Coach Canales on Loss to the Saints & Getting Back to Work | Panther Talk | Carolina Panthers

Coach Canales on Loss to the Saints & Getting Back to Work | Panther Talk | Carolina Panthers

Welcome to Panther Talk. Anise Shraf, Jim Zoke, Eugene Robinson, the head coach of the Carolina Panthers, Dave Canales. We are uh 10 weeks into the season, past the halfway point. Um before we move on, let’s go back to Sunday because I think the one thing that that jumped out there was you’d be the first to admit and you said it, hey, that wasn’t the best we’ve seen of the Panthers. That wasn’t us. And yet this is a team now that has margin for error because despite all that it still felt like there were opportunities to win that game. Absolutely. We were given opportunities a couple of times and the defense earned a few for us and gave us a chance um to get oursel right back into the game and we didn’t capitalize, you know, and um when I look back at this season and the games that we’ve had success, we’ve played really good complete football and it was offense, defense, and special teams and we took care of the ball and we did not get that done on Sunday, you know, with the fumble, an interception. really had two of them, but one of them was uh one of them didn’t end up being an interception because of a roughing the passer, but it was a uh it was certainly a day where we didn’t capitalize um on the opportunities that were given, even the block kick, you know, and we recover the ball right there in the red zone and then a couple of plays later give it right back to them. So, um and then defensively just giving up big plays, you know, and that’s something that we’ve been doing a really good job of is is either winning the explosive battle or just being, you know, pretty even with the opponent. And um you know, we gave up eight explosives. We only got two on offense. And you know, this is a part of our football that we have to continue to press in on and uh make sure that we come alive, you know, offensively speaking. Coach, you mentioning uh having a balanced attack and some of the people that I’ve talked to say, “What does he mean? Does he mean like running inside, outside?” So what do you mean by having a balanced attack when you see a loaded box? Yeah. What we’ve seen is we’ve seen our run game have success. Well, teams are aware of that. And so they’re going to try to make you one-dimensional and force you to pass to throw the ball. And we got to see more positive results come out of our pass game. And that’s what we’re working on as a staff. Um that’s what we’re working on with our group offensively, you know, to try to make these guys come alive and uh create some explosives, you know, whatever that looks like, whether it’s throwing the ball down the field, getting into the screen game, you know, and trying to scheme some different things up. But um it’s something that we have to create a little bit more variety for so that teams can’t just, you know, hunker down and play us like that. general question, but you know, obviously they take away the run and then the first option they’re going to know is Tedaro after that. The other receiving group of Jaylen and the rest of the guys getting them more involved is that might maybe a priority moving forward just having all the different options more involved. Absolutely, Jim. I mean, that’s a great point, right? We’d love to see these guys show up and you know for a couple of weeks now we’ve seen Jaylen Coker make plays when he’s gotten his opportunities you know and I expect Xavier to make his plays as well you know and so having the variety making sure that we spread it out and uh really you know work on our formations work on the type of passes that we’re throwing you know to different guys but you know I’ll tell you guys this again it’s going to start with T-Mac and uh we’re going to count on him he’s going to get the toughest looks you know and so we have to make a we have to make sure that we put him in different situations um to create access for him and uh to put him on stuff that you know isn’t always just the isolated ex receiver and u we’ve been mixing some things up like that but uh we can continue to do that for a rookie wide receiver he’s come into the league and he’s getting the team’s number one corner most weeks how has he acquitted himself through the first 10 games given that uh there’s no real on-ramp it’s not like you know he gets to be the number two or number three he was the number one from week one absolutely taking some good wins and some good losses and learning lessons and that’s the part that I appreciate about T-Mac is just he takes in this lesson of how they how he got played on the play before and then he adjusts and he adjusts his feet, he adjusts his hands. Um, and it’s this constant learning curve and growth process for how they’re going to try to play him with different press techniques or soft catch techniques or inside trail with the safety over top. He’s getting the whole gamut. you know, this is something that, you know, Mike Evans got really familiar with in Tampa, you know, and in the time that I spent with him down there, you know, trying to troubleshoot different ways and we have to do a good job of moving him around so that we don’t make it too easy on them to to really zero in in on him, but at the same time, that means great opportunities for everybody else and let’s let’s make sure that we take capitalize on those as well. Coach, is was it a matter of technique? We saw the the play with JC Horn and down the field. Was that a matter of technique of turning not turning his back to him or you know the the way he was positioned? Yeah. Where you could actually have to you have to look up