So Jalen Coker, Chris, 9 catches, 134 yards, and a touchdown. There were other receivers from the 2024 draft class that played in the playoffs in the wild card round. Keyon Coleman, Brian Thomas Jr. Xavier Legette, Roma Doonsay, Lad McConkie, and then Ricky Pursall did not play for San Francisco because, because he was hurt. They combined for 9 catches, 141 yards, and a touchdown. Those were all 1st and 2nd round picks. Jalen Coker, the undrafted guy, produced just as much as those six guys that were 1st and 2nd round picks. That’s a win for Dan Morgan. Dan Morgan, Dan Morgan. Let’s go. Dan Morgan, ladies and gentlemen. Dan Morgan has some big decisions to make this offseason, and we’re gonna talk about it. Let’s get this sucker started. Get dialed in, Panthers fans. Here comes an in-depth look at your team. Exclusive interviews, locker room insight. Let’s huddle up for Panthers Playbook presented by Wake Orthopedics, a WakeMed physician practice. 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. Big shout out to our friends over at Wake Orthopedics. By the way, folks. Make sure you subscribe because we’re having content for you all season long. Doesn’t all year long. Just because the regular season’s over the postseason, over the Panthers are out of it doesn’t mean the content stops. The offseason is still our season. It is our season. Every single Thursday, every single Thursday we’re having an episode for you all. And then obviously if there’s breaking news, big trades and things along those lines, free agency, we’ll have extra episodes for you. Also, make sure you subscribe, whether it’s on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, because there are a lot of big decisions that need to happen. This offseason. And I think a lot of those decisions, Chris, need to be influenced by the fact that Whether it’s coaching, whether they scheme change, whether they change personnel, however they do it from both Dan Morgan, the GM, the head coach Dave Canales, Eijiro Everro, the defensive coordinator, which we’ll get into in a little bit. But if you look at the last 5 games of the season, including the the playoff game against the Rams. To me, I look at it as missed opportunities. Because you came out of your bye week after beating the Rams, knowing full well going into that game at the New Orleans Saints. That the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had already lost to Atlanta and you had a chance to seize control of the division at that moment. If you took care of business then, then guess what? You weren’t sweating it out the final week of the season. You missed that opportunity. OK? You came back and you beat the Bucks, but then you had a home game against the Seattle Seahawks. You missed that opportunity, both in individual plays and the game as a whole. Then you go on the road to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and you missed that opportunity. And like I said, you were sweating it out just to make the playoffs. And then even against the Rams, you missed opportunities as well. That’s something I hope this young team continues to learn and grow going forward into next year. That’s something that we were talking about, uh, before we started the show, uh, today. The difference between what we’re talking about last year at this time and this year at this time is, is a little different. Last year we’re like, can they win close games, right? Um, you, there’s so many games where it’s like, yeah, they fought hard, they would come back and, you know, get it a little bit close, but then the other team would be able to pull it out at the end. Chiefs, Eagles, always happened, right? Um, and then now it’s like, can you win with expectations on your back. Um, when you are expected to win, when you need to have this win for your future, uh, when you need to have this win for better seating, when you need to have this win to win a division, things like that, um, and you know, if you, first off, not to seem like all doom and gloom, very much so happy they made the playoffs, very much so happy that, uh, with the, with the performance they had against the Rams, it was amazing. However, last 5 games of the year, you won one of them. Right, so, uh, as after you win that Rams game back on November 30th, after that, you know, you didn’t do very well with expectation. That is the next step for the Carolina Panthers. And, and so for those in the comments, we’re not bashing the team at all. Talking about the next steps. Uh, we’re just talking about where the team needs to go from here, and that is, that’s really what I think, um, the, the, the front office needs to look at. That’s what the coaching staff needs to look at. That’s what the players need to look at because also like, That game against the Rams, the last one was very much so winnable. Still, now the Rams, the Rams made their mistakes for sure. They left the door open, but the Panthers didn’t walk through, and they absolutely could have walked through. We could talk a little bit more about that. There are some mistakes on the defensive side of the ball. There’s some mistakes from Bryce Young. There’s some mistakes from, uh, receivers. Uh, there were, there were different things that happened in that game that the Carolina Panthers could have seized the opportunity and could still be