When Carolina hired Dave Canales to lead a 2-15 team that was the worst in the NFL last year, the initial reaction was, “Well, we can only go up from there.”

No.

The Panthers have managed to regress through the first two games of 2024, and nowhere more so than at quarterback, where former No. 1 Bryce Young has gotten worse in every way. Carolina trailed the Saints 30-0 at halftime in the opener, then lost 26-3 to the Chargers in Week 2.

As a result, Canales decided to bench Young and bring in veteran Andy Dalton as the starter. The decision came as a surprise to many, especially considering Canales gave Young a vote of confidence after Sunday’s loss.

“This is the best decision for our group, for our team, for the future,” Canales said Monday morning when announcing the change.

Young, for all his struggles as a rookie, was perhaps the Panthers’ best remaining hope for a rebound and eventual success. When you make an investment as big as Carolina’s, the number one priority is developing that young quarterback into a future star. And now, just two games into his second season, Young has lost the starting job, a devastating and humiliating decision for a franchise that has done so much wrong in recent years.

Carolina didn’t have the best recruiting prospects this spring. The best evidence that Canales is a smart prospect is that he has a well-earned reputation for turning around quarterbacks. He revived Geno Smith in Seattle and Baker Mayfield in Tampa over the past two years.

Andy Dalton was not the turnaround the Panthers envisioned to continue the trend.

Dalton turns 37 next month and he played well in a single spot start last year when Young was injured, throwing for 361 yards and two touchdowns in a loss to the Seahawks. By comparison, in 18 career starts, Young has thrown for more than 250 yards once and has thrown for multiple touchdowns in a game only twice.

The Panthers will argue that this isn’t a permanent change, that time on the sidelines can help Young regroup, gain some confidence, and be better prepared for the starting role when he returns. They may be able to do it, but if that’s the goal, do they really want Dalton to play well, to be the spark that Young couldn’t be for a team still searching for a new identity?

Today’s NFL forces teams without a franchise quarterback to overpay for a chance to land one, which is what a desperate Panthers team did in 2023. Chicago got a ridiculous windfall for Young: receiver DJ Moore, the pick that took the No. 1 overall pick this year in quarterback Caleb Williams, plus picks that netted a starting tackle in Darnell Wright and a corner in Tyrique Stevenson, who already has a pick-six this season. And the Panthers aren’t done footing the bill, as Chicago gets Carolina’s second-round pick in 2025, which will almost certainly be a top-40 pick.

It didn’t help that the Texans, who were picked second overall last year, had gold in C.J. Stroud, who is constantly being compared to a quarterback who was selected later but was ahead in almost every other way. Stroud is 11-6 as a starter, having already led Houston to a division title and a playoff victory, with expectations for even more in Year 2. As if that weren’t enough, Carolina can only watch as two quarterbacks it acquired cheaply in 2022, Mayfield and Sam Darnold, have combined for 46 touchdowns since leaving the Panthers. Both are 2-0 in leading the Bucs and Vikings, respectively, to impressive starts in 2024.

Last October, Bryce Young and the Panthers defeated C.J. Stroud and the Texans 15-13 for the No. 1 seed’s first NFL victory. He’s had just one since. (Photo by David Jensen/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Before the decision to bench Young, there was a legitimate question whether the Panthers would win a single game in 2024. Their best player, defensive tackle Derrick Brown, suffered a season-ending injury in Week 1, so the defense has taken a step back. The offense is allowing last in the NFL with 176 yards per game — somehow 89 yards worse than the league’s lowest average set in 2023 — and the defense is giving up a league-high 36 points per game, up 12 from last year.

Dalton is just two years removed from starting 14 games for the 2022 Saints, throwing 18 touchdowns against nine interceptions and going 6-8 as a starter. Perhaps his veteran leadership will give the rest of the team a chance to develop more quickly — a young receiving corps hasn’t shown much through two games, but no one on this team has.

Panthers owner David Tepper is notoriously impatient with his head coaches, having moved on from Matt Rhule midseason last year and then Frank Reich. So the hope for Canales was that he’d have more room to turn things around, more grace to stick around long enough to find better days with the Panthers. That could still be the case, but if the franchise has now moved on from a No. 1 overall pick, how long will the owner hold on to a third coach who couldn’t turn that pick into the player they drafted him?

Carolina’s road doesn’t get any easier. They travel to face a Raiders team that just beat the Ravens, then return home to face a Bengals team that nearly beat the Chiefs. Then, almost cruelly, they travel to Chicago in Week 5, where they face a Bears team whose foundation was built on the trade that sent Young to the Panthers.

If Carolina wins that game with him on the bench, is that even a win?

This was going to be a long year for the Panthers no matter what. Some national pundits were predicting they would finish ahead of the Saints, and even that bold third-place prediction seemed foolish before halftime of the first game of the year. Now Canales must regroup and move forward without the optimism that comes with a young, improving quarterback. The rookie head coach’s boundless energy and positivity would be tested with this job, and it has already proven harder than expected.

This has to be the low point, right?

Greg Auman is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Pirates for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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