Coach Canales on 3-Game Winning Streak & Bryce Young’s Ankle | Panther Talk | Carolina Panthers

Coach Canales on 3-Game Winning Streak & Bryce Young’s Ankle | Panther Talk | Carolina Panthers

It is Panther talk and the Carolina Panthers are rolling. Three straight wins, four of the last five and a Jim Zokei, Sharon Thorslin for Eugene Robinson and the head coach of the Carolina Panthers, Dave Canales, back from New Jersey. Hard-fought win against the Jets. The thing that we’ve noticed over these last four or five games, this team is finding different ways to win games. What does that tell you? Uh it just tells me that there’s a lot of trust in the building with between the coaching staff and the players uh to our processes, commitment to how we practice, commitment to growing our football, learning more information about situational ball and being able to execute. You know, we talk about finish and our definition is do right longer. And that’s what it’s required and that’s what we continue to find late in games. Um is quality football in all three phases really. And uh we’ll I’m sure we’ll be able to dive into that a little bit more as we go, but it’s a team that’s trusting the process and just growing up right before our eyes. A lot had been said about, you know, the three wins at home, hadn’t been able to win on the road yet. You tweaked a few things, I think, going into this game against the Jets. What did you see different from your team yesterday that maybe you haven’t seen in the prior three road games? Uh well, you know, the Patriots game, this game, we took care of the ball. We had no turnovers, so that’s a big one. and then eliminating the explosive plays. They had a couple of nice returns on kickoff return unit. They are one of the best in the NFL. Um, our guys brought the right energy. They made some yards there. Other than that, we minimize the explosives on defense. We took care of the ball on offense and special teams wise, we were really efficient in terms of just the hidden yardage fielding our punts. Trevor ETN giving us two nice returns. We covered our punts really well. um took care of the protection part of that and flipped the fields and forced the Jets into some long field positions. Um so that worked into our favor and it was just collectively just a a full three phases of of of team football. Yeah, you can make a case for all three phases doing such a great job. But take the the offense for a moment and you guys present problems with your rushing attack now Tedaro the way he’s playing when you know going in they’re going to try to take away certain things. How hard is it to run into a loaded box to get the ball to Ted row with sawside and plays like that? It was really difficult and they had a commitment to stopping the run and it worked for them to an extent. You know, by the end of the day, we’re, you know, in the mid hundreds in terms of rushing and uh that required a lot of toughness and a lot of just uh uh adjustments on the sideline from our coaching staff to our receiving group and the tight ends and the way that they were trying to play us and having to mitigate some of those things and finding successful runs kind of through the course of it, which really came out to where we were able to possess the ball, I think around 10 minutes longer than they had it. That’s also an a tribute to the defense giving us more opportunities uh to be able to do that. But it was troubleshooting some things in a group that stayed together and and continued to play violently for four quarters. And speaking of the run with Chuba and Rico and splitting those carries, we saw alternating series quite a bit. How do you manage that going forward? Yeah, it worked great for me. What I saw was two really strong backs at the end of the game and that’s what I’m counting on and that’s what we have at our disposal right now. It’s an opportunity to stay fresh that whoever goes out there is ready and they can just empty the tank on every single carry. You don’t have to save anything for later. Don’t worry about that. We got the other guy coming in and we still have Trevor sitting right back there waiting for his turn, you know, and and trying to make an impact in the return game. So, I love the balance of it. I love the attacking nature of it and the aggressive nature which both guys are running with. Xavier Legette had a a great game yesterday, especially because they were blanketing T-Mac so much. How have you seen him come along now and develop since earlier in the season, especially when he was injured? I mean, seems like he’s gearing up every week and really had a breakout yesterday. Hard work works. He just continued to work through the whole process and he had the injury and he battled through that part of it and got back out on the field finding his rhythm, working on his game. He was a focused man this week. He was a man on a mission, you know, just noticeably I’m looking over there and he’s just he’s just locked in. locked in on improvement, locked in on taking the next steps for him and helping helping the team win, helping the Panthers win. And that was him in the run game. That was that was him in the pass game, you know, making big plays when we needed some critical third downs. Um, I’m so proud of him. I’m so proud of the way that he went about his work because he earned that. He earned the right to have those be ready for those opportunities when they came and he made some