Rico Dowdle isn’t the only surprise this season in Carolina 💪 | The Schrager Hour

Rico Dowdle isn’t the only surprise this season in Carolina 💪 | The Schrager Hour

This guy, Rico Dowel, I I love his story. I love the fact that he tells the Dallas Cowboys publicly, buckle up, and then goes and runs for 200 yards. And then against the Packers and Lambe, the best player on the field is Rico Dowel. Uh take us through this guy and your journey with him because this was not one of those breaking news. The Carolina Panthers have signed Rico Dowel free agent acquisitions. Yeah, so this goes back to my time in Tampa. uh our running back’s coach, Skip Pete, had Rico in Dallas on the practice squad, and we weren’t able to uh acquire him in Tampa at the time, but you know, he was like, “Hey Dave, there’s a guy that I think would be worth looking at. You know, it’s Rico Dael. The guy is tough. He cares. He’s into it. He’s a good dude. Um you’d really love his play style. He runs with a lot of violence.” And so it kind of started there. Um and then we weren’t able to, you know, to acquire him there. Then then of course last year he comes into Bank of America Stadium with the Cowboys and had a day, you know, running the ball and ran with violence. And so with all that information, you know, as Dan and I just talked about it and looked at who can come in and give us that style of play that we’re looking for, knowing we had Chuba and Chuba, you know, he runs hard and he gets the tough yards and he’s such a he’s in such great shape. you know, as a game goes on, he would break one and do these things. And um Rico came in, you know, man on a mission and um you know, really energized the group with the violence and the way that he runs. And um and you hear it, you hear it in his voice. You know, this is a guy that is a dreamer as well. And he’s like, “Let me see how good I can be. Let me see what I can go do.” And um breathing things into existence is the exactly the type of vibe that I want to be around. Your your whole demeanor, I think, is so contagious. And you and I have spoken many times before, some on camera, some off. And I just feel like I want to follow Dave Canales. And there’s a there’s a loving nature to everything you talk about with these players. And it’s not necessarily what we were used to as kids with high school coaches or what we watched on NFL films with coaches shouting at players. You have this I’m not going to say the word softer, but there is more of a I would say engaging. What would you even say? How would you describe your coaching style and that there’s a compassion when I hear you talk about your players and talk about the game of football? Uh it’s just it’s just always been me. Um and I’ve you know I had a great mentor and Pete Carol and you know coach would always just say like you know don’t try to be me like be yourself be yourself but care what I care about and uh the things that are important but you have to have your own style because you can do that every day. That’s sustainable if you can be yourself. And the only way that I’ve seen success, you know, as a coach is by connecting with guys on a one-on-one basis and um making sure that they understand I have their best interest in mind. And I’m not worried about them just being good. I’m worried about them finding their best and um and trying to do that for myself, you know, and and pursue what can I learn? What’s the next step for me? Um how can I grow? And taking information in from from guys. Uh got to talk about Shawn Manion, who I saw last week. um a guy that I learned a ton from when I was coaching quarterbacks, you know, and he had all these little tips and tells and reminders and hey, I gotta I gotta work this thing. This is what I struggle with. I got to work this and just the way that his mind work is, you know, just making sure that I’m connecting both ways. And uh the players understand that and really they grow up and they learn to own things. It’s like, look, no, this is your job. This is not for me. You’re not out there representing me. You’re representing yourself. How can I help you? Yeah. I I look at this Panthers team and I would have said in August that they might be a surprise team, but they’re probably built for next year to really come on strong and really compete because they’re just so young. And yet here you are five and four. The next three weeks are winnable games. Every game’s obviously a crapshoot, but they are winnable games on the schedule. Have you gotten the chance to really connect with these players to think that the future could be now with this squad? We could be the team of 2025. Yeah, I just I never want to communicate anything other than we’re trying to win this week to our group and um it’s because of how hard they work. It’s it’s how hard they play on game day, you know, and and what it really takes from a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual standpoint for these guys. They’re giving everything they have. I I think about last year, you know, I think about how hard we had to work to win five games. And I always want to honor that. I want to honor the the effort, the hours that go in from the staff, you know, all the supporting staff and everyone that’s pulling to win this week. I cannot look too far into the future as far as like what this thing could be or try to make statements other than can we find our best and can we be better than we were last week. Can we just own this thing? You know like thing I share with the team a lot is I say let let’s go further up and further in. You know this is a CS Lewis quote and you know it’s about not adding more things but it’s about you know really just like tuning the microscope. let’s just go further into this thing, into our concepts, into our systems and our ability to improve. Um, and I think that works. I truly believe whether you’re a team that’s struggling to find wins or you’re a team that’s been winning and wants to sustain sustain success, the way to do it is by just honing and honing and honing. And that’s got to be the pursuit every

On The Schrager Hour, Peter Schrager is joined by Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales to discuss RB Rico Dowdle, his coaching style and the Panthers’ turnaround from last season.

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