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Thank you for making me a Friend Of The Mailbag when I wrote last summer. I wore my honored T-shirt with pride as much as I could when visiting Carolina Beach. Dave Canales revealed today that Dom Capers was heading to Cleveland, and it brought up a question from my own work experience. I was new to my job three years ago and had a supervisor who taught me a lot, but people above both of us felt like the supervisor was holding me back based on how much I had learned. Do you feel it is a similar situation in Carolina that while Dom is great, Ejiro Evero has kind of outgrown his tutelage and may thrive more without the voice in his ear? I personally have been thriving at my job and would love your thoughts on the situation.
P.S. I did refrain from telling people how to drive in the snow while in Carolina; it wasn’t easy, as I feel most people in NY also cannot drive well in the snow! — Garett, Dryden, NY
Thank you for your service, Garrett. Go tell your people that it can be done. When we had our blizzard the other week, I got to employ my favorite bad-weather driving tip — not driving. Holing up in the house, making soup, and watching television is much safer.
As far as Capers, we’ll miss seeing him on a daily basis. He leaves a wake of good feelings everywhere he goes. When we walked through Lambeau Field with him last fall, it was like traveling with The Beatles. And that’s a universal phenomenon, because it was the same way in Houston. And his thumbprints are all over this place. And now, the people he’s taught and influenced get a chance to grow. Jonathan Cooley gets to present to the defense more, same with Pete Hansen and AC Carter and other coaches. Capers has helped teach each of them, so his legacy here will continue. But that would have been the case anyway, since he was literally here from Day 1.
Canales waxed poetic when he mentioned it the other day, saying Capers was “someone who’s had a tremendous influence on me, a guy who started the Panthers and who has the ability to walk around the parking lot and say, I remember when we planted these trees and they tower over us now and cover us, which is a really symbolic for how he’s covered us as a staff, the development of our defensive staff.
“Coach Dom leaving us creates a lot of opportunity for coaches to step up into new roles. I don’t want to get into the specifics of what those roles will be, but these are guys that learned from coach Dom, especially with Evero, starting with him, the influence he’s had on him and the rest of the coaching staff to be able to build our defense up, and these are guys that I really trust, and I’m excited about where we’re going.”
Someone asked if I wrote that for Dave, and I did not. But I would have, and not just because I’m pro-tree, but the metaphor was lovely.
Dom’s one of the most solid and consistent human beings I’ve ever met in this business, or in life. So his being gone will be an adjustment. But when you allow your coaching staff to grow, it can pay long-term dividends. It’s like building a deeper bench, knowing there may come a day when someone gets injured or leaves.