Three, Chris three straight weeks, three straight weeks, three straight weeks, three straight weeks of no Carolina Panthers losses. Two of those are wins. Boy, let’s go. Boy. Like how we’re getting so spoiled. It feels like it’s, I don’t know. End of 2022 again, those were good times, Chris, those were good times. Well, we’re going to evaluate the current head coach. Let’s get this sucker started, get dialed in Panthers fans. Here comes an in depth. Look at your team exclusive interviews, locker room in sight. Let’s huddle up. Let’s just do it. Ok. For Panthers Playbook driven by Carolina Ford Dealers. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to another episode of Panthers Playbook. That’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cox here with you. We’re talking Dave Canalis to leave your thoughts in the comment section. Your thoughts, Dave Canalis, the head coach, Dave Canal is the plate caller before we get into that, Chris Carolina Ford Dealers is our sponsor of Panthers Playbook with a Ford F 150 on your team. It’s game on. So your Carolina Ford Dealer today, I’m gonna go ahead and say C minus right now for Dave Canalis as a head coach C minus. Here’s where I get to that grade in terms of building culture. I think he’s taking things in the right direction. I really like what in, in terms of the culture of this team where it’s going, the fact that Chuba Huber gets resigned and the way Dave Canalis talked about him, he’s like this guy epitomizes everything that we are trying to put together here with this franchise. It’s like I love hearing that. I love seeing those guys on the team. It’s the play calling. That’s the big issue for me, Chris, it’s too inconsistent and this is what you run into when you have a first year head coach trying to figure it out with a second year play caller who’s still trying to figure it out. Yeah. Um, I’m 100% with you. Um, our grades are very similar. I was just gonna say a flat C uh for him. Um, you know, I, I felt like the minus is too close to ad which found it feels like, you know, you’re headed towards failing and I don’t think he’s headed towards failing right now. I, I honestly believe that for what was available for the Carolina Panthers. Dave Canalis was the right choice. Ben Johnson said. Nope, I’m sure some other guys said, nope and took other jobs elsewhere. So as for what was available, Dave Canalis is, uh the best choice for the Carolina Panthers I felt like it’s the best hire that David Tepper has made because rule was the wrong choice. Reich was the wrong choice. Reich was a good choice if you let him hire his staff. Um, and, but not Reich himself being bad. It was the fact that you had Reich and you made him hire other people that weren’t already, uh, in, you know, in alignment with him and what he did. Right. Um, so you’re right about the play calling aspect of it. I think the biggest thing is that, and we’ve noticed this too, even when this team was losing in, in the thick of all the losses right in that locker room, guys weren’t really as down as you’d expect. This has always been a team that, that this year these guys feel like they’re just a few key pieces, returnees and some tweaks away from being a team that can win some games consistently, they feel that way and now we’re starting to see it as people are getting healthy. DJ Wham comes back. Now, the pass rush is a little bit better. All of a sudden the Panthers get a win, I think a few weeks ago that would have been a loss for the Carolina Panthers and probably a blowout loss at that point. Um, and so you see things kind of getting better but, um, you know, I think it’s ac but, um, you know, an optimistic c something that could end up like a B minus, probably depending on the way this year is. And again, that’s what I, I get it to it based on, again, the balance of scale, like where I’m measuring culture and, and the building of that versus play calling because I felt like in the Giants game this past Sunday that the Carolina Panthers had the opportunity to really something that Dave Canalis talks about, finish, finish off the Giants in regulation in the fourth quarter and run away with that thing, but it got conservative a little bit and there are stretches there even in the second quarter. Wait, Tuba Hubbard was running in the first that got away from it. There are plenty of times we’ve seen this season in the first half. Tuba Hubbard has like 678 carries. It’s like, no, that’s not enough. Like you wanna be about that running that run game life be about that life and it feels like he gets away from it too quick and also feels like, man, you get way too cute sometimes you get way too cute. Like on 3rd and 4th down play calls, it’s like no, like you need two yards, give it to the guy that’s gonna get you two yards. And Chuba Hubbard sometimes the obvious play is the best play sometimes. Simple is the best thing. It really is and it’s, that’s the kind of thing that really is perplexing. It’s like, why are you trying to do like something elaborate and crazy and like, is it to say like, hey, look how smart I am or like, because I can design it. Therefore, I think it can be great. Like, you know, sometimes