CHARLOTTE — Andy Dalton and Bryce Young have been in this situation before.

Perhaps by virtue of his age, Dalton's the guy who remembers everything. Young, on the other hand, has turned compartmentalizing the past and moving on into a superpower.

Young didn't practice for the second straight day on Thursday because of the ankle injury suffered last week in New York, though there's no real change to his status. They're still treating him as day-to-day, and they still haven't made any declarations about his status for Sunday's game against the Bills.

Both quarterbacks were asked a lot of questions. Neither had a lot of substantive answers, at least as it pertained to the immediate situation.

When Young was asked how he was feeling, he replied: "I feel blessed, feel good, made progress, and excited."

And your ankle?

"Good, good," he laughed. "It's been progress each day. I've been feeling better, so we're all process-oriented here, all process-driven. Coach says that, it's what we believe in, so they have been keeping the same process."

Young wasn't just playing coy; he shrugged and admitted he's not the most reliable narrator of his physical condition. This week most closely resembles his rookie year, when he missed Week 3 at Seattle with an ankle injury, and Dalton subbed in for a week. But even thinking back to that analogous experience left Young scratching his own head.

"To be 100 percent honest with you, I don't even remember," he said of that 2023 game, the only one he's missed in his career because of injury. "You go in there and it's like, how does it feel compared to this and that, and truthfully, I wasn't really something I thought of after. So I don't really remember the comparative nature.

"I'm pretty quick to forget things, I think, when it comes to that. So right now it's the task at hand, I'm trusting them. They're doing a great job of putting me to work, and I'm grateful for that, so just trying to do everything I can."

But while he can't (practice), they've got a guy in Dalton who has been in this situation with multiple teams. After his long stint with the Bengals, he's been a backup who had to play or got to play in Dallas, Chicago, and New Orleans.

The soon-to-be 38-year-old (his birthday is next week, in case you're looking for a present) has also done it enough to know the lines. He prepares the same way every week. He's here to do whatever he can to help the team. He doesn't know exactly what's going to happen, but he's excited for it.

"I mean, I think every opportunity that I get to be out there, I'm going to enjoy every moment," Dalton said. "You never know how many you're going to get. And so for me, I'm just excited if I get to be out there, to get a chance to play, I was excited. Obviously, you hate that Bryce got hurt in the game, but I get to be in there, I get to be a part of it, and kind of impact the game. So every chance you get, you look forward to it."

There were also a lot of age jokes flying around, especially after 40-year-old Joe Flacco just beat 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers on national television last week. But Dalton's used to that, too. In fact, he has a reputation in the team meeting rooms for having seen just about everything. And he's maintained his youthful vibe, and all the practice traditions (like the equipment staff cheering wildly for him when he enters to the practice field) have remained consistent too.

"It's funny when you've got a guy who's been around that long, there's a natural saying, 'I got a clip for that,'" 34-year-old offensive coordinator Brad Idzik said. "When a defense is presenting something, when we're attacking something, we're presenting a concept or saying Hey, like we want to hit this void in zone, or this is a great play versus man, and there's an 'I got a clip for that,' back in whatever year."

Idzik said Greg Olsen used to do that in meetings in Seattle after his time here, when he built up a ton of clips.

"I think Andy's another kind of walking example of that," Idzik said. "He's played a lot of ball, and anytime you play at the quarterback position and you know where the bones are buried on concepts, he's got a great memory of pulling back from his bank of football playing days, right, whether it's Cincinnati here, Dallas, New Orleans, all these different spots.

"And he helps us prepare the other guys by showing him his experiences and kind of ramps up the speed of their understanding of what we're trying to get done by just saying hey here's what this similar thing happened to me back when, and then when Andy gets to play like he gets to rest on those experiences and he knows where he wants to go versus certain coverages and he plays fast."

Dalton has shown he's able to play at a high level throughout his career. He's 26th on the league's all-time passing yardage list with 39,618 (more than Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Y.A. Tittle, Troy Aikman, and Kurt Warner, to name a few). He's also 26th on the all-time touchdown pass list with 254, tied with Hall of Famer Dan Fouts (and more of those than Kelly, Young, Tittle, Aikman, and Warner, and a lot of other dudes).

"I'm aware because there's some people around here that tell me about where I'm at," Dalton laughed. "I mean, obviously, with how long I've played in this league, there are some things that are pretty cool to keep chasing, and the more I'm out there, the more production I'll get, and so we'll see. But it's definitely not something that I'm striving for or trying to accomplish. I'm just gonna go play and see how it all works out."

Or not play, as the case may be, since no one is declaring Young out this week, not yet.

Either way, Dalton has experienced whatever is about to happen, whether it was Seattle in 2023, the win in Las Vegas last year, or anything similar.

"I've been in this situation multiple times," he said. "I've kind of experienced a lot of different circumstances in this league, so obviously that's one that I can look at. But like I said, from the preparation standpoint, nothing's really changing."

The team, on the other hand, has changed and become more stable in every way than when he last started last season, before a thumb injury in a Week 8 car wreck got Young back in the lineup.

"Obviously, what we've been able to do the last several weeks, and I think we're playing with a ton of confidence," Dalton said. "So at that point we were still searching, now I feel like there's some momentum with what we've been able to do, and at this point it's like we just got to keep playing like we know we can play, keep playing with the confidence, let it go on Sundays.

"I mean, obviously, last year was the first year with the staff and the system and everything, and then now we kind of know what to expect, what we're doing, and then you add pieces to it. I think the best thing that Dave has done is that he stuck to the process. Exactly what he was saying, even after some of these losses that we've had, it's like the process hasn't changed. We know what it takes. We know what we're capable of, and the preparation is still going to be there.

"So I think that's the biggest thing, is once you have the process down, you stick to it and then you can go out there and just play on Sunday."

Or not play. Either way. The process is the same.