loss."

The analyst rightfully took aim at the Panthers' run defense, which was once again porous. "You can't play and win playing that style of football," he said.

Young, as Prisco said, was not great, but things got out of hand almost immediately. Bad protection by Robert Hunt led to the fumble returned for a touchdown that made it 17-0. From then on, the Buccaneers knew he would have to pass.

He managed to hit Darren Waller for a 50-yard touchdown to spark some hope, but the special teams allowed a blocked PAT to be returned for two points, deflating things even further.

From then on, the stout Tampa defense knew what the Panthers had to do, so they pinned their ears back and went after Young to the tune of five sacks. By that point, the game was over, so Young's mistakes didn't really cost them the game.

He'll tell you he needs to be better. He does, and he has been this year. But Sunday's ugly showing was more than a QB problem. It was an organizational failure from the top down.

The silver lining to this loss is that it isn't coming with calls for Young to be benched. Everyone seems to be in agreement that of all the things going wrong for Carolina this year, quarterback isn't one. How far we've come.