Ask me who the Panthers' most indispensable player is, and Bryce Young is probably the answer I'm supposed to give. He's playing the best football of his career, this offense finally looks like it knows what it wants to be, and we've already seen what happens when Carolina doesn't have the quarterback position figured out.
And believe me, I don't want to see what this team looks like without Young right now.
Tetairoa McMillan would be right there for me, too. He already has 385 receiving yards through four games and just put up 14 catches, 192 yards, and two touchdowns against Detroit. I've gotten to the point pretty quickly where when Young throws one up to McMillan, I'm almost expecting him to come down with it.
Then there's Chuba Hubbard, who I think sometimes gets lost in these conversations because he isn't the shiny new toy. But watch what happens to this offense when Hubbard gets rolling. Young doesn't have to do everything, defenses can't just come after him, and Carolina can actually control a game a little bit.
So I get it if you pick any of those three. If somebody tells me Young is the answer, I'm not going to spend 20 minutes telling them they're wrong.
But he's not my answer.
The player Carolina really can't afford to lose
Give me Devin Lloyd.
Before you tell me I've lost my mind, I'm not saying Lloyd is better than Young. I'm definitely not saying I'd rather build a football team around a linebacker than a quarterback. I'm looking at this Panthers team right now and asking myself which player I'd be most nervous about losing.
For me, it's Lloyd, and I think that probably says as much about this defense as it does about him.
I still don't know what to make of this defense. Carolina is giving up 387.2 yards per game, the pass rush hasn't consistently gotten home, and Jared Goff just threw for 412 yards against them. There have been drives where I've sat there wondering if they're ever going to get off the field.
Somehow, they keep finding a way.
The Panthers have eight takeaways through four games and five fourth-down stops. They held Atlanta to three points, Cleveland scored 21, and Detroit piled up 452 yards before Carolina finally made the stop it needed at the end. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's always pretty because it definitely isn't.
That's where Lloyd comes into this for me. In the three games he's played, he has 31 tackles, two interceptions, and a sack. Against Atlanta, he had nine tackles, two interceptions, a sack, and took one of those interceptions back for a touchdown.
That wasn't just a good game. Dave Canales said afterward that he didn't know if he'd seen a better performance from a linebacker in 17 years of coaching in the NFL.
And yeah, I know Carolina already played without Lloyd once. He missed the Cleveland game with a calf injury, and the defense didn't completely fall apart. The Browns scored 21 points, and Bobby Okereke and Tyrel Dodson gave Carolina two experienced linebackers to lean on.
But I also watched Lloyd come back against Detroit, play every defensive snap, and finish with nine tackles. He even chased down Detroit's fourth-down hook-and-lateral to kill a scoring chance. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
He's become one of those players I find myself watching when Carolina needs something. Maybe it's a third down, maybe the other team is driving, or maybe the defense just needs somebody to make a play before things start getting away from them. More and more, I expect Lloyd to be somewhere around it.
Maybe that's why I look at “best player” and “most indispensable player” a little differently. If you ask me who Carolina's best player has been through four games, I might say Young. McMillan would be right there, and I wouldn't argue much if somebody picked him.
But this isn't about who I'd take first in a draft. It's about the player I'd be most nervous about losing right now.
I didn't expect my answer to be a linebacker.
Devin Lloyd is just that good.
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