actually I, I just got to look and see, I got Robert Hunt and Damian Lewis in the middle of my offensive line and I got a running back that is top five, top six in the NFL in yards per carry. Was it the Saints game where it was like fourth and two Panthers went for it and they faked the handoff to Cuba and they do something else and they don’t, it was against the Broncos, but you see the replay and Cuba like would have gone three yards untouched easily. That was what they did with the Broncos. You would have picked it up, right. So, you know, you’re, you’re 100% correct. But also I would say that these mistakes feel like mistakes from somebody who is learning how to be an effective play caller in the NFL and somebody who’s also learning how to be an effective head coach in the NFL at the same damn time. It’s not easy and it’s not easy. And so, uh, but it also, I, I wouldn’t say that he’s horrible at it because I feel like we saw worse play calling last year from somebody who’s been in the NFL for a very long time. So, you know, somebody who wouldn’t, you know, uh, adjust protection, who put Bryce Young, uh, in situations where he was just getting guys teeing off on him, including his, uh, current teammate, DJ Wham in the Vikings game last year. Um, so, you know, I would say that, uh, there are, there have been some good things that Dave Canalis has done and I think mostly he has his team believing in him and it doesn’t feel like the team is out on him as a head coach, I think early through, uh halfway through the season last year. Well, I guess, you know, Frank Wright didn’t last halfway through the season. He lasted until about now, about now. Uh but before then, right, it felt like guys were already out on Reich and the coaching staff as, as a whole, like they just weren’t here for it right at a certain point. It was the same way with Matt rule guys. You know, we don’t, we don’t get that feeling when we’re in the locker room with the Carolina Panthers right now. Uh They, they feel like they will, you know, do anything for their coach, you know, run through that wall for that coach, which, you know, I think is a really good sign. Uh We have criticisms but that doesn’t mean that we want him to go away. David Tepper does not need to make any rash decisions when it comes to this. You know, Canalis needs two years minimum really three years but two years minimum, so that he can also grow and be the best, be his best coach as he can be. So there are plenty of guys who are offensive coordinators who became head coaches in our play callers. But here’s the thing with Canalis that’s different than all those. He just had the one year as a play caller down in Tampa. Whereas for example, like Kyle Shanahan, he was a low offensive coordinator in Houston. He was in Atlanta. He was spent time in Washington and under his dad, he was in Cleveland. He wasn’t around in a whole bunch of different places and had understood like, all right, if I got third and two and I’m on this part of the field, this is, this is the type of play I’m likely gonna go with like, he’s kind of got that figured out and has an idea. Yeah, he’ll tweak depending on his personnel, but he knows who he is. He already knows who he is. He even Shane Stein, who the Indianapolis head coach, uh Indianapolis Colts head coach. He’s trying to figure it out right now in terms of his quarterback situation, they’re going back to Anthony Richardson. Um, but even before he became the head coach of the Colts, he was an interim, uh, interim offensive coordinator in 2019 in L A with the Chargers. He was the, the full time offensive coordinator in 2020 he was two years offensive coordinator with the Philadelphia Eagles. He had experience before actually becoming a head coach. This is the big issue that I have with Canalis right now. It’s just, he has too much on his plate in my mind. And I think that’s a dangerous thing because sometimes you need the head coach to tell you like to give you permission. Hey, going forward on four downs here, you’re like, hey, you’re in four down territory. So it’s like it’s third and three. Sometimes the head coach will pop in the coordinator’s headset and go. You got two here that changes my play calling. Sometimes when you’re trying to figure out play calling, you don’t even have that time to give yourself that permission. It’s, it’s really is a balanced thing. Here’s something that I, I want to see and, you know, we know that Jim Caldwell is a former NFL head coach is on the staff. He’s a senior assistant. He reports to Dave Canalis. He helps out on all sides of the ball, but I really want to know what his, if Dave Canalis is going to him as a play caller and as a former head coach, uh, for mentorship in that realm, right? And not only that, maybe also to have a voice while the game is going on to help call plays. Because, you know, here’s the one thing that, um, I’m a little concerned with when it comes to the Carolina Panthers you have Dave Canals who’s very young in his job. You have Brad Idzik who’s very young in his job, who’s the veteran in the room to say, hey, wait a second, we should be doing this or we should be thinking about this for