Bryce Young couldn't help but notice. 

One of the other quarterbacks taken in the same 2023 NFL Draft, CJ Stroud, has enjoyed success that Young hasn't thus far. Young admits he watches. He said he roots for Stroud. But he isn't doing too much comparison. At least not yet, anyway.

“For me, I’m big on kinda running my own race,” Young said. “We’re all kinda super supportive of each other within. With him, he’d say the same thing. We’re all supportive and just wanna see each other shine. I have to focus on myself and tryin’ to be better and improving. And to do that, I have to put energy into myself, and I have to earn that right.

“But at the same time, I’m always rootin’ for him. Again, it’s great to see. But I just try to run my own race. For whatever reason is going on, I try to control what I can control.” 

Stroud has significantly outplayed Young through the first four weeks of the NFL season. 

He was recently named offensive rookie of the month, and he has the Houston Texans sitting at 2-2, while he threw for 1,212 yards, six touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

Young has been on the opposite end of the instant success spectrum. In three starts, the No. 1 overall pick has 503 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. The worst stat of all: The Panthers are winless. 

And could Panthers coach Frank Reich be feeling a bit of remorse for the team's draft night selection? He recently admitted to watching Stroud and Anthony Richardson from week to week. He said it is because he is a quarterback guy, which is fair. But one has to wonder if he isn't wishing he had one of the two bigger quarterbacks as opposed to Young. 

"I do this every year," Reich said. "I’m not just doing it because we drafted a quarterback. This is because I’m an offensive quarterback guy, and I always evaluate the quarterbacks when they’re playing, like up towards the end of the week, when all the game-planning is done, I’ll pop on all their throws from the previous game. Just buzz through it. See what they look like, what are they doing?

“And like I said, as a coach, we know what we wanna do. But it’s not like we’re closed off to somebody else doing something that could help us. And maybe there’s an idea. Maybe there’s an idea. Maybe there’s not. But we’re always open to learning and getting better.”

It's hard not to compare Young to Stroud or Richardson. He was drafted before them, yet he's had the least amount of success after one month of regular-season football. The jury is still out on who will have a better career. However, if all the Panthers coaches were forced to drink truth serum, how many would say they still feel strongly that Young is the best out of the three? Probably not many. 

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