playing. Uh, but these are teachable moments. These are moments that you learn from so you can get better from 2026. Uh, we, we’ve used the term growing pains a lot. We’re growing pains a lot, and this is part of that growth because we, we, we had talked about how again in 2024 they had to learn how to win close games. Because they lost to the Chiefs, they lost to the Eagles, but then you come back, you won a close game against the, the Falcons in overtime late in the season and you, you win in overtime against the Arizona Cardinals late in the season. So again, it’s all part of that evolution and growth. But I think what you’re talking about when it comes to, or what we’re trying to get to, I guess you could say is that, can this team develop that killer instinct? From a coaching standpoint, a player standpoint, like that is the thing. Can you develop that killer instinct when you’re up 17-7 against the Saints 5 minutes into the second half? Can you make it 24 to 7? Can you, can you make it then 27 to 7 or whatever it might be? Or, hey, shut down on defense lately, step on the next. Finish teams off. That’s the thing. That’s the next step in the evolution of this team. Do they have that killer instinct? We can always point about how, or people always will point out the, the late game, 4th quarter comebacks and all that kind of stuff. But you have to question yourself, it’s like, well, why are you always in that situation? The 1st 3 quarters also matter because a lot of slow starts. There’s a lot of those slow starts the Rams games. Exactly. You’re down 14-0 against the Rams. Now, again, props, you’re able to climb back, but that, but still, all four quarters do matter. So my thing is that when it comes to both coaching, players, but also Dan Morgan. When you’re trying to put together the roster for next season for 2026 and beyond. Who are the killers out there? Like, who, like, who are the closers? I need someone to step up to the mound and throw 102 and strike you out at the end of the game. Who is that? Now, can Nick Skorton develop as that edge rusher Potentially? I think Nick Skorton is gonna be a solid player for a long, long time, but is he gonna be the end of the game? I’m gonna get you that strip sack, even though I may have been silent the rest of the game, but it’s 4th quarter, 2 minutes left. Am I gonna get that strip sack? Can he develop to be that consistent threat? Now, he’s still super young. Maybe he can develop into that in a couple of years. We’ll see. But does Dan Morgan this offseason go for that guy? Can Jonathan Brooks coming off the, the two ACL injuries, can he be that home run hitter late in the game? That you need. Can he be that? Does this team have it right now? And I don’t think this roster fully does quite yet. But even if they do, how will we know? Because it also feels like the coaching staff doesn’t allow the killers to be killers, because you could say that for both sides of the ball. Uh, we heard the interview. with, I, I guess it was Vashti and, and Princely Umamiyelen in the locker room. Vashti heard from Carolina Blitz. Go check it out on social media. She had an interview one on one with, with Princely Uma Melen in the locker room. He was, he was trying to keep his job. He was essentially like, you know, hey, um, we got the dudes, we got the guys. We could get to the quarterback. And he’s essentially letting us know in so many words, it’s the scheme that kind of holds them back a little bit. And you know it felt like, you know, there was a few plays, uh, this year where it felt like maybe, you know, JC Horn or a Mike Jack would just use their instincts instead of like just the scheme and then all of a sudden great things would happen and that was on defense. Then on offense, um, You know, for as good as Bryce Young is in certain games, he’s not as good in other games. And so where’s his consistency? But along with that, the part of the reason why he’s not consistent is because what’s up with the play calling with Dave Canales? Sometimes Dave is coming out there telling Bryce through play calling, I don’t trust you. So how can Bryce have the confidence to let it rip when he knows if he makes one mistake, Dave is gonna completely take it out of his hands. Now sometimes he needs to. The Miami game was, was a good example of that. Turn to hand the ball to Rico Dowd. Hand it to Rico Dowd. Let him win us the game. He ended up winning us the game by 3 versus the Miami team who wasn’t very good this year, right? Um, but There’s this back and forth where Dave and Bryce are not on the same page, and I do think it impacts Bryce’s game. I also think Bryce’s, I also think Bryce’s game impacts Dave Canalis’s play calling. So they need to work that out over the offseason as well. We don’t know if we have the killers because it doesn’t seem as if, uh, the coaching staff right now is as constructed. is letting everything rip and, and trusting their players to make plays. That is also a part of that next step in evolution for the Carolina Panthers. There’s a lot of growth. I know this team made the playoffs at 8 and 9, but there’s still, look at the 18 games they played, if you factor in the playoff game. They only reached 20 points offensively 8 times. So less than half the games, they reached 20 points. Now, their highest offensive output, 31 