Week 4 showed a glimpse of a bright future
Carolina Panthers fans have been in search of one thing since the departure of former head coach John Fox 14 years ago: a modern offense. The definition of that term has evolved in that time as coaches like Sean McVay, Andy Reid, and Kyle Shanahan have driven offensive innovation to multiple Super Bowl appearances and, for some of them, victories.
Meanwhile, the Panthers have stalled their own progress while searching for replacement pieces at wide receiver and left tackle, while mostly ignoring that philosophy—not talent—is the core of enduring success in the NFL. Player careers only ever last so long, but coaches can be the foundation of dynasties.
We spent years in this very space talking about how great an offense you could make with a healthy Cam Newton throwing to Christian McCaffrey, Greg Olsen, D.J. Moore, and Curtis Samuel. Now, all of those guys are gone, some retired. The Panthers have gotten progressively worse under the flailing changes of three different head coaches between the time those players were all together on this roster and now.
It is far, far too early to say that Dave Canales is going to lead a transformation of the Panthers from a laughing stock to the envy of the league. We can’t even say with full confidence that he is going to last the full season. But the last two weeks have shown that he can lead a team that plays the same game as their opponents. Scoring is suddenly a priority, The forward pass is no longer a last resort. The offense fits in the NFL, is understood by the head coach, and seems to fit the talents of its players.
You could not say all of those things about any one coach in the history of the Carolina Panthers.
Obviously, that is a lot to say for a 1-3 team. Even if you want to be generous and split the record by starting quarterback, Andy Dalton’s 1-1 stretch has been marred by glaring problems that will hold the 2024 Panthers back from contending for anything but a hilariously sideways NFC South race, if that materializes.
This was meant to be a season to analyze Bryce Young, but that only lasted two games. Now the team, already bereft of talent on defense, is hemorrhaging their best players to injured reserve. The schedule only gets harder from here, the Panthers should expect to surrender points on most, if not every, drive, and a 36-year old Dalton throwing 40+ passes per game is the only thing keeping them competitive.
Honestly? I think that’s all OK. Years of bad drafting have left this team in a bad spot. The Young trade is proving to be a historic disaster, and that’s without accounting for how well it is turning out for the Chicago Bears. The team has spent 19 draft picks in the past five NFL drafts on defense, including all seven in 2020.
Eight of those 19 picks are still on the Panthers roster, PUP list, or injured reserve. Of the other 11, only five played for other NFL teams after leaving the Panthers and only two—Jeremy Chinn and Yetur Gross-Matos—are still in the league. What is left in Charlotte is a defensive unit that has allowed eight touchdowns on nine opponent trips into the red zone and is bottom five in the league in almost every conceivable defensive category.
This season was never going to be competitive.
But it only took two games for it to become fun.
Canales is starting at, hopefully, the bottom of a deep hole that was dug by a great many shovels. If this is what he can do with somebody else’s leftover rocks then I am excited to see what happens when he gets to pick out his own toys.
Jay-Z may not have built Rome in seven days. The Panthers may not have their quarterback of the future, or even their quarterback of the present for much longer. But they have one thing that has been missing since perhaps the foundation of the franchise: a coach who can author a modern offense to compete in the NFL. That’s the most optimistic thing the Panthers have had going for them in a very, very long time.