Panthers vs. Saints game review: The coach’s philosophy

How a brutal first game for a new head coach may serve as an early reminder of who he wants to be.

I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that for fans of the Carolina Panthers, they way the season started versus the New Orleans Saints was a manifestation of their worst nightmare. All four quarters and all three phases of the game were owned by the Saints who showed no mercy to their division rival.

The Panthers first performance of the Dave Canales era likely under performed the expectations of even the most pessimistic fans. Thankfully, if you are Canales, evaluations aren’t made after a single game and there is still 16 games left to put out a product that can re-instill some of the good will that had been gathered since his hiring.

For this week’s game review, Canales is going to be measured against his own rubric for a successful team. In particular, there are 3 consistently repeated tenets of his philosophy that stick out to me in relation to where Canales and the Panthers fell short versus the Saints.

All about the ball

Can’t win the game if you don’t have the football. A big part of that is fighting to create turnovers on defense and protecting the ball on offense. The Panthers weren’t able to do either on Sunday, ending the game with a -2 turnover margin. And if the team is being honest with itself, it was more like -3. The Panthers single takeaway was a recovered muffed punt with 3 minutes left in the game while down by 37 points – in other words it meant next to nothing.

Each of the Panthers 3 turnovers deflated the offense and inflated the feeling of dread permeating the fanbase. The first turnover was on the Panthers very first play on offense, a overthrown pass over the middle of the field that firmly shifted every ounce of momentum into the Saints favor. The next turnover, a fumble from receiver Jonathan Mingo on an end-around when the Panthers were already down 20-0 but threatening to cross mid-field. The last turnover came while down 30-3, just coming out of halftime. What should have been a show of resilience from the team after using halftime to gather their bearings became the final nail in the coffin as another pass sailed over a receiver’s head and into a Saints player’s hands.

Stubborn about running the ball

Canales has said it plenty of times, he wants to build an identity around grinding the football on the ground. For a coach that has stressed and emphasized a desire to pound the rock, one might have expected his first playcall as a head coach to be a rushing play. Well, it wasn’t. Instead of staying true to his own philosophy, the coach elected to call a pass play that ended in disaster.

Now, was there a passing lane to get the ball to the receiver? Yes. Bryce Young whiffed on the throw. Had the ball been completed like the play was drawn up, it would have been an explosive play and the Panthers would be in position to counter the Saints own big-play riddled drive. The question, one that will forever go unanswered, is what if the Panthers had started off by running the ball and not immediately put Young in position to have to nail a small window over the middle of the field? I’m not sure, but you would be hard-pressed to justify a scenario that ended worse than what actually played out.

Defend every blade of grass

Unsurprisingly, a football coach preaches effort from their players. While there are many phrases that boil down to just “play hard”, one phrase in particular sticks out to me, in hindsight. Canales, speaking during a presser about rookie Trevin Wallace making a chase down tackle in the redzone during the preseason, stressed the importance of “defending every blade of grass”. A fantastic coaching point: don’t let someone just walk into the end zone, if you have an opportunity to bring them down then you’d better not quit on the play. After all, wild things can happen when trying to punch the ball in from the one yard line, something Canales knows very well from his time in Seattle.

One play in particular from early on in the contest stands out. Sixth play of the season, Saints with the ball looking to strike early and get a stadium full of their own fans behind them. Saints quarterback Derek Carr unleashes a deep ball down the middle to Rashid Shaheed who brings it in, but is stumbling the final 15 yards before the endzone. Jaycee Horn with a clear shot to bring down a slowed and falling over Shaheed just… gives up. Horn had a clear shot, and instead of defending the final few blades of grass, shifts down to a jog while slapping his thighs in obvious frustration. I don’t want to harp on Horn too much, he was far from the main problem. But when the head coach preaches something and one of the most talented players on the field falls short of that expectation, it can’t go unnoticed.

Game one for Canales surely did not go as he had hoped. There were many moments that lead to the brutal start of his head coaching career, and many of them were not true to his preached philosophy. With a home game coming up in front of a crowd of less than enthused fans of the home team, it would serve Canales well to not stray away from his own teachings.