points, came against the LA Rams twice. Well, I say offensive output. Don’t forget the first time they played the Rams, you had to pick 6. The offense only scored 24. So I say offensive output, 31. That was the best offensive output of the season came against the Rams. So you also look on the, like you mentioned, the defensive side of things as well. As much as the defense improved, and again, a lot of that can be attributed to the personnel that Dan Morgan brought in. But as much as we saw the defense improve from literally one of the worst defenses we’ve ever seen in 2024, like the bar was literally the floor that we’re currently standing on right now or sitting on right now. But there’s the, the defense still finished 16th in points per game, still finished 19th in yards per play, 17th in yards per game. You look at red zone scoring defense, they were 15th in the NFL. 3rd-down defense, 3rd-down conversion rate, they were 30th in the NFL. You also look at sack percentage, 27th in the NFL. The one area where they improved the most was obviously interception percentage. They were, in terms of interceptions. Inception percentage, they were 8th best in the NFL. We have the best cornerback duo in the NFL when it comes to, no, well, I mean, no other cornerback duo had had 10 combined exceptions. So like if you’re gonna look at just that part of it, it, it’s the best. So that’s something to keep in mind is that yes, they got better in the turnover aspect, which obviously helps the offense as well, though they didn’t capitalize on, again, missed opportunities, San Francisco game and, and many others. But The defense, as big of a leap as it took this year, still got to middle of the pack. Like it’s still right overall middle of the pack as a whole on defense. Again, some areas are higher than others, but when you are 30th and 4th down, I’m sorry, 30th and 3rd downs, you’re 27th. In sack percentage. Well, to me, sometimes those things can correlate with one another because if you’re not getting to the quarterback, you’re going to make 3rd down a lot easier, especially if it’s 3rd and 6, 3rd and 7, and it’s an obvious pass situation, and that quarterback’s upright, not feeling pressure. Well, it’s, it’s tough for, for the, for the secondary to cover. Here’s what I would, would want to know. And, and you’re going to be talking to, you know, Dan Morgan on, on the radio, uh, and by the time this is out, this has already happened. But maybe this is a good question. He says in his, uh, press conference on Tuesday that he loves this defense, that it’s an aggressive defense. How is it aggressive when if a team is on a 3rd and 3? The cornerbacks are 8 yards off of the wide receivers. How is it aggressive if Derrick Brown is dropping back in coverage against the Saints? How is it aggressive if some of your best pass rushers on 3rd down are dropping back in coverage? Those are, those are some of the questions I, I just want answered, um, because I don’t know if the defense is aggressive enough. Like, do we run enough stunts at the line of scrimmage when we’re, when we’re rushing a quarterback? Are we doing everything that we can do in our power to make sure we are making it uncomfortable, or are we just covering our zones and hoping that we confuse somebody? It might work for, uh, Sam Darnold. Didn’t work for Matt Stafford. There, there’s, there’s certain quarterbacks who are just zone killers, right? Sam Darnold didn’t really have that good of a game, but his defense was freaking amazing. And, you know, he was able to kind of pull through and you kind of that erases what you see from Sam Darnold. That’s also the recipe for Bryce Young, I think. So that’s why we’re talking about the defense. We gotta get the defense together and also the run game together, uh, to where it’s more consistent so that we’re not always focusing on Bryce Young’s inconsistencies because at this point he is who he is, right? Um, and so if we’re gonna put our, our franchise and put our stake into this guy. Then everything else needs to be fully intact and fully together. So there, there’s just some things I just wanna, I wanna know just tactically what are we doing. Then offensively, I real quick, real quick on that, real quick on that on defense. We’re talking about killer instinct. What was the killer instinct when you were up against the LA Rams late in the game? Where’s the killer instinct late against the Seattle, I’m sorry, the, the New Orleans Saints late in the game? Where was it? Where was that killer instinct from a, from a play calling standpoint from, from a defensive play calling standpoint? Where was that? Like that’s what I’m talking about killer instinct. It’s not just players, it comes from coaches too. Like you need to have that like sitting back like, hey, we’ll kind of play prevent soft, keep everything kind of in front of us. I know you got cooked. Hey, let’s just let Chris Olave run free. Where’s the killer instinct? Because when you’re, when you’re in that, when you’re in that position, it’s like, Dennis, you got him, and I’m looking over here, and then you’re looking over there, well then somebody else is just running free, and that, and that keeps happening in the biggest moments. Like you can shut Chris Olave down for three quarters, but then he absolutely cooks you. In the 4th quarter