Brownlow's Twitter Mailbag: How soon does Bryce Young take over for the Panthers?

By Lauren Brownlow, WRALSportsFan columnist

It's Mailbag time again, and it's another week where it doesn't quite feel like the off-season as the Panthers took Bryce Young with the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. The last time the Panthers had the top pick, it turned out pretty well for them. Will it turn out that well again? And how soon will Bryce Young start?

One of you asked me that, in addition to wondering about which players I've covered that surprised me by being great (or didn't surprise me). We also get into what the sports media landscape might look like in the future and what my favorite mythical creature is.

So let's get into the questions!

There are some super obvious choices here, like Zion Williamson and Jameis Winston. Both of them are guys that I remember my first time seeing them in person. And I don't mean seeing them play — I mean seeing them physically in person. I'd already heard about Winston's hype and Florida State baseball was at NC State.

I was walking on the field and just in sheer awe of the athletic specimen that he was. Similarly with Zion, it was a Duke media day event and I couldn't comprehend how a guy that big and imposing could do the things I'd seen him do in highlight videos.

As for the pleasant surprises, if you'd told me back in the fall of 2005 that Danny Green would be the longest-tenured NBA player in that Carolina national-title winning bunch, I would have not only laughed, but also perhaps screened you for hallucinogenic drugs. I also didn't think former Duke star Daniel Jones would still be an NFL quarterback at this point in time, speaking candidly.

I didn't cover J.J. Redick, but him having as long an NBA career as he did was something I did not see coming. I think Redick helped usher in an era of specialization, or basically that one player can do something so well that teams keep them around for a long time because of it.

That's not to disrespect the rest of Redick's game, but at the time he came out of school it was far from a no-brainer that he'd be a success and plenty of high-profile college players had flamed out. And a special shoutout to Josh Allen, who I also didn't cover but was 100% sure would be a massive NFL bust.

Over/under...3.5 games? That might seem a little extreme to those of you who believe that Andy Dalton is still a competent NFL quarterback, but I am not in that group. Do I think he could be a good mentor to Bryce Young? I mean, I guess. I don't think Dalton is as much of a risk as a placeholder as Sam Darnold was for a lot of reasons, but I also think we're getting a three or four-turnover game pretty early on in the season if he's the starter. And what do the Panthers do if that happens? They can't NOT start the No. 1 pick.

We're far past the days when a No. 1 pick needed to sit back and watch for a year. Now, it's almost a red flag if your first-round quarterback DOES NOT play in his first season, unless there's an established veteran in front of him.

Young does have the luxury of some great quarterback minds at his disposal, like Frank Reich, and an offensive staff with a lot of potential. Does he have the weapons to be successful? Maybe. He does at least have an offensive line that could help him find success, and Young basically won games (or almost won games) by himself at Alabama a year ago.

He's going to have to get into games, and it likely won't take long for that to happen. Assuming it'll take longer than a handful of games also assumes Dalton is capable of holding down the fort that long, which, well, disagree.

This is a good question. It's certainly a rapidly-changing one. The recession has seen to that, as entities that cover more than sports have pared down their sports departments. Often, sports is among the first to get hurt under such models. And that impacts local newspapers and their sports coverage.

The Athletic attempted to step in and fill regional voids, but even they have been forced to make regional cuts that have negatively impacted their coverage. Patreon models have been successful as individuals have been able to bring in money with people eager to consume whatever niche content they produce.

Anyone looking for success will need to fill what ever voids exist, and so I think someone will attempt to nail down the model that others will emulate to find and utilize regional audiences. The most successful outlets will be multi-platform and feature not only a multitude of types of content but also of ideas and perspectives. You can't get a bunch of people with the same perspective and life experience together and ask them to cater to a vast audience.

Teams are looking to do their own in-house content, and fans are happy to consume that, but most fans I interact with personally also want unbiased (or as unbiased as possible) commentary on their favorite team. They want the good AND the bad, and fans will I think be willing to pay for that type of content, as long as it's good. And pay could mean either to an outlet's advertisers or a subscription-based model, but still.

This is easy: a unicorn. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved running around pretending that I had a unicorn. I didn't name my unicorn, but she flew me around to all kinds of places and had a whole mythical unicorn community where they paraded around showing off multi-colored manes. I was in DEEP in that kind of mythical universe.

But I will say this: if I had to pick a mythical creature as a pet? It would be Gizmo from Gremlins. I don't even care about the whole not getting wet thing. He's too cute for words. I guess he would be pretty smelly if you couldn't give him a bath, but maybe his alien technology means he doesn't have sweat glands and doesn't smell bad?

Compare that to keeping a unicorn. All I've ever heard from my friends that had horses or rode horses is what a pain in the butt it is to keep them and how expensive it is. A unicorn potentially having a multi-colored Lisa Frank-esque tail or even literal sparkling eyes would not be enough to offset having to shovel horse manure. No thank you.