The knock against Alabama quarterback Bryce Young as he headed for the 2023 NFL Draft was his size. At the NFL Scouting Combine, Young measured 5-foot-10 and 204 pounds.

Could Young take an NFL pounding with that frame?

The Carolina Panthers didn’t allow that question from dissuading them from using the first pick in the NFL Draft on Young on April 27, then providing him the opportunity to answer.

Young has been sacked 13 more times than all but one other NFL quarterback this season. Sam Howell of the Washington Commanders has been sacked 61 times – two more than Young – but he’s played one more game.

An ankle injury kept Young from playing in the Panthers’ third game, but he’s taken all but one offensive snap since then.

“The tape has answered those questions,” Carolina interim head coach Chris Tabor said on Wednesday when asked about the pre-draft concerns. “He’s taken some shots, but he pops right back up and he dusts himself off and he goes, so to me those narratives – and narratives are just narratives, obviously – he’s shut those down, in my opinion.”

Tabor called Young “very physically tough,” and he had the opportunity to show that on Sunday, when the Jacksonville Jaguars sacked the Carolina QB six times.

On the first sack, defensive tackle Roy Robertson-Harris buried Young on a fourth-and-7 snap from the Jacksonville 21-yard line in the first quarter. It took Young a couple of minutes to get off the turf, and he went into the sideline medical tent. But when the Panthers regained possession, Young was back on the field.

“Just took a hard hit,” Young said on Wednesday. “Kind of just awkward. Just an awkward hit that took a little bit longer to get up from. After that, was able to walk back to the sideline. Went in the tent for a second and everything was all good. I just wanted to do everything I could to get back.

“It was nothing serious, which is definitely a blessing, so I was grateful for that.”

Young said he didn’t pay attention to the pre-draft talk wondering if he’d survive at his size in the NFL.

“For me, that was never something that was on my mind,” Young said. “I’m not out there to prove anything wrong or to make a point. I’ve always been focused on doing the best that I can at my job. Try to help the team, try to focus on what I can control. That’s something that never really fell in that category, so it wasn’t really a big focus for me.”

Sunday’s game was a disappointment for Young. After throwing for a career-high 312 yards with two TD passes in a 33-30 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Dec. 24, Young completed 19-of-32 passes for 112 yards with no touchdowns and one interception in a 26-0 loss to the Jaguars.

At 2-14, Carolina heads into its regular-season finale on Sunday with the worst record in the NFL.

“I didn’t come in having this picture of what it would look like,” Young said of his first NFL season. “I’m super grateful to be where I’m at. I’m super grateful for the journey. Obviously, not everything this year has gone the way that maybe we had planned it, but I do believe everything happens for a reason, so I’m grateful to be where I’m at.”

Young and Carolina will close the season against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at noon CST Sunday at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Buccaneers will win the NFC South if they beat Carolina. If Tampa Bay loses, it won’t make the postseason field.

“We want to go out there and not worry about the circumstances, the week before, the week after,” Young said. “Just be where our feet are and give our all and leave it out on the field.”

Young has completed 304-of-509 passes for 2,783 yards with 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and run for 229 yards on 37 carries in 2023. Only one other former Alabama quarterback has recorded more passing yards in his first season on the field in the NFL – Mac Jones with 3,801 in 2021 – and Joe Namath, with 2,220, is the only other former Crimson Tide signal-caller with more than 2,000 passing yards as a rookie.

But that’s not the stat Young cares about.

“My job as a quarterback is for us to win games — to lead the offense, to lead the team, to win games,” Young said. “Obviously, we haven’t done that, so there’s a lot of things that I have to improve on, we have to improve on. And that’s really all there is to go off of. It’s not all bad, not all good. There’s stuff to build upon. There’s stuff to learn from and to grow from. But ultimately, the reason we’re here, what the league’s all about, is winning games, and I didn’t do a good enough job of that at all. Obviously, I have one more week and want to finish strong.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.