and now if he does bump into you it’s easy to fall. I think so. It could be just a leverage thing. And I know also, as you can attest to it, when you get a player who’s as fast as Crystal Lave and he’s running at full tilt and you’re moving at the same rate and JC is really fast and we also understand that, but any little incremental movement, you know, and they had kind of had their hands tied up and JC’s feet kind of slipped on him. He went down. Um, and Tyler Shuck threw an amazing pass on that play as well. So, you know, to speak of the whole play in general, like they picked up a really good pressure um and blocked it well. and then they had the one-on-one opportunity, made a throw, and you know, sometimes it’s like that, you know, but it does it starts with, you know, footwork, technique, leverage, and all that. Um JC, to be the first one to tell, you’d love to have that one back. You guys both mentioned, you know, some some explosive plays they they they were able to accomplish on offense, but when you only give up 17 points in the game defensively, pretty scrappy performance to keep it a low-scoring game and give you guys a chance. Absolutely. And can’t say enough about our defense for playing hard all the way through it. And really, they didn’t see a lot of success in the run game until the very end. Well, that’s the war of attrition, you know, and that’s just a a result of our offense not being on the field long enough. We’re putting our defense out there over and over again with the turnovers and with the punts. We had a bunch of three and outs. Those are the things that I take personally. I got to do a better job putting our guys in in situations to have success, move the ball down the field, whatever that is. Whether that’s the quick game, pass game, whether it’s empty, some of the things that we’ve used in the past, we just try to use all of it, you know, and and right now we’ve been leaning on our run game because that’s what’s worked for us. And um I’m not one to just ditch and go away from something that’s been effective for us. But at the same time, we got to protect the best stuff we do. So we got to continue to grow our processes that way. And to that point, copycat league. So people may look at the Saints. Hey, let’s load up the box, stop Rico D, see if Bryce and the receivers can beat you downfield. Is that kind of what you’re now expecting to see going forward? Absolutely. Another great opportunity for us to take strides in our pass game. I have so much confidence in this group. I know that we have talented players all across the board. It starts up front, making sure we take care of the protections the right way. Um, and then putting the ball in Bryce’s hand and distributing it to this young, talented group that we have. I count on these guys just banking on all the work they’re doing. They’re constantly talking. They’re on the side. They’re working through concepts and all these things. And I know it’s going to break through because hard work works over and over. I’ve seen it happen throughout my career. And I have full confidence in this group to get it done. Yeah. And to that point when you were at Seattle, right, there was that consistency of okay, knowing when to take care of business and week to week. This is a young team and there’s a lot of guys who are uh who’ve been here who who haven’t won and you’re now in that process where you’ve had some of the big wins and you’ve had some of those moments even toward the end of last year. What does it take to kind of unlock that, you know, next step like you saw firsthand in Seattle? It’s it’s the constant hunger for growth and improvement. It’s owning the lessons that we’ve learned when things happen in a negative way to fix those things and say, “Okay guys, we’ve resolved this issue. Let’s go find new mistakes to make.” And then also to capture the process that works for you, the positive things, the things that work for us, the things that give us an identity. Let’s replicate these things. Um it’s about identity, right? That’s what this league is about. And when you can find an identity for how you play football, it becomes a powerful thing. It all starts in practice. It’s about our processes. It’s about respecting every opportunity we have today on a Monday, having these opportunities to talk through the film, learn the lessons, relearn some um and look at the things that worked well. And let’s not lose the positives. Let’s not lose how hard we played, how physical we played, the effort we played with. Let’s not lose that inside of because of what the result was. The result was what it was because the Saints made more plays than we did. We got to give those guys credit, but we also got to make our plays and make sure that we own this process so that it becomes us. We know how to do this thing. We know how what a Monday looks like. We know what a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday looks like. Here’s how it comes to life on Sunday. We got to capture those things. Coach, what is ETN giving you? And also a second uh question to this is uh might we see more shots down the field that’s those explosive goal routes just to to keep the defense honest? Absolutely. We got to have the explosive plays, Eugene. We got to make sure that we come up with different ways to attack, whether it’s go balls, whether it’s posts, um deep crossers and all that. Those are all the parts of our system that we’re counting on to come alive. Things that we’re talking about and working on. Um Trevor Tien has done an amazing job as our primary returner. Um you know, with two really good backs, it’s hard to kind of get him going. You know, um in the back field, there’s just not enough touches to go