How Panthers QB Kenny Pickett is elevating Bryce Young — and this underrated WR
Wednesday’s training camp practice broke for the day, but Kenny Pickett wasn’t done. Neither were three other receivers, who were running his routes and catching his passes.
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The sun boiled, but the backup quarterback still had work to do — or, as he put it, “demons to exorcize.”
“It’s really whatever throws that I missed, or that we didn’t connect on in practice, we’re just trying to get again,” Pickett told The Charlotte Observer. He spoke while looking out over the practice field Wednesday. “Or sometimes it’s reps that I didn’t get in the install that day that I want to rep and throw spots for them, just to make sure I’m staying on top of everything.”
He added: “The ones you make” — he trails off and shrugs. “But then the ones you miss, or the ones that you were excited to rep and you may have missed, they definitely linger.”
You might wonder why Pickett, who the Carolina Panthers signed to a one-year deal worth up to $4 million in March, is sweating such details. Why he’s being tormented by some missed throws with the second-string offense on the fifth day of a long training camp and an even longer preseason.
He’s here to support starting quarterback Bryce Young, after all; that’s always been the plan. He’s here to bring his institutional knowledge of the game to Carolina, to relay what he’s learned from the five different teams he’s played for in five years — including the one year he backed up Jalen Hurts en route to a Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl win.
But ask around key fixtures of the franchise, and you’ll understand why he’s taking this all so seriously. You’ll notice his value.
You’ll hear how he’s elevating Young.
And you’ll hear — and see — how he’s elevating certain second-string players. That certainly includes someone like Ja’seem Reed, a previously overlooked speedy wideout in a crowded receiver room who’s been catching so many Pickett passes that head coach Dave Canales couldn’t help but utter after practice Wednesday: Reed is “really making a case for himself right now” to make the team.
You’ll hear all of it.
“He’s in there early, he’s ready to go,” Canales said of Pickett. “He knows the script. He knows what’s happening. He’s asking great questions. He’s bringing things up from places he’s been in the past. It’s exactly right.
“As the backup quarterback, that’s one of your jobs. We’re all in there in that room to support Bryce. And his best way of doing it is to make sure he’s on his stuff, and is on time and on the money, and pushing the practices so we can evaluate.
“Because even though you can’t take every single rep, when Kenny goes out there and continues to move the offense, or can make a concept come alive, that’s very valuable film. Those are valuable cut-ups that we can use as teach-tape, for now and for the future. So it’s so important to have him here. And he’s done a great job.”
Pickett was drafted in the first round of the 2022 draft to the Pittsburgh Steelers, fresh off a season in which he played for the ACC champion Pittsburgh Panthers and won ACC player of the year.
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He hasn’t yet had the same NFL success.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound quarterback started 24 games in his first two years in Pittsburgh and struggled as a passer there, throwing as many touchdowns (13) as interceptions (13). He then was traded to Philly and played in 2024 as a backup — where he won his one regular season game as a starter — and then moved on to Las Vegas where he started two games in 2025 (and went 1-1 in those starts).
Whatever you want to make of his career to date, one thing is undeniable: He has a robust institutional knowledge of football, of many different systems. That makes him fluent in whatever Young wants to talk about with him, he said.
“Each play has a process, each concept has a process, where we’re starting, where we’re progressing to,” Pickett said. “There are also alerts at each play. ‘OK, if we get a premier look, we’re going to take a shot.’ So all those little minute details. What are the defenses doing? ‘Hey, if they’re tilted this way, they’re trying to bring a blitz this way.’
“After every session, every play, in the film room with (QB coach Will Harriger) and (offensive pass game coordinator Mike Bercovici) and Haynes King, we’re always all in there talking about everything. Which is an open floor of communication. It’s a fun place to be.”
It’s emboldened Pickett to make a prediction. A careful one, a qualified one, as he doesn’t want to put any unnecessary expectations on anyone — another virtuous role of the backup QB.
But it’s an interesting prediction nonetheless — as Young embarks on his third season in the Canales axiom … a massive season with potential contract implications at that.
“Third year in a system is really huge for a quarterback,” Pickett said. “That’s kind of where you really master it. I think three years in a system is the magic number that people say, for a quarterback in a system. I believe it. The only time I had it was in college. And it was my third and last year. And we did really well as an offense.
“And I think seeing how we’re all working together out here, we’re all on the same page, everyone is dialed in on their job and responsibility, and we just gotta go execute.”
Just as it’s a backup quarterback’s job to elevate the starter, it’s also his job to excavate the team’s diamonds in the rough. Where would Jalen Coker be without Andy Dalton letting him shine when the wideout was an undrafted free agent? What about Brycen Tremayne — a key piece of Panthers special teams who also played well as a wideout last year?
And Pickett has done that in Reed.
The play of camp might have been furnished by both of them: It was on an 11-on-11 rep on Tuesday, the first day of pads, and Pickett launched a 30-plus-yard deep ball to Reed, who hauled in a diving touchdown catch with defenders draped over him and mashing into him once the ball landed in his arms.
“I knew since the day I got here that he was a great player, but you never know until you play with him against a defense,” Pickett said of Reed. “And the fact that he’s popping on tape consistently every day, same with BT (Tremayne), same with (John) Metchie — Metchie’s been doing unbelievable. That room is deep. And I hope it’s a hard decision for those guys upstairs to make.
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“I want all those guys to have an unbelievable camp and show what they can do.”
That’s Pickett’s role.
Elevating everyone else.
And, in doing so, he’s showing how valuable he is, too.
