ATLANTA — The cart pulled up, helpfully, willing to take him to the locker room.

Bryce Young subtly but clearly waved it off. He was leaving the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on his own two feet, and he was coming back.

"God blessed me with the ability to walk off," Young said. "When I can, I will."

That was an answer to a question about his physical status after going down with a painful ankle injury. But it was also a statement on the day, when he came back from that first-quarter injury to lead the Panthers to a 30-27 overtime win against the Falcons to improve to 6-5.

Make no mistake, Young was hurting. He limped to the lectern to talk to reporters. He limped through a crowd of teammates, all congratulating him as he passed, and in those moments, he smiled.

But that hurt, when he got taken down by Falcons safety Billy Bowman, and there was no way to mask it.

"Pain. Pain's an accurate way to sum it up," he said with a grin when asked about that moment when he was on the ground and his teammates were all on a knee, worried their quarterback was done for the day. "Obviously, you're just trying not to look too far. You're just getting through it. Coaches were around, all the guys are around, so you know, you just breathe through the pain. That's all it is. You're just trying to push it, push through it, get back up."

Again, he's talking about a tangible moment in time, but there's also a metaphor at work.

All Young did on Sunday was bounce back from one of the offense's worst days of the season with one of the best in franchise history. Last week's 17-7 loss at home to the Saints, a flat-line day for the passing game, was immediately forgotten.

His 448 passing yards broke Cam Newton's franchise record for single-game yardage, and his three touchdowns propelled them to a win that moved them to 6-5. But Bryce doesn't think in broad strokes. All he knew in that moment was that he wanted to get back, so he got the ankle taped again and walked back, never missing a play.

"Again, regardless of what it is, I want to be out there with my guys," Young said. "I want to be out there to play. I don't take this game for granted. The Lord's blessed me to be here to have this opportunity, and any time that I am able to go, I always want to do that.

"So in the moment you're just working through pain, just get up, get up, walk off, and then after that you're doing everything you can to get back on the field."

Still, Dave Canales is thinking about the next play, after getting up from one knee. So he was making sure Andy Dalton was getting ready, because that's a head coach's job.

But when Young walked back out, the message was clear.

"He said I'm good," Canales said. "He gave me a thumbs up. He said I'm good. I said that's good enough for me. Let's get him back out there. And Andy was ready and Andy was warming up and and ready to go out for that series and you know I've got to commend (vice president of player health and performance) Denny Kellington and the training staff for, getting that thing turned around quickly and making sure we did the right thing and do the full evaluation in there to make sure that he was in the right place to go back out there.

"Because he wanted to. I was, I was fired up. It was like, OK, let's go."

And Young — and the rest of the team, as he keeps reminding us — went.

They trailed 21-7 just before half, and stole a field goal before the break, then got a quick touchdown to start the third quarter, and it was game on. And then, he proceeded to heat up, spreading the ball to nine different receivers, and orchestrating his 10th game-winning drive in his young career.

To do it after that fall required something more than passing accuracy.

"Oh, he was dealing with some stuff," Canales said. "The ankle flared up a couple of times, and he was able to. They checked it out, and they made sure that everything was structurally fine.

"And, you know, at that point it was just a pain tolerance thing and he gutted it out. He wanted to do that for his teammates, and I'm just really proud of the way that he stepped in there and made the plays when we needed him to."

That was from start to finish, from the three touchdowns to the 54-yard catch-and-run from Tommy Tremble in overtime to set up the game-winner.

"Yeah, it's part of our identity," Young said. "Coach says it all the time, it's on the board everywhere we go. It's on the walls. It's finish.

"We embrace that, we embody that as a team, as a unit, individual groups, and as an individual. I'm super grateful everyone on that team gives their all, they put their bodies on the line, their time, everything. So, I want to make sure I can reciprocate that."

He did that Sunday — from start to finish.