CHARLOTTE— Bryce Young had been experiencing a renaissance over the last six weeks—a stretch of consistent completion percentages, passer ratings, few sacks, and even fewer turnovers.

Sunday was a jarring wake-up call, though, as the Carolina Panthers fell 30-14 to the Dallas Cowboys. Young was sacked six times and turned the ball over four times, and the Cowboys notched 10 points off said turnovers.

"I've just got to look in the mirror," Young said. "Can't turn the ball over like that, obviously in this league. And that's 100 percent on me. I got to be better; I let the team down today."

After a season of ups and downs, Sunday saw the extreme of each. The high was the highest of his career, an 83-yard touchdown to Jalen Coker, the longest pass Young had thrown since coming to the NFL.

"Jalen just did a great job of just feeling himself open," Young explained. "Kind of breaking off his route a little bit, just going to grass, and we're on the same page when it came to that. So, when you get those opportunities, you got to be able to take advantage of them."

The lows were the lowest he's experienced all year.

Young took a season-high six sacks, some because of protection problems from what had been a top-tier offensive line, some of his own making.

"Credit to them. That's a really good unit over there; they are obviously really good players. So, they deserve their credit, but stuff I can do better as well," Young said. "Whether getting the ball out quicker, protection, slide protections, whatever it may be. It's not just the line. And also, when we're in those situations when pass rushers know we got to pass the ball, it's tough on those guys again against a really good unit.

"So, it's all of us and there's stuff I could have done better. So, we'll watch the tape and grow from it."

Young also had the two fumbles and two interceptions. The first turnover set the scene for the game. After forcing a punt on the Cowboys' opening drive, the Panthers took the ball and moved into the red zone on 13 plays and over eight minutes of possession. On the 18-yard line, Young faked the handoff and rolled out. He spun out of a would-be sack from Micah Parsons and scrambled forward.

It looked like it would be a positive play, moving Carolina four yards closer to the goal line. Instead, as Young went to the ground, he lost the ball, and the Cowboys recovered. It was only the second time Young had put the ball on the ground this season, and it was the first time he'd lost a fumble. Although they were forced to punt and got no points off that possession, a dam was opened.

"When you have a successful drive ending in a turnover, the challenge is you got to snap back and say, 'OK, these are the things that led to the success of that drive. Can we just return to it,'" Canales said. "And we weren't able to return to it the course of the first half there.

"We have to be able to say, OK, this thing happened, let's just reset and just get back to our football."

A Young interception from a popped-up ball to Adam Thielen resulted in a field goal for Dallas. After the touchdown pass to Coker, the Panthers opened the third quarter by coughing up the ball again on a strip-sack. Five plays later, the Cowboys scored a touchdown.

That made the score 17-7, but Canales didn't see any fight leave his guys, particularly Young.

"He had a good look in his eyes, and so I was looking forward to continue to just, being aggressive and trying to find those opportunities that we had down the field," Canales said. "So, I thought he maintained that I thought he kept fighting, had the nice long drive there at the end, the touchdown drive before the last (drive). So, you felt like the guys were continuing to fight, but there was just a lot to clean up."

After a month-and-a-half of what felt like momentum-changing play, Sunday's performance—in theory—could serve as a cold dunk of water, attempting to drown the Panthers again. Young and the locker room are determined to not let that happen.

"No one questions his ability to play in this game from a high level, to be the leader that we need and that we look to," Thielen preached after the loss. "He does a great job on the sidelines communicating.

"He did a great job at halftime just talking about what we need to do and how we need to do it to be successful in the second half. So definitely a great leader and we are always looking to him for that."

"For us there, there's no lack of lack of confidence, lack of belief in the locker room," Young promised. "We know this wasn't our brand of football; this was not our best day by any stretch of the means.

"But it was one day. Again, the game's over, it's fresh, so it doesn't feel great right now, but that doesn't take away what we can do next week, what we can be, where we're going. We all are super-passionate about the game. It's not a good feeling right now, but we know that after we get over watching the film and we start next week and we start going towards the future, there's all the belief in the building."