ATLANTA — So much for slow starts.

The Bryce Young of the first two weeks of this season isn't a guy to apologize for; he's one of the more productive quarterbacks in the league.

Young wasn't as prolific as last week, but it wasn't far off. And after a 34-3 win at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, his home away from home, he's getting recognized for what his teammates thought he's always been.

"Oh man, Bryce is such a baller," said linebacker Devin Lloyd, who had two interceptions and returned one of them for a touchdown. "And just watching him go out and lead the offense and lead this team every week, and put another great performance together, and ultimately that's all of our goals is just to find our best every week."

Young has done just that. After throwing for three touchdowns and running for one in last week's loss to the Bears, he nearly matched it, with three touchdowns against the Falcons.

He joined Jake Delhomme from 2007 as the only quarterback in team history with three touchdown passes in each of the team's first two games of a season, and he's also rewriting a persistent and troubling story of his first three seasons. He hadn't started well in any other year, but this has turned that on its head.

In two games, he's now 46-of-73 for 648 yards, six touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 113.3.

When Panthers head coach Dave Canales was asked about it, he pointed to the steady growth of the quarterback who has led his team from two wins to five to eight.

"Just ownership," Canales said of the difference in his quarterback. "I think something we talk about a lot is watching this offense become Bryce's offense. And it's so evident in the week when he's tweaking routes, angles of cuts, and saying, hey, I want you flatter on this one, take one more revolution here, come straight back to me or come back down your stem, all these different things, that are a part of our system.

"Bryce is fine-tuning those with the guys, and you can see the trust level, some anticipatory throws, some of that. We had one drive where we hit about three play-action shots down the field to Coker and to those guys, and that's just all that timing and conversations that the guys put in."

Of course, Young's not one to talk about himself, at least comfortably, but on a day when Lloyd starred, he was in good company, the twin humble leaders of their respective sides of the ball.

"Man, that was special," Young said. "It's so cool to see someone like that who works so hard, a big part of the team. He's a leader. He does all the little things that people don't see, and for it to come out in a performance like that, yeah, it's really cool to see. I don't know if I've been a part of something that cool.

"I mean, that's surreal. It was really fun to watch."

That's also a good way to describe his own game and his own progress. His early struggles, which led to him being benched in 2024 after two games, seem so long ago, even though they happened last year, too.

Because Sunday, he looked in control, spreading it among eight different targets and moving it downfield in the way that brought him success last year. He had five passes of 25 yards or more, including a 55-yarder to Xavier Legette in the second quarter, which Canales called the "tipping point" of the game, since it led to a touchdown that made it 20-3.​

"It was big for us," Young said, and then he started talking about the defense, which was certainly good. "I think early there's some stuff we want to capitalize on a little better, and then we always have that mentality: I want to go get points before the half. X's doing a great job of winning on a route like that. I'm just trusting him to put it up there, him running underneath it, making a contested catch, but you know that's him. That's the stuff that he brings; there's no surprise that he was able to get open or make a catch like that. It's great to be able to have a guy like that you can trust on deep balls."

Again, that is true of Young himself as well, but he kept brushing that aside for his preferred mode of week-to-week, even though he's now 5-1 against the Falcons and hasn't lost to them since the first game of his career.

"We always know whatever happens in the past, that's the past, doesn't tell us anything," he said. "But I am super proud of this group. This was a great team win; I'm proud of everyone, and then we're going to celebrate it today, and then tomorrow we've got to get back in the lab, turn the page, and get ready for next week."