Panthers rookies Bryce Young, Jonathan Mingo speak on early connection

As the first and 39th overall picks of the 2023 NFL draft, Carolina Panthers rookies Bryce Young and Jonathan Mingo are facing quite a bit of expectations. So, how are they managing them together thus far?

That’s what both players were asked on Friday afternoon, following the team’s opening installment of rookie minicamp. First up was the quarterback, who talked about his growing relationship with his teammate by recalling their SEC days.

“I was able to watch him a lot while I was in college,” Young said. “Obviously, didn’t know that we’d be teammates. Him playing at Ole Miss, I was always watching film on Ole Miss. I always liked him as a receiver. And now, being able to work with him and talk with him, we’ve talked even before camp. We’ve gotten work in and talked about things—again—wanting to be prepared, wanting to be the best versions of ourselves to help the team.”

Mingo then began his media session speaking on Young.

“Bryce hit me up after the draft,” Mingo said. “Told me congratulations, told me he was a big fan of my game. So, we’ve been choppin’ it up the past few weeks. We’ve been going over the playbook, just making sure we know the ins and outs of the playbook, just make sure we know the script so we can have our timing down. We threw a couple times before. So, it’s nice to get out on the practice field and get our timing down.”

They’ll have two more days, at least in this particular setting, to continue to get that timing down. Then, from there on out, we could be witnessing the start of the next greatest one-two punch in franchise history.