LAS VEGAS — As Andy Dalton prepared to do a post-game interview with CBS, Bryce Young stood a few yards away on the Las Vegas Raiders’ iconic logo, dapping up Gardner Minshew and a few other Raiders’ players. It was hard not to look at this moment as a changing of the guard for the Carolina Panthers and validation that Dave Canales made the right decision in benching Young , last year’s No. 1 pick, just two games into his second season.
Advertisement Canales hoped the move would energize his team after his tenure started with a pair of embarrassing losses by a combined 60 points against the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Chargers . But no one could have imagined this . The first opening-series touchdown in Canales’ two years as a play caller.
Pinpoint passes. Third-down conversions. Fourth-down stops for the defense.
A fourth-quarter lead(!) — the first one with time on the clock since Jan. 1, 2023, a span of 20 games. Carolina even had a 100-yard rusher ( Chuba Hubbard ), 100-yard receiver ( Diontae Johnson ) and 300-yard passer (Dalton) in the same game for the first time since Oct.
30, 2022. And a convincing 36-22 win that assures Dalton will get at least one more start (and likely a lot more, barring injury) next week against the Cincinnati Bengals , who he led to the playoffs in his first five seasons. GO DEEPER Andy Dalton rockets Panthers to 36-22 win over Raiders: Takeaways “It was,” Dalton said, “exactly how you wanted it to go.
” “They’re .