huge plays for us. You had a number of guys return and some for just a couple weeks, but for Jaylen Coker, it had been since the preseason with the quad injury there. So, being a first game back with the reps you gave him and so forth, you kind of have to go through a little reinitiation, I guess, as far as his fitness and his chemistry and everything with that. Yeah, it’s the game speed. Um, just getting his feet back underneath him. He looked great on film. He he put some wins out there. The ball didn’t go his way very often. Um, we weren’t able to get him a catch in that game. Uh, but what I saw was a guy that came out of the game healthy. He was really physical in the run game for us as well, which we need those guys to be. He was reliable in the pass game as well. So, this is just something that he’ll continue to build off of, but we’re really excited to have Coker back out there. Coach, switching over to defense. Um, I think the most amazing stat that I saw the last three games, the Panthers have not allowed a rush of more than eight yards, which is wild. Um, and considering where this defense was and the run defense was last year, what do you attribute that growth to? I mean, I can’t say enough about coach AJRO and um, and the staff putting together a really good run game plan. Uh Todd Wash, our our uh defensive line coach, he presents the run game plan on Wednesdays, but it’s the commitment of the players. I have to talk about the players. Yes, coaches can come up with a great game plan, but it’s the way that they engage with the material, the way that they take it to the walkthroughs and talk about things, fit things together, discipline about it in practice, everybody running to the ball. It takes all 11, it really truly does, to have the type of success um that we’ve been having against the run. And um while the scheme and the discipline is required, it also is about the guys in there. You know, Derek Brown and Turk Wharton being back out there. Aan Robinson, you know, Bobby Brown, these these huge guys inside that are just causing havoc and then setting edges. You got Nick Scorton, DJ Wanom, Princeley who just continues to grow each week. These guys all have to work in concert along that line. And then it just allows for Trevan and for Christian to run sideline to sideline and make plays, but it’s a full group effort and we ask our corners to be involved in the run game and tackle as well. Um, and they’re committed to it. Speaking of Derek, are we watching him unlock like another layer, you know, now seeing a little more pass rush out of him? I believe so. I believe that that Derek is still an ascending player. He’ll be the first one to sit here and tell you there’s so much in his game that he can continue to build on and improve on. And this is Derek going for it. This is him working on his pass rush moves before practice, after practice, hand placement, all those things. You know, even just saw him affect the game by knocking the ball down. You know, it’s difficult to engage in a pass rush and then to match the hand of the quarterback. You got to have fast eyes. You got to be able to react in those situations. But, um, I’m just really proud of the way that he’s he chases the ball. He had a couple of beautiful plays where he’s forcing the quarterbacks out of bounds where they only get about, you know, four or five or six yards on a scramble that could have been bigger, that could have been first downs. But it’s that type of effort that’s required of the whole group. And if our best defensive player up front is doing it, everybody should be doing it and it’s an accountability factor. Speaking of outstanding play, I mean JC Horn with the two picks, especially late in the game when it really mattered even more so than maybe the early one. I mean, the way he’s been playing, what have you seen out of him uh this season and his growth? Consistency and um JC just continuing to be committed to our schemes and also just being patient for his opportunities and quarterbacks think twice about trying him on different concepts. He got tried. They tried him yesterday and he produced. And that’s the type of patience that you have to have when people recognize you as an elite corner. You got to be an opportunist and you got to be ready for when that moment comes and to be able to make those catches to be the dominant receiver on the play. It’s kind of like when you’re playing in the backyard and we call it three flies up and you know it’d be a group of kids and you throw it up and you know somebody comes up with the pass you know and in those situations it’s one-on-one and he was the bigger faster better receiver on those plays. How hard is it as a defense? I mean you want everyone wants to be a complete team but to be able to stop the run like Anisha was talking about like the last couple weeks 18 or 16 quarterback pressure six sacks yesterday to be good in both and then have the coverage as well to put all that together at this level how difficult is it to be that complete on the defensive side it’s extremely difficult and you know Jim it all starts with stopping the run so if you if you minimize how many yards they get on first down typically those are going to turn into pass opportunities second and seven plus third and longers where they got to hold it to try to get the sticks. And that’s where the pass rush comes alive. That’s where all the work on the stunts, all the work on the different