the future. That is a very young offensive staff, which is good. They’re gonna grow together, right? But I also would like to have a guy that has done this for 2030 40 years, possibly there who has a say so during the game, I know that, um, you know, Mr Caldwell’s is a really good help during the week, but is he that voice that’s able to be there during the game? I don’t know, those are questions that maybe we need to, we can find out and we can ask about it, uh, at a certain point at a press conference. But, um, you know, it’ll be cool if, if that there was a little bit more of that, that just, um, you know, veteran voice that could be there inside of the game to help him out when it comes to play college. I used to coach college lacrosse, Chris, you know, this, I coached college women’s lacrosse for nine years. I was an assistant for two years before becoming a head coach and I thought I was like, hey, you know what, in these late game situations, this is how I’m gonna do things and that’s how I’m gonna manage practice and do all this. I thought, like, having been an assistant for a couple of years that I knew what I was going to do. And the moment I became a head coach, it was like, oh, there’s so much more I have to worry about than I thought. And it’s, it is on the job learning and I struggled for a couple of years trying to figure it out. It took me about my third year as a head coach about to brag, I went to a golf championship game and then I got out of coaching because I was like, I’m kind of just tired of the life of coaching, but it took me a long time to figure it out. And then when I got back into coaching, I went back as an assistant coach. There’s so much more that I understood going back into being an assistant. There’s so many more things that I saw. I was like, man, I wish I knew that when the first time I became a head coach, I wish I understood that there’s so much more that you think, you know, before you become a head coach, doesn’t matter what the sport is and really at any level until you actually get it. There’s so much more that goes on that you can’t even think about because when he was a position coach, you really had to focus on like a few guys. That’s it. Ok. Then you become a coordinator. You’re focusing on just one half of the ball. Now, you’re focusing on half of the ball as a play caller, but then you have to manage the 53 guys plus practice squad, plus your whole staff. You have to manage so much more and that’s a ton on your plate. You know, that, um, a few weeks ago, you remember he said, uh, something to the effect of he’s so full, but so empty at the same time. Um So, you know, that’s something where, you know, it, it, it’s obviously taken a lot from him. If you look at video and pictures of him from when he started versus now it’s aged him a little bit man. It’s like the, the president thing, right? Like you look at somebody who, who’s become president like Barack Obama, look at him the year he became president. Look at him eight years later when he left the office and how gray he got and how much older he started to look in that short time span. It really does a number on you when you’re in those type of executive positions. Uh Here’s something else. I, I want the, the Carolina Panthers to work on and it goes hand in hand with the run game and maybe this has helped out with the fact that you’re gonna have, uh, Jonathan Brooks available right now right now. Their average time of possession is 27 minutes and 28 seconds per game. Their opponent’s average time of possession is 32 minutes and 44 seconds per game. I want that to be something that is, um, um, I want that to be like a priority for the Carolina Panthers is to possess the ball longer the, the two wins. Again, I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but the two wins this past, uh, that we just had, especially the Saints win, Uh if you kind of, and if you take out the, you know, you can’t do this because this is a part of the win. But if you take out the, um, uh the turnovers from the Giants, right? Uh Which, that’s ultimately why the Carolina Panthers ended up winning. If you take it, look, time of possession, yards gain, that type of thing, like Panthers are getting killed on that, right? They’re getting killed on that. And I think that right now when you have a team that doesn’t have the best talent when you’re, you have, you’re young at a lot of position groups, the best thing that you can do for yourself and also a weak defense, the best position, the best thing you can do for yourself, excuse me is just keep the ball, possess the ball play at some points, play a slower brand of football run, that ball, do some of those uh, screens. Don’t screen us to death, right? Don’t, don’t make it so predictable like it was last year where guys are almost getting pick sixes at the line of scrimmage. Um, but, you know, play a slower brand and try to see if you can get that in this next, um, seven games, get that time of possession average up over 30. So that way you have the ball longer than the other team, uh, that gives you a better chance of winning. It also keeps your defense fresher, keeps your defense off the field as