Bryce Young, Tommy Tremble and a connection worth savoring for Carolina Panthers
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It is bizarre to think that a 281-yard, two-touchdown, zero-turnover game from Bryce Young seems fairly ho-hum nowadays, but here we are.
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Young’s performance in Carolina’s gritty, 25-14 win over Philadelphia Sunday would have been thought of as spectacular in his first three NFL seasons but has become commonplace in 2026.
Consider this: If you search for Young’s top 10 regular-season passing yardage games, all five of this year’s performances make the list.
In fact, Sunday’s game was technically his worst of the five. Nevertheless, Young is the first player in franchise history to throw for 280+ yards and at least one touchdown in his first five games of the season. Only Drew Brees (5 games) and Peyton Manning (10), both in 2013, have started a season by doing that in recent years.
“That man should be winning MVP,” Panthers tight end Tommy Tremble said of Young Sunday. “He’s the best quarterback in the league, man. He’s balling.”
Tremble had good reason for such high praise Sunday, as both of Young’s TD passes went to him.
On the first one, a 12-yarder, Tremble celebrated afterward in the end zone with wide receiver Jalen Coker in a homage to “Rocky,” a movie and character he has long loved (he says the best one is actually “Rocky IV”; feel free to discuss among yourselves).
Tremble pantomimed throwing punches at Coker, then “knocked” his teammate out with an uppercut.
Had Coker scored, Tremble would have been the boxer who got knocked out. He and Coker came up with this plan on the fly before the game at Lincoln Financial Field, which incidentally was the exact same place that the Charlotte 49ers had gotten their first win of the season (over Temple, 38-31) the day before.
Elite Rocky Celly in Philly. https://t.co/IQrIyYP3oR
Tremble’s first TD celebration was all in good fun. His second celebration was not. After snookering the Eagles defense, he found himself wide open and hauled in Young’s throw. Then he taunted Eagles defensive back Cooper DeJean, who on a play earlier in the drive had flipped Carolina tight end Mitchell Evans up in the air like he was in WWE and had drawn a 15-yard penalty for doing so.
“It was kind of not that cool for him to do that to Mitch,” Tremble said of DeJean. “In the heat of the moment, stuff happens, and I’ll be paying that fine probably next week.”
DeJean told reporters afterward that he was just trying to get Evans off his back by standing up. Said DeJean: “He was trying to put me to the ground and was trying to walk over me as I was still standing up…. Obviously I didn’t want him to do that.”
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Tremble’s post-TD taunt provided 15 of the 149 penalty yards the Panthers rolled up, which set a dubious franchise record. Carolina coach Dave Canales called the amount of penalties “outrageous” in his postgame press conference and said he didn’t have a problem with any of the calls, only with the fact that the Panthers just kept committing penalties.
For most of the past decade, the Panthers (3-2) never could have survived a game in which they got called for a football-field-and-a-half worth of penalties. But this year’s team won anyway and took a 1.5-game lead in the NFC South over Atlanta and New Orleans (both 2-4). Tampa Bay (1-5) will be Carolina’s home opponent next week and provide another chance for a win.
Carolina’s offense also benefited from the return of right tackle Taylor Moton, who missed the season’s first four games due to multiple blood clots. Moton started and looked like his old self. Long snapper JJ Jansen did too — he said afterward he was particularly glad his 282nd overall game (most ever in the NFL for any long snapper) came in a win.
Young rarely shows any signs of negative emotion on a football field, but he did at the end of the first half with the Panthers facing a fourth-and-1 from their own 45. Carolina ran the last 35 seconds off the clock without running a play, while Young had wanted to go for it and made that clear with his body language.
“I’m a competitor, and I always want the ball and always want to be aggressive, and that’s why you have coaches,” Young said afterward. “Those guys see the bigger picture; they’re able to take the… emotion out of it. Then we ended up winning. They made the right call. It’s nothing but love.”
Canales said it was his decision not to go for the fourth down in a place on the field where Carolina usually is bolder.
“Yeah, that was me,” the head coach said. “… It was about a yard and a half. They played us really well in some of the short-yardage situations. I was too indecisive in that situation.”
But it all worked out, as did most things Sunday. Tremble’s taunt after his second TD was already coming in for teasing by his teammates postgame, as running back Chuba Hubbard (120 rushing yards, one TD) pretended to be a reporter and asked Tremble about it.
“I just thought that earlier personal foul (on DeJean) was just kind of egregious, and it was uncalled for,” Tremble said. “Something that didn’t need to happen. And so I shouldn’t have retaliated. That wasn’t cool.”
In the locker room, though, Canales said there was no such thing as an ugly win in the NFL. The Panthers have sustained enough losses over the years to know that. And with Young and Tremble both playing so well Sunday, they were able to make it work.
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