defensive packages comes alive, where you can blitz the quarterback or you can stun them different ways and present different fronts to them. Um, the more opportunities you have, the better you get at it. And we’re seeing those opportunities by how well we’re playing the run game. Yeah. What And on that note, what’s it been like kind to kind of see this vision come through? You know, I think of uh the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle where you start putting the pieces together and it doesn’t quite look like what you see on top of the box and then the more you do it and the more you commit to it, the more it starts looking like what it’s supposed to look like. You Dan Morgan, Brandt, you guys had the vision of to build this thing from the trenches out, invested in the O line last year. We saw the dividends Dline and the front seven this year. We’re seeing the dividends. Um, what’s it been like to now kind of watch that vision come to fruition and see a team that can control the trenches on both sides of the ball? It’s really exciting. It’s really exciting to be able to uh force teams to play our style of football. And we want the we want the football game to come to us so that we can play the mode that we’re most comfortable and aggressive and attacking in. And it’s a beautiful thing, you know, just I can’t say enough about the hard work that Dan Morgan puts in and his and his staff, you know, to get the type of players we need to be able to play our schemes the way we want to play them. Um, and to find each other’s, you know, to find the players strengths and to utilize Trey Mer in different ways, you know, and to utilize our front players in different shades and techniques and um and offensively certainly the same thing, you know, so to see it all come together is amazing. All that being said, it’s a week- toeek business and we have a great team coming in here this week that we’re all excited about just, you know, to get back to our process, to get back to our focus and game plans. Now, this week could possibly look a little different with Bryce Young um had the ankle injury um against the Jets. What do we know about his status so far and how how do you how are you planning to move forward with that? Yeah, what we know it’s going to be dayto-day and uh Bryce is Bryce wants to be out there. I want him to be out there and so we’re going to push the envelope. We’re gonna see how much we can do each day to see if we can just improve him little by little all the way up to Sunday. And if we can do that, that’s exactly what we want to do for our team. On the flip side of it, Andy Dalton’s going to be ready and prepared to take reps, to be ready to go out there um and to uh you know, to be able to continue to push our processes forward. And that’s the biggest goal for me is that if we can get Bryce back out there, he can continue to build on what we’re building as an offense. If we get Andy, Andy gives us an opportunity to continue to build our processes in the run game and also in the pass game and developing this this uh team that’s becoming, you know, a really collective unit. Last thing for me, and Derek Brown mentioned about during process, three wins in a row. Someone asked him in the locker room yesterday about victory Monday. He said, “I’m not doing victory Monday. I’m going back to work tomorrow. Uh that’s my process right now.” Where do you stand about, you know, kind of celebrating a little bit the wins, but also knowing that your team ascending tried to get to a spot? Yeah, the celebration ends in about an hour. So, the guys the guys are finishing up the film sessions with their coaches right now and they’re celebrating the things that we did well and they’re also correcting the things that we can improve on and then we got to move on. And uh that’s always got to be the approach for us. We definitely got to enjoy it. Enjoy it on the plane on the way home. Enjoy it at home when you get to see your families and celebrate that part of it. We celebrate those things together as a team when we watch them on tell the truth Monday. But it’s tell the truth Monday. We also have to attack the things that we got to improve on. Um and then we move on to the work and that’s the way we’ve we’ve seen this. Dave, we’ll end on this. Uh 3 and 0 at home. Bills coming in. Message for the fans is get here early. Absolutely. We need you. Don’t miss this offense. You know, if we get a chance to get out there first. um if we get the choice, we’re kicking the ball and you’re going to see your defense out there continuing to build on the things that we’re doing. But it’s an exciting time for our team. It’s it’s exciting time for the Panthers. Um you know, and uh to be able to see some of these some of the talent come together, the guys we brought in free agency, the draft picks, all developing, all growing right before our eyes. It’s an exciting time in our football and I can’t wait to hear keep pounding from snap one until the final finish of the game. Yeah, that that that’s how we end a segment right there. Panthers head coach Dave Canales. You’re listening to the Carolina Panthers Radio Network.

Dave Canales joins Anish Shroff, Jim Szoke and Sharon Thorsland on “Panther Talk” to recap the Panther’s road win over the New York Jets, provide an update on Bryce Youngs ankle injury, discuss Derrick Brown’s ascension, and so much more!

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