much as possible. And then also, maybe you’re also getting teams to do stupider things on their end. Uh, maybe they have to run it less, right? Maybe they have to throw it more. Maybe that gives guys like DJ W and J Jade and Clowney easier chances to go after the quarterback and to make, uh, and to, to make an impact on the game that way. But that’s something I really think the Carolina Panthers needs to work on right now, especially seeing that you don’t have the best defense right now and that you do have this young, uh, young core on offense. Um, so they can get more reps and you got, uh, Jonathan Brooks who’s about to start playing. So, I mean, you can, it’s definitely possible for the Carolina Panthers to do that. Use it. I mean, honestly, Sheba Hubbard 20 carries, Jonathan Brooks, 1010 touches, like make it happen, give those guys 30 touches. I was, I was gonna see F-15, uh even 1515. I want, I want Brook. No, no, I’m saying 2015 0 2015, fine by me too. Fine by me too. But that should be like the minimum. But like you said, Chris, it’s a really good young core. I love the young core that this team has, especially even going in the next year when you still have. I IU Damian Lewis, Robert Hunt Taylor Moton I think is a question mark just based on his contract. You still don’t know who your center is gonna be next year. But Tavon Sanders Coker Lee get Brooks and, and, and Hubbard question who’s gonna be your quarterback next year? But for the most part, you have really good core pieces on offense that are growing together and I love the trajectory where these guys are developing right now. Yes, there’s a lot of these guys are rookies and really young. But overall Chris, I love the way this team is going. I love the way they’re trending up. You never know. I think honestly, real quick, realistically, seven games left. How many of the Panthers win? Let’s go down that schedule. So they got Chiefs Philly Bucks twice. You have, um, Tampa Bay, you have the Cardinals and you have Atlanta one more time in order Chiefs Tampa Philly, Dallas, Arizona at Tampa at Atlanta. Um You know, I was gonna put this out there. I’ve seen people talk about this but, uh, if the Chiefs win on Sunday. They still remain undefeated. What if they’re just like, man, we’re undefeated. We’re about to have the Panthers. Oh, this is about to be so easy. And the Panthers play the Atlanta Falcons 2015 role play, catch them. And it’s like you’re, you’re not looking for it. So we might, we might get you. Um, that’s a, that’s a stretch, but I’m just gonna put that down as a, as a loss. But what if, um, Tampa has been kind of sliding a little bit lately and, uh, I, I think that the Panthers could, could possibly, uh, catch Tampa. Um, I think that the Philly game is a loss. Uh Philly is rolling and I just, with the Panthers run defense and the way Taquan Barkley is running through over and jumping over people or whatever, I just don’t see how, uh, the Panthers kind of contain him. Um, Dallas is, I think at this point more than likely a win, it’s winnable for sure. It’s, uh, uh, it’s at home. Uh, Cooper Rush is probably gonna be the quarterback unless he gets hurt and, and, uh, oh boy comes in. Um, and so, you know, there’s a, so that, that’s the chance Arizona is, is clicking right now. I don’t, you know, it’s, that’s a tossup. I don’t know whether to believe in Arizona or not. Um, and then I think, depending on the situation, I think you lose at Tampa Bay, but depending on the situation, there’s a chance that you can steal one from Atlanta. If Atlanta’s already, let’s say clinch the playoffs, they’re already gonna win the division and they’re sitting some guys and all that you can end the season with a win at Atlanta. Um, so I’d say, um, minimum one more win for the rest of the season that, that doesn’t sound good. Minimum, one more win max about three. Ok. I was thinking two, I think they get one of the Tampa games and like you mentioned, possibly Atlanta because like the end of the season, like you said, they might be, hey, we got third seed locked up. Ain’t nothing gonna change. Let’s sit a whole bunch of guys, Carolina could win that game possibly or the Dallas game because Dallas is just reeling right now and they are, but hey, it could be the Jonathan Mingo revenge game for all. We know he might actually catch a touchdown pass for, for once in his career. You know, what would be cool if that’s the game where like Jonathan Brooks really goes off and the Cowboys fans could be like, see, we told Jerry he should have drafted. This guy should have, didn’t have a running back, didn’t have a running game and all that. But we saw next week’s episode, Chris we still have next week because we have that episode for you next week here on Panthers playbooks again. Make sure you subscribe again. Leave your thoughts in the comment section down below Carolina Ford Dealer. Your sponsor of Panthers Playbook with a Ford F 150 on your team. It’s game on. See your Carolina Ford Dealer today. Enjoy the off week, folks. You still get to bask on the fact that the Carolina Panthers have won two straight games. Bask in their glory. We’ll see you next week.

Source: wralsportsfan.com