around, but he certainly is showing us that he’s ready to go. Um last week, I got to say, he looked fantastic in practice on Thursday. um just running our scheme and pressing the runs uh taking care of the ball and seeing it with vision. So I know at some point we’ll need him and and we’ll be counting on him to be ready. Folks always want to know about the quarterback and hear about it. Hear you talk about it as well. And Bryce was a little more demonstrative in his postgame and the anger after a few minutes after the game yesterday. Not asking for anything as far as you know schematic or uh any kind of competitive stuff but uh the tone of your conversations anything different as far as a game like that and try to get him in the right mindset moving forward off a game like yesterday? uh let’s just take the lessons and learn. Let’s let’s go through the the the film just like we always do and look at the uh the grades and, you know, see where we can be better and and just evaluate how we’re throwing to our guys and, you know, there’s always those little tweaks that happen of like, hey, in this situation, you could get it hit them on this leverage. Um different things like that, but just working through the process, you know, and there’s going to be emotions, there’s going to be frustration in games like that. Um and it’s important to make sure we take the lessons, we move on, and we go attack the next week. Coach, we saw Trevon Wallace go down during that game. What can you tell us about Trevan? Yeah, um went down, couldn’t get back in. Um you know, he’s been working through some stuff and and getting himself back out there. You know, really applaud Trevan for for being being able to get out there and continue to help us, you know. Um but we’re going to have to evaluate this one and and uh see what his availability availability looks like after we have a full evaluation of it. If for some reason he’s unavailable this week, would Roseboom then go back to being the green dot? Yeah. Uh Christian will do that. Um Claude Cherless who actually played really well in the game um at the end. Again talking about not losing things um just because of the outcome, but Claude played downhill. He played physical. He was smacking lineman. He was smacking ball carriers and really felt like he looked comfortable out there. Um so I’m excited for him to have an opportunity if Travis can’t go this week. Luke brought up a great point. There was that fourth down play where Cherless was matched up on Chimera in the slot and his coverage there allowed you guys to make the play. Absolutely. He’s a fantastic athlete. You know, he can really run. He’s been he’s been um amazing for us on special teams, you know, covering kicks and all that. And you know, he’s continuing to grow in our schemes, in our system, and so um you know, really counting on Claude if he has to go this week, you know, so and I trust him. I trust him to do it. He’s tough enough. He’s smart enough. So, and coach, as you pivot to the Atlanta Falcons, what’s the message to the team? I mean, you can easily think about a 30point blowout win, but this is a divisional rival. So, what is the message to the team as you move it forward? other than the film that’s valuable to us because it’s scheme on scheme. You can’t even think about that that game. Um I expect this to be a totally different Atlanta Falcons team. Um I know what type of rhythm that Michael Pennix can play with. Um with the skilled players that he has, uh Drake London starting with him, you know, and then of course Bejian Robinson and and the different ways they can employ him. If you flip on the other side to this defense, this is a this is a really fast hungry defense. They got Ball Hawks on the back half um with Xavier Watson, with uh Jesse Bates. These guys are fantastic players. Um AJ Terrell, somebody that I really respect, you know, and um and you talk about their front seven, they got some young young speed on the edge. Um and you know, Ellis is one of my favorite players just to watch because he plays the game the right way. So I really respect this group. I respect their coach. Um I think this is a great opportunity for us to get back on track and to play a really good team, a division opponent, division rival. Um they’re going to be ready to go. We got to be ready to go and make sure that we prepare this week uh for this matchup. And last thing, uh, you guys have shown resiliency this season after New England, after Buffalo, immediately coming right back from those kind of games. Really coachable team it looks like as far as what you guys are presenting that they figure it out pretty quick. Absolutely. And you know, this game is about finding and and owning your identity and getting back to work and how quickly can we learn the lessons and how quickly can we move on and that’s what this week is going to be about as well. Let’s get back to the basics. Let’s get back to our process and trust that it’ll lead to good results. On to Atlanta. Thank you, coach. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, coach. This is the Carolina Panthers Radio Network. [Music]

Dave Canales joins Anish Shroff, Jim Szoke and Eugene Robinson on “Panther Talk” to recap the Panther’s home loss to the Saints, discuss T-Mac’s development, talk about getting back to work, and so much more!

Subscribe to the Panthers YT Channel: https://bit.ly/35gP3RB
For More Panthers NFL Action: https://bit.ly/2nv06FN

#CarolinaPanthers #Panthers #NFL #Football

For more Panthers action: https://www.panthers.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarolinaPanthers
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/panthers/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Panthers