CHARLOTTE — The Panthers are entering a December unlike any they've experienced for some time.

But for a young group of wide receivers who are growing alongside a young quarterback and a young head coach, it almost feels like something they know well.

Since the receivers are all so recently removed from college, having a week off and then ramping back up almost feels like bowl season, which is something they're a lot more familiar with than a playoff chase.

"What rookie wall?" rookie wide receiver Jimmy Horn Jr. said with a laugh. "What am I tired for? Shoot, I get to play what I love to do. I ain't tired."

Ah, the exuberance of youth.

But for the Panthers, that's also where they are, heading into the final four games of the season with a quarterback and a bunch of targets who can't even get together and rent a car.

Bryce Young at 24, the youngest quarterback in the division, is out there running around with a couple of 24-year-old second-year players in Xavier Legette and Jalen Coker, along with the 23-year-old Horn and 22-year-old first-rounder Tetairoa McMillan.

"Shoot, it creates that competitiveness," McMillan said Wednesday. "Obviously, we're all young and hungry and willing to learn. So, just us coming up all together, we always want to push each other and make each other as good as we can."

For McMillan, that competitiveness is showing, and he's delivering.

With 57 catches for 826 yards, he leads all rookies in receiving, and he's 12th in the league in yards. On the Panthers' charts, he's already passed DJ Moore for second on the all-time rookie list, and needs 174 yards in the final four games to pass Kelvin Benjamin (1,008) for the rookie yardage record.

He's also showing up at big times, like the 43-yard touchdown on fourth down against the Rams before the bye, one of four fourth-down catches he's had this year (only four players in the league have more).

Building that kind of trust takes time, and for Young, having a group that's able to grow together can help create that kind of chemistry.

"It's been great; it's been awesome," Young said of being surrounded by other youngs. "First off, I'm grateful it's a group of guys that have such a great attitude. They're always willing to learn, always wanting to work, wanting to challenge each other, wanting to be the best version of themselves. And for us all to grow together, coach challenges us to do this all the time. Taking control, and taking ownership of the offense and just being able to see young guys grow, develop, continue to take that ownership, it's something that's really cool to watch and be a part of."

Veteran backup quarterback Andy Dalton experienced a similar thing in his rookie year in Cincinnati (2011), when he was thrown in with fellow rookie receiver AJ Green and told to get after it.

"Experience is the best way to learn," Dalton said. "To be out there and playing and to do it and for them to do it right and say that's exactly how they want it and to mess up and be like, hey, no, on that look, this is how we need it.

"I say it all the time. I was so thankful that I got to play early on in my career and start as a rookie because I got to just learn and grow and try to keep improving and all that kind of stuff. And they basically said, Go learn together."

Young and Dalton have had that conversation, and the starting quarterback said that as he's grown with his current group of targets, there are little things they've picked up along the way.

"You get the timing, you get the little nuances of routes," Young said. "You just have that unspoken communication when you're able to get so many banked reps, whether it be practice, obviously, the game reps are invaluable. So you get that extra beat of confidence, that extra awareness, and knowing where people are going to be, knowing what to expect, knowing where people like the ball, etc.

"So it's been great, us being able to grow as the season's gone on in that."

For Panthers head coach Dave Canales, a former receivers coach, seeing that development in real time has been a season-long process, one he's seen play out a number of times over the years, so the landmarks have become familiar to him.

"There is a toll on rookies, from a physical standpoint, certainly with a longer season," Canales said. "The speed of the game and the amount of effort that is required of them, and then of course, there's a mental and emotional strain of the game plans that go into it, the nuances of what you're seeing from a receiver standpoint. The disguises, they take a step up when you get to the NFL, and obviously, the size and speed of the players that they're playing against, it requires you to continue to evolve your game from a technical standpoint, and there's a lot of patience that's involved with that.

"And I think it's really important also to celebrate the successes and to make sure, even when the ball may not go your way and you end up with two targets, let's look at what you look like away from the ball here, though, right? That was always our mantra in Seattle when I was coaching receivers: Bottom line, guys, put wins on film because the more you do. The more the quarterback sees what you're doing and trusts that, the more your teammates respect the work you're putting out there, then the wins will come and the ball will come. So there's a big patience game involved in that, and there's also urgency, right? So it's like, can you have great urgency? We need you to be great right now and also have the patience to know it's going to come. Keep at it, hard work works."

It helps when the people doing the work are having a good time.

Legette and McMillan have displayed the kind of vibe all season, celebrating each other's successes since training camp.

"For sure, for sure, we've just been building," Legette said. "We get closer and closer every day, and I think we're all figuring out each other. Every time whoever scores, we go celebrate with each other. We just keep building these relationships, and they're my dogs."

And that kind of bonding happens on the practice field as well as the meeting rooms.

With the experience of going through this with Legette and Young a year ago (when the passing game really hit its stride), Coker has found himself in the position of helping the rookies along. (They have a few veterans in the room, but David Moore has been on IR and Hunter Renfrow has been inactive the last few months, limiting the on-field advice he can offer during games.)

"We all kind of came in at the same time, learned the same way, were able to help each other out in certain instances, and grow in that way," Coker said. "Any type of question they have, we're always there for them."

And for a rookie like Horn, the physical strain of a 17-game season might be real, but there's also the energy that comes with being in this position. And he joked that not having class and focusing on football 24-7 allowed them to carry the energy into a month of a season that's longer than they're used to.

"I'm more excited than anything," Horn grinned. "I really ain't even looking at the age of everybody in the room because like at the end of the day, that means we got a whole bunch of guys that's healthy in the room that's ready to go. Even though it's a young room, we've got a quarterback that we can build with.

"But even though we're young, everybody in our room's got the ability to do something. We've got a whole lot of young guys in here that can play, that's how I look at it."