After joining the Carolina Panthers from Alabama as the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, quarterback Bryce Young played in every preseason game last year.

Young didn’t play in the Panthers’ opener for this preseason – a 17-3 loss to the New England Patriots last week – and new coach Dave Canales did not say during his Thursday press conference if the quarterback will play in Preseason Game No. 2 on Saturday against the New York Jets.

But he did say Young played well when Carolina and the Jets practiced together on Thursday.

“Today, he came out, he was sharp, he was getting us in and out of the huddle, he was accurate,” Canales said. “He just shows that’s Bryce. He loves it. When he gets challenged and the stakes rise, that’s him. He just stays the same, and he continues to be accurate, and I loved the way he handled today.”

Young said the joint practice with the Jets could be more beneficial than the preseason game in that New York probably showed more of its defensive looks on Thursday than it will on Saturday and the first-team players who likely will sit out all or most of the preseason contest were on the field for the scrimmage.

“I think you get those prolonged periods of getting ones-on-ones, prolonged periods of people trying stuff,” Young said after Thursday’s practice. “You get different looks, us getting stuff. Obviously, preseason for everyone is really vanilla. They weren’t super complex today, but they had different calls and stuff like that. … It’s a good opportunity for us to kind of bring those stuff that maybe you wouldn’t show in the preseason just because it’s a practice environment. And then again, just those prolonged reps of ones-on-ones, twos-on-twos, stuff like that. You get different situations, scenarios that you’re not always going to be able to replicate in every game, every preseason game, so I think this was a great opportunity for us.”

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Last year, Young completed 14-of-24 passes for 129 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions and ran four times for 22 yards in the preseason. But he didn’t have any NFL experience before that. This time around, Young has 16 NFL regular-season starts.

“There’s watching film and there’s talking about it and there’s being on the sideline, and all of that you can get a ton out of,” Young said. “But obviously you can’t replicate playing in games and playing in season and game-planning and adjusting and personnel and things like that — being out there — so I’m grateful to have a season under my wing. I’m excited to continue to keep growing, keep building, keep pushing myself to be better. And I think as a team, we all have that same attitude.”

In his rookie season, Young completed 315-of-527 passes for 2,877 yards with 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and ran 39 times for 253 yards.

“I think it’s just again, just being more comfortable, having more of a feel, more experience,” Young said about the difference between last year and this year. “And really right now, it’s just leaning into the system. This year it’s — and this isn’t opposed to anything last year — but leaning into the system. We have some great stuff. We have some great players that make my job a lot easier. It’s really just finding a way to get the ball in other people’s hands. We have some great schemes to do that, so, again, just following that, sticking to what the coaches are saying, sticking to the script and playing off of the rest of the guys and team.”

The Panthers won only two games in 2023, when Young was sacked 62 times.

Jets coach Robert Saleh said Young would do good things for Carolina once the franchise gave him the necessary supporting cast.

“The biggest key is, and from my understanding they’ve done a pretty good job with it, if you can protect the quarterback and give him a chance to play,” Saleh said on Thursday. “Personally, I think Bryce is going to be fine. He’s going to be a really good quarterback in this league. Obviously, you’re building a system around him – the players that fit the system, a philosophy, a style of play.

“I think once this organization gets all that in, I think he’s going to take off.”

The Panthers and Jets square off at 6 p.m. CDT Saturday at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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