NFL Draft: Bryce Young's talent is worth the No. 1 pick, but are the Panthers willing to risk his height?

If the NFL Draft was simply about being good at playing football then Bryce Young would be the sure-bet No. 1 pick.

Young, the Alabama quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner, is as good of a football player as the college game has produced in years.

His last two seasons he completed 65.9 percent of his passes, averaged 303.7 yards passing a game and tossed a total of 79 touchdowns against just a dozen interceptions. He’s shown unquestioned leadership, tremendous decision-making and poise in the big moment.

The issue is the NFL Draft is not just about being good at playing football, at least not good at playing college football.

It’s about projecting who can play, or star, in the NFL, which is a different beast.

Perhaps especially if you stand 5 feet, 10 1/8 inches, as Young measured at February and March’s NFL scouting combine.

One week to go until the annual pro football selection derby, and almost nothing has changed about who should go first overall because almost nothing has changed with Bryce Young. There is no questioning his past performances. And there is no changing his height.

The last college QB this good came two years ago, in Trevor Lawrence of Clemson. There was no drama about whether Jacksonville would take Lawrence. He stood 6-6 though.

With Young, no one is certain that Carolina will pick him first overall. They could go with 6-3 C.J Stroud or 6-4 Will Levis or 6-4 Anthony Richardson. None were as good as Young in college, but they were all good or have high upside.

Young won’t last long in the draft, of course. There is no way he slips out of the top five, so a lot of this isn’t that important. Still, the top pick is the top pick. Young is the top player at the top position. He should go first … if the Panthers are willing to risk the height.

Young, for his part, has been a good sport about it all. There isn’t much he can do, obviously. He is only as tall as he is.

He calls the questions “valid,” says that he isn’t “offended” and offers only limited defense, namely that he has always been a little undersized on the football field and it didn’t stop him from dominating at prep powerhouse Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei and then college powerhouse Alabama.

“I know what I am capable of,” he told ESPN. “I know who I am. I’ve been playing with a lot of people who are bigger than me my entire life. I've always been the smaller one on the field. I know that isn’t going to change at the next level. It’s something I am super used to.”

Here’s the thing: There is small in L.A. high school ball and even in the SEC. It’s another in the NFL, where everyone is huge … and fast. The average height of offensive lineman last year was 6 feet, 3.55 inches, according to profootballreference.com. Defensive linemen stood 6 feet, 2.93 inches.

It’s why NFL QBs stood an average of 6 feet, 2.49 inches. Only Arizona’s Kyler Murray, who stands 5-10, is like Young. Murray is a more elusive athlete though and factors that into his game. Even still, he has missed eight games combined due to injury the past two years. (Young missed one game in college due to injury.)

Young’s counter to being able to look over the line is that he has proven to be excellent at reading defenses, making quick choices and efficiently moving the offense. They used to say Tom Brady was too slow, too, after all (although never too short; TB12 stood 6-4).

“At the next level, it’s about how quickly you can process, how well you can make the right decision, how well you get the ball out of your hands and into [your] playmaker’s hands,” Young said. “I’m not looking to run a bunch of people over at the next level or anything like that.”

Or as his college head coach Nick Saban put it:

"We’ve all seen the 6-4, 225-pound guy that can throw it like a bazooka, but he can’t make the choices and decisions, he can’t distribute the ball, he can’t throw it accurately,” Saban said. “So who’s the better bet?"

The first overall pick is a big bet though. They are rare to possess. They signal a deep need for a full rebuild. Get it right and you can be Jacksonville, winning a playoff game in your star quarterback’s second season.

Get it wrong — or even a little bit wrong — and you tread water in the shallow end. The Panthers already traded wide receiver D.J. Moore and two first-round draft picks (2023, 2025) to Chicago to move up to No. 1. They can’t afford to miss here.

“I think history is the best indicator of what the future is going to bring,” Saban said. “Bryce is not the ideal height that NFL folks would like to see for that particular position, quarterback. But I think Bryce has played extremely well …

“I’m going on history, production, performance and Bryce Young’s done it about as well as anybody,” Saban concluded.

Do you go with Saban and all that tantalizing game footage?

Or the tape measure?

One week for Carolina to decide.