CHARLOTTE — Andy Dalton has been through just about every situation you can imagine. The franchise guy, the replacement, the second-stringer, the starter.

So, he has a different perspective on his backup status for this week, having been through so many job descriptions in his 14 seasons. He practiced fully for the second straight day, but head coach Dave Canales announced Wednesday that Bryce Young would start this week and Dalton would back him up.

Canales has left the long-range assignment open-ended, saying Young's starting job was about this week, and a determination on next week would be made next week.

"There's a lot that I have been through in my career and a lot of different situations that I've been in, and, I mean, this one, it's a little different than all of them," Dalton said Thursday. "But I think you pull from the past from what I've gone through and I just think mentally and for my family and for everybody, we're in a good place right now."

His place being on the bench this week was out of his hands. After he suffered a sprained thumb last Tuesday in a car wreck, he didn't throw a regulation football until this week, so when Dave Canales said he wanted to take the decision out of the veteran quarterback's hands, Dalton understood.

"I enjoy every time I get to be out there, and we'll see how this thing goes," Dalton said. "We don't know how it's all going to shake out. For me, obviously, I want to be out there. I want to play and help the team. But when I'm not, I'm out there supporting Bryce. This is what I've done since I've been here."

Dalton said he accepted Canales' decision, and it wasn't like he was actively trying to change his mind in their meeting.

"I just told him how it was feeling and I knew that he's the one that ultimately has to make the decision and I didn't want him to hear from other people about how I was doing," Dalton said. "I let him know my thoughts and how I felt, and then he made his decision, and I mean, that's his job.

"I felt like coming into it, I felt like I could go, but for him, he wanted to give me another week of rest, which, it definitely won't be a bad thing."

Dalton said he knew he had a problem on the scene of the accident last week. When he got home, he tried to pick up one of the actual-sized footballs that was lying around the house and realized it wasn't likely that he'd bounce back immediately. Only when he was able to throw a smaller one with his kids did he start to realize he was improving.

"The first thing I did when I got home was I tried to grab a football and when I couldn't grab a football, I knew that wasn't a good thing," he said. "But I know, thanks to all the staff here and everybody, they were able to get the swelling out, and as the days went on, it progressed, and I feel a lot better now.

"I think that was the start of my rehab, is playing catch with my kids."