Young, Uiagalelei, and quarterback roulette

The two can't-miss high school prospects turned out to be big misses for recruiters and scouts -- at least so far.

DJ Uiagalelei, Bryce Young

On Dec. 1, 2019, the future of football was visible to everyone who made the drive to Cerrritos College in Norwalk, Ca.

Bryce Young was the quarterback for Mater Dei High. D.J. Uiagalelei was the quarterback for St. John Bosco. Mater Dei led, 28-5. St. John Bosco won, 39-34. Young threw five touchdown passes. So did Uiagalelei. Young was headed for Alabama and Uiagalelei for Clemson, and everyone in attendance knew they would meet again and again, in front of escalating crowds and TV sets, maybe for a couple of national college football titles, maybe for untold Super Bowls. There were other good quarterbacks in the area, like C.J. Stroud at Rancho Cucamonga (a public school, at that), but Young and Uiagalelei were in their own orbit.

No one ever dreamed they’d need a space rescue.

Uiagalelei is still in college, his third one in fact. He transferred from Clemson, where he could never match the sainted accomplishments of Trevor Lawrence. He went to Oregon State and now he is at Florida State, which has just lost to Georgia Tech, Boston College and Memphis, none of whom were ranked at the time. He has thrown one touchdown pass and two interceptions. Until proven otherwise, he appears to be That Kid, the one who lapped the field in the race for puberty, the guy who dominated his peers so thoroughly until he ran out of room for improvement in high school. Now he might not even get drafted.

Young, of course, took his Mater Dei success to Alabama with him. He won the Heisman Trophy, and played for a national championship (he was Mac Jones’ backup when Alabama won in 2020). The scouts analyzed every molecule of his being and concluded that he should be the top pick of the 2023 draft, ahead of Stroud, who by then had established himself at Ohio State.

Young was taken by the Carolina Panthers. Last year he played in 16 of their 17 games, and the Panthers lost 14 of them. His lone win, ironically, was over Houston and Stroud, who supervised a playoff win for the Texans and was Offensive Rookie of the Year. This year the Panthers have lost to the Saints and Chargers by a total of 73-13, and they have converted two of 22 third down situations, and Young has thrown three interceptions and no touchdowns. On Sunday at Las Vegas, the Panthers will play Andy Dalton, who has played in postseason games in the NFL, instead of Young.

The situations are different but the theme is the same. NFL quarterbacking is the most demanding job one can have in the four biggest American team sports. So it stands to reason that evaluating quarterbacks is the toughest task in scouting. Certainly it has the highest stakes, in terms of elevating franchises or leaving them in a 10-year ditch.

So much of it depends on the arm, the strength, the mental processing ability, the stoicism, the leadership and the quickness of the young man in question. So much much more of it involves the team and the organization that surrounds him. Is Young the problem in Carolina? Heavens, no. But if he’s worthy of being picked first overall, he can’t be an innocent bystander either.

In a sport where teams draft in order of incompetence, and the salary cap is a tight-fitting hairshirt, the Panthers are impossibly bad. They have not had a winning season since 2017. Since they fired Ron Rivera near the end of the 2019 season, they have had seven different men serving as head coaches during games (don’t call them interim coaches, because that’s a redundancy).

 Even the 2022 team, which finished 7-10, had Christian McCaffrey, Brian Burns on the defensive line and D.J. Moore at receiver. Those were the Panthers’ first-round picks in 2017 through 2019. Moore was dealt to the Bears along with two first-round picks for the first-rounder that became Young. McCaffrey went to San Francisco for four choices, none distinguished, all traded by now. Burns went to the Giants for three picks, two of which Carolina sent elsewhere. The Panthers kept the other one, a fifth-round choice.

In 2021 Young riddled Georgia’s defense in an SEC Championship win, but Alabama lost the national title game to Georgia when receivers Jameson Williams and John Metchie were out. In 2022 Alabama lost twice, by six at Tennessee and by three in overtime at LSU, and Young was exceptional in both.

But at some point the intangibles loomed too large. No matter how sharp or tenacious or visionary Young is, he is also a 5-foot-10 quarterback without a brilliant arm. He was likened to Russell Wilson, but Wilson was far stronger physically.

Young might have suffered from Alabama Syndrome, too. It caught up with running back Trent Richardson. When you run for Alabama, the holes are bigger than anything you’ll see in the NFL. When you pass for Alabama, your definition of an “open receiver” is far more generous than the one the pros give you. Windows? You’re throwing into hand mirrors, not panoramas. That might be affecting Young. It’s like bridge. No matter how smart you are, you don’t win without the face cards that Young always had.

The inability to cope with defeat might be a factor, too, and why not? Young’s Mater Dei teams were 54-3, and he won 24 of 27 starts at Alabama.

Peyton Manning was in this position in 1998. He led off the draft, which meant he had to push the biggest rock singlehandedly. HIs Colts were 3-13 and Manning threw 28 interceptions. But he also threw 26 touchdown passes. He also was, and is, 6-foot-5 and as hard to hurt as a bridge abutment.

Nine years before that, Troy Aikman broke in with the Cowboys, who almost broke him. They were 0-11 in Aikman’s starts. Allegedly rational people made the argument that Steve Walsh deserved the job, after they watched Aikman throw 18 interceptions and nine touchdown passes while stuck in his own Alamo. Two years later Aikman made a Pro Bowl, and that was just the first box of his Hall of Fame application. He, too, was a 6-foot-4 ranchhand.

It might be too early to call Young the gridiron version of Sam Bowie, who was picked ahead of Michael Jordan. But the Panthers showed uncommon wisdom in sitting him down, and maybe shielding Young from the injuries that hindered Bowie. And, of course, it’s easy to be smart when you’re looking backwards through the binoculars. 

If quarterbacks were easy to figure, Tom Brady and Brock Purdy would have been first-round picks, and Akili Smith and Cade McNown wouldn’t have been, and Kurt Warner would have been picked by somebody. Young can possibly draw inspiration from Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield, who rolled the same snake-eyes when they were in Charlotte, and now are a combined 4-0 in Minnesota and Tampa Bay.

But the lesson here could be simpler than all that. The next time the choice comes down to two quarterbacks, put them next to each other. Then watch them throw. It’s called the eye test. Genius is not required.