on a game-winning drive. Like there’s no, I, I, if, if you want to play zone and stuff, OK, I get that. But why such easy free releases from the line of scrimmage? Guys really look at the screen, it’s like, all right, 2nd and, and, and like 8th or whatever it is, and there’s no one lined up there even at the 1st-down marker. Like in zone coverage, like at, at, at the snap, the guys are dropping. Again, that’s what they’re being told to do. I would like to talk to, uh, an experienced cornerback coach or a quarterback. If you look at some of the, um, I guess penalties that JC Horn was, was, uh, given, uh, towards the end of the season. You’re right, they’re off like 8 yards. If you’re contacting somebody, uh, after 5 yards, a lot of times it could be, it’d be illegal contact it’s a penalty, right? So like sometimes you probably just need to be up close just so you can make sure that you can get in there, hip pocket, and also. When you talk about the free release, if you can mess up the release enough, it can mess up the timing for the quarterback. So like, why aren’t we trying to do things like that? I feel like we have the cornerbacks who can at least make it happen, at least one of them for sure. And then Mike Jackson has been continuing to continuously proving himself. I do want to look at the offensive side too, uh, because, you know, I feel like there, there are things that can absolutely get better. Uh, one, we were, we’ve been told the last couple of years that the wide receivers were the deepest group on this team. Not the case. No, absolutely not the case. Uh, we have a gym in Jalen Coker. We have a gym in Tederoa McMillan. I think that, um, there’s some. The future is bright for Jimmy Horn. Yes, he had that drop pass, but listen, the kid has been barely used. He’s been in the games, but he’s been barely targeted, barely used all season. I think that there’s more that you can do with him, uh, after that. We have to really figure out what we have. I would love for Xavier Leette to work out, but we have to figure out exactly what we have. Also, the run game. It’s not just the actual guys who are running the ball, it’s the person who’s calling those plays. Uh, Panthers averaged 4.2 yards per carry. Um, here’s an idea. I don’t know if, if, if Dave Canals would want to do this. Maybe it would, he would need to give up play calling duties, which he doesn’t want to do, but Mike McDaniel was fired. Mike McDaniel for a lot of his career was a run game coordinator. His team that he was just fired from, the Miami Dolphins, averaged 4.7 yards per carry. They were a bad team. Now that’s only a half of a yard difference between the Carolina Panthers. And, uh, the Miami Dolphins, but a half of the yard means a lot on 4th and 1s, 4th and shorts, you know, just whatever, just kind of getting it, uh, so technically the Miami Dolphins ran the ball better than the Carolina Panthers on a consistent basis. And so also it just feels like we can get into a rut where the run game is, is way too predictable. So let’s, how about bring somebody in here with some different ideas, learn some different things. Maybe Mike McDaniel wouldn’t wanna just be a run game coordinator, and I get that. But somebody else has to be brought in. I don’t think we can just go as status quo. Like, as long as Brad Idzik and whoever else doesn’t get a job, hey, you’re welcome back. We gotta get some new blood in there. We gotta get some new ideas in, in, in that room to, to. Scheme and plan things out. And those are some things I wish that uh he’d look into in the offseason. Hopefully, he will. There’s still a lot of time, the, the season just ended. But those are the things I think looking forward. You can’t just maintain status quo and just get better from there. You also have to take some swings. I want to see this offense. I think another next, another step in the evolution of this offense and Dave Canales. Where are the chunk plays. Yeah, where are the chunk plays on a consistent basis. It helps if you get your run game together too. It can play action. You will, you can play action, but you can pick up explosives in your run game too, which is something that they lacked a lot this season. I understand that there’s obviously the big games from Rico Dowda that we saw, but on a consistent basis, did we really see that? No, we didn’t. No, we didn’t. And I think again, a lot of this is all. It’s, it’s a chicken or the egg thing. Bryce Young not being trusted by his coach. Or Bryce Young also not being able to consistently hit on intermediate passes. The, the Panthers struggled this season passing where the, where the target was 10 to 19 yards downfield. 