CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When he arrived in Carolina as a free agent in 2024, David Moore noticed several things that reminded him of Seattle.
It was only natural in his first head coaching job that Dave Canales would lean on what he learned over 14 years with Pete Carroll, the last 13 of which with the Seahawks. But for all the similarities in coaching philosophy, team rules and assorted other football stuff, Moore was most struck by a Seahawks tradition related to … basketball.
“I’ll start off by saying the basketball goal in the meeting room,” said Moore, the veteran wide receiver. “That was a Pete thing, for sure.”
“Yeah, we got a hoop in our team room,” Canales confirmed. “The cool part is it can be that. It can be Jeopardy, different trivia type of games. Anything to just get the guys’ competitive juices going.”
While Canales was in Seattle, the famously upbeat Carroll would jump into practice drills, bring in motivational speakers and occasionally pause team meetings to call up players or coaches for a hoops competition to break the monotony of a long NFL season.
“Pete would be in there trying to battle us. We’d have a shooting contest, see who can make the most in 30 seconds. And Pete would be in there trying to compete,” said Moore, who spent his first four seasons with the Seahawks. “That was his motto: compete, compete, compete.”
As he prepares to face the Seahawks on Sunday for the first time since leaving Seattle, Canales has the Panthers (8-7) in position to snap a seven-year playoff drought. Carolina can clinch the NFC South with a win over the Seahawks (12-3) and a Tampa Bay loss at Miami, or by beating the Buccaneers in Week 18 in Tampa.
Meanwhile, the 74-year-old Carroll has come under scrutiny as the Las Vegas Raiders have struggled through a 2-13 season in his first year in Las Vegas.
Despite being passed over for the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator post twice by Carroll, Canales remains grateful to his coaching mentor, who first hired him as an assistant strength coach and video assistant at USC in 2009 when Canales was 27.
And the people who’ve worked with or played for both men see a lot of Carroll in Canales, in how they run their programs and how they treat people.
“Those two are cut from the same cloth. You walk in a room and they can both work the room genuinely. It’s not just working a room with an end goal in mind,” said Panthers offensive coordinator Brad Idzik, a former Seattle assistant. “When you’re talking to Dave, when you’re talking to Pete, you are talking to them and they are looking right at you and they are not looking anywhere beyond the conversation they’re in.”
Canales developed his core football principles from Carroll: Playing with toughness, taking care of the ball and marrying the run and pass. And Moore said the Panthers’ rules are pretty much word for word right out of the Seahawks’ handbook: Protect the team, no whining and be early.
“Five minutes don’t make you early,” Moore said. “So get in there earlier.”
Like Carroll, Canales shows up every day buzzing with positive energy. Panthers cornerback Mike Jackson, who was in Seattle from 2021-23, said it’s hard to know whether that’s Canales’ personality, a product of being around Carroll for so long or a combination of the two.
But there’s no mistaking it.
“I think anyone from that Pete Carroll tree, they see the value in that positivity and that genuine energy in the day to day,” Idzik said. “And that’s definitely incorporated in our building here.”
Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith, another ex-Seahawks staffer, said Carroll and Canales share the same leadership style. “You can coach the guys with love and encouragement as opposed to the old-style way, and have fantastic results,” he said. “So happy to work with Dave because he’s carrying that stuff through.”
Idzik’s Seattle ties run deep. His family moved there before his sophomore year in high school when his father took a position in the Seahawks’ front office. As a teenager, Idzik bused tables in the Seahawks’ dining hall, pulled a few overnight shifts with security at the team headquarters and ran routes against the outside linebackers during his one training camp with the equipment staff.
After five years as a graduate assistant at Stanford, Idzik joined Carroll’s staff as an assistant receivers coach in 2019. Canales was Seattle’s quarterbacks coach at the time, so he and Idzik were in the same offensive meetings.
Brad Idzik spent four seasons as an assistant in Seattle and is in his second season as Carolina’s offensive coordinator. (Eric Hartline / Imagn Images)
Canales held five offensive titles with the Seahawks, but not offensive coordinator. He understood when Carroll brought in Brian Schottenheimer in 2018 because of Schottenheimer’s experience as an OC elsewhere.
But getting overlooked when Carroll hired Shane Waldron in 2021 was harder to swallow because the Los Angeles Rams assistant — like Canales — had no play-calling experience.
“I thought that would’ve been a great opportunity, really because I understood what (Carroll) wanted philosophically,” Canales told The Athletic this week.
“We’re modeling that here in Carolina. Panthers’ football looks a lot like what Coach cared about. So I felt like I could take that step and be able to continue to advance our football and do those things. At the same time, I made a friend. I had Shane’s back and I learned a lot from his time in L.A., stuff that we still use today.”
Carroll thought Canales would benefit from coaching in a different system. Around the time Waldron was hired in Seattle, Canales interviewed for the OC post at Vanderbilt.
Idzik remembers staying in Canales’ office until about 4 a.m. three nights in a row helping him cram for the interview.
“We’re in the office and we’ve got word vomit on the whiteboard of like, what would it look like if we piece this thing together and got one of these offensive coordinator jobs?” Idzik recalled. “If you put together with his personal philosophy, his football philosophy, what would it look like if you wanted to do that somewhere on your own?”
Canales turned down an offer from Vandy, thinking he’d be better off remaining as the passing game coordinator for a Seahawks’ offense featuring Russell Wilson and wideouts DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. Seattle traded Wilson to Denver the next year. But the success of Geno Smith, the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year, helped Canales get interviews for OC openings in Baltimore and Tampa Bay.
His one-year stint as the Buccaneers’ play caller led him to Carolina, where Canales, Idzik and several other coaches and players with Seattle ties are preparing to square off with the Seahawks with a possible playoff berth on the line.
Canales and Idzik’s wives are from the Seattle area, so both return to the Pacific Northwest fairly often.
“Because we go back to see her family a ton, I get to see those (Seahawks) guys and reconnect and then all the nostalgia pops back,” Idzik said. “You can’t help but go up (Interstate) 405 and drive right past the facility, where a lot of cool memories were made for me.”
The 44-year-old Canales expects to experience “really positive, really grateful emotions” before Sunday’s game as he reflects on the 13 years he spent in Seattle on a football journey that began in his native California.
“Whether we’re playing the Seahawks or not, when I walk out onto the field, when I leave that locker room the last time before we start a game, I pinch myself every time,” he said.
“Regardless of what stadium it’s in, it’s like, how cool is this? Twenty years ago I’m calling plays for a JV football (team) in Carson, California, and I get to call plays today. Get to make timeout decisions and (replay) challenges and different things like that as a head coach. This will be definitely special in that way.”