After Carolina lost to the New Orleans Saints 28-6 last week, Panthers quarterback Bryce Young was asked if he’d just played the worst game of his NFL career.

On Sunday, the Carolina offense failed to reach the end zone again. But this time, the Panthers won – beating the Atlanta Falcons 9-6 with a field goal on the final snap of a rainy game.

The Panthers used the final 7:35 of the game to move from their 5-yard line into position for Eddy Pineiro’s 23-yard field goal.

“Where else would you rather be?” Young said of his attitude toward the final possession. “An opportunity go down and win the game. For me, there’s no other group I’d rather do it with.”

Young completed all five of his passes on the final series, good for 68 yards as he had his three longest gainers of the game in the span of six snaps. Young had completions of 19 yards to tight end Tommy Tremble, 20 yards to wide receiver Jonathan Mingo and 18 yards to wide receiver DJ Chark with his first three throws in the series, all picking up first downs.

“He’s a winner,” said Chris Tabor, who got his first victory in his third game as Carolina’s interim head coach. “Think about that drive he put together, that all those kids put together in those conditions. And people might say, ‘Hey, and with nothing to play for.’ There’s a lot to play for because whatever’s on tape, that is who you are.

“I was really proud of him. I think he took another step. I thought that he threw the ball well for what the conditions were, so I was really proud of him.

“The kid’s a winner.”

When Carolina reached the Atlanta 2-yard line on its 13th snap of the series with 1:41 to play, the Panthers chose to have Young take three consecutive kneel-downs to run down the clock before the game-winning field goal.

“I wanted to win the game,” Young said about the end-of-game strategy. “That’s what I wanted to do. That was the best-case scenario – being able to walk off.”

Young completed 18-of-24 passes for 167 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions on Sunday. Against the Saints last week, Young completed 13-of-36 passes for 137 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.

Young attributed the improvement in completion percentage “to the people around me doing a great job today making it easy on me. … The last game, there’s a lot of stuff I wanted back and wish I could have done better. But all the credit for today goes to my teammates.”

The victory ended a six-game losing streak for Carolina and pushed the Panthers’ record to 2-12.

“Obviously, a lot of adversity, a lot of ups and downs throughout the year,” Young said. “This is definitely a team win. The defense did a great job. We all feed off of each other. Tough conditions. It was a dirty, nasty game. We knew that it was going to be that coming in, and for us this late in the year with all that’s going on, it feels great. …

“We’re all happy. There’s a lot of joy for sure. It really comes from us wanting to see each other succeed. We want to see each other win. We put the work in. We trust in each other. And, obviously, we haven’t been able to see a lot of those results this year. But it’s always great when you get to see that and it actually gets to come to fruition on Sunday.”

The Panthers have three games remaining in Young’s rookie season. The former Alabama All-American started his career as the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft with a 24-10 loss to Atlanta on Sept. 10. In that game, Young completed 20-of-38 passes for 146 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.

Carolina hosts the Green Bay Packers at noon CST Dec. 24 in its next game. The Panthers will complete their season by visiting the Jacksonville Jaguars on Dec. 31 and hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Jan. 7.

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