10 to 19 yards downfield, they were one of the worst teams in the NFL. In that intermediate passing area, which is where you can pick up chunk plays. Where, OK, I can catch the ball on a, on an in-breaking route 15 yards downfield at night and Terrell McMillan can catch and turn upfield and turn that, you know, 15 yards downfield into a 27 yard game or whatever it might be. For example, the best game that Bryce Young had passing in the intermediate area, correctly, was 9 to 1310 to 19 yards downfield, was the Atlanta game, the game at Atlanta. Is it a coincidence that he threw for over 400 yards in an overtime game? Because guess what they were doing? They were picking up chunk play, chunk play, chunk play. That’s something that this offense needs to be able to do. I understand that you want to be able to grind out drives, but sometimes it’s also OK that you can score in 4 plays and go 70 yards because you pick up chunk play, chunk play, chunk play. You’re in the red zone, boom, 1 more play and you score. You got to be able to also score an explosive, explosive plays. Directly correlate over the course of the season to more points being scored. It’s just how the NFL works. I, I think, um, One big thing for Bryce, I want him to be comfortable with every wide receiver on that roster as much as possible. If you go back and look at that last drive where the Panthers, uh, are down 3, and they go 3 and out. 1st play, 1st and 10. Jimmy Horn is open. If you lead him, Rams are playing that same soft defense that the Carolina Panthers were playing. They’re, they’re just trying to keep everything in front of them at that point, right? You got, you have 3 timeouts. It’s not a lot of time on the clock, but you have 3 timeouts. Hit the underneath guy. If you go back and look at the play, look at the all 22, if you lead Jimmy Horn a little bit going towards the sideline. He picks up the first down, probably a lot more because Tederoy McMillan, uh, he was like, uh, breaking in. His, uh, his DB was running with him. Horn could have come over this way. That guy would not have been paying attention. Probably could have picked up 25 yards and gotten out of bounds. If not, maybe 15 and he’s tackled, if he’s able to whip his head around and go get the tackle, but still it’s the 1st down and you have that timeout. So that’s a situation where that’s not on Canalis, that’s just on Bryce making sure he’s hitting the target, making sure he’s trusting his eyes. I think, and, and there’s times where Bryce just falls in love with a target. We’ve seen it where Coker will have his game, Jatavian Sanders will have his game, uh, Tedder Roy McMillan would have his game, but you don’t really see these games where it’s like Bryce is thrown for, you know, 300 yards, and he’s also. hit 7 different receivers and those 7 different receivers have over 10 yards, uh, apiece, right? Like it’s, it’s, he doesn’t really get comfortable, uh, with throwing it to to a variety of different guys. So that’s one thing that I want him to do as he’s taking his step up in his 4th year. You want to get that big quarterback money. You’ve got the 5th year option. You wanna get that big quarterback money. Next year is the year to try to prove that. And that’s also about trusting your eyes and giving guys a chance. And sometimes, Bryce just doesn’t give guys a chance. And like, Is Bryce only having 3,011 yards? 50% his fault. 50% Canalis’s fault. But Bryce on his own could have helped to pick up another maybe 500 during the year just by simply trusting his eyes and trusting, trusting the guys he’s throwing it to. Early in his career it was, where’s Adam Thielen. Early in his career, where was Adam Thiel. And then also during the course of the season, it felt like, all right, where’s T Mac? You know, where, where’s Tenero McMillan? I understand that sometimes there’s You know, maybe this also plays in a little bit of Xavier Lee Gett. Does, you know, does he not trust Lee Get and also Lee Gett, does he not feel the trust and confidence? Again, there’s, that’s, there’s, we can go deep down that rabbit hole at some point. But overall, there are a lot of decisions which we’ll, we’ll put our, our general manager hat on and stuff during the points this offseason because there are still questions about Iki Kwanu. The ruptured patella tendon. Like that’s massive because now you’re going into the draft. It’s like, well, wait a second, what do we do at left tackle? It’s not like there’s a big crop of left tackle free agents that are out there. Do you go back and re-sign Josh Neiman? Do you not have to draft somebody? Is it a plug and play situation? You’re trying to make the playoffs again next year and go and win a division once again. That’s a big-time loss that could, you know, potentially for this upcoming year for the Carolina Panthers. So there’s a lot of things that are riding on the line. What do you do at running back? Are you anticipating Jonathan Brooks being fully healthy? Coming off the ACL again, big question mark. Wide receiver? Do you have a deep threat down the field? Do you go free agent? Do you try and draft somebody again? How do you get to the quarterback as an edge rusher or, or some sort of interior pass rush as well? And even off Linebacker can still use a massive boost as well, and I would like to see a ball hawking safety. There’s still a lot of holes that need to be filled on this roster, and that’s why you got to subscribe, folks. Stay locked in this entire offseason. We’re gonna break it all down. We’re gonna take you all the way up to free agency, through free agency, the draft, OTAs, the whole bit all the way up to next season. So make sure you stay locked in. Shout out to our sponsor, Wake Orthopedics. Subscribe if you haven’t. Chris, you’re the man. You all are awesome. We felt the love, by the way, after the game on Saturday and the video that we posted the episode. We saw all the love in the comments. Thank you all. Y’all the best. We’ll see you all next time.
