The combine has been underway for a few days now, and the workouts have taken everyone\u2019s attention. But prior to all that, the combine served as a gathering place for NFL decision makers and the media to interact with one another and get some nice juicy headlines for the offseason. Dave Canales, Dan Morgan, Brad Idzik, and even Brandt Tilis got at least one chance to get in front of a microphone. The Panthers posted around two hours of interview content. We hit the highlights to save you some time.<\/p>\n
We start with Canales getting up on the podium<\/a> to answer questions from various members of the media. Right out of the gate, Canales said he\u2019s handing play calling duties over to Brad Idzik. He said the move is to free himself up to take more of a management role for the entire team on game days while also letting Idzik take another step as an offensive coordinator. He is already the primary architect of the offense, so it\u2019s natural to let him call the plays. He talked about emulating John Harbaugh as a leader as a head coach. As for running the offense, he said his philosophy is about building what you think will create an explosive offense that will score points and then finding what parts of it tailor to the personnel you have, especially the quarterback. He wrapped up by saying that Dom Capers is departing to join the Browns.<\/p>\n Canales followed that by answering more questions from reporters in front of a wall<\/a>. I don\u2019t know why this was separate from the press conference, but whatever. There wasn\u2019t much more of substance here, which is partly because it\u2019s really hard to hear the questions he\u2019s answering with all the background noise. The only thing was that he talked about the plan to add some competition to the quarterback. He predictably dodged a question that kinda dragged Andy Dalton for being slow.<\/p>\n Lastly, Canales sat down with Anish Shroff<\/a> for a kind of internal one on one interview. There was more talk about the play calling handoff with Dave reiterating that he felt this was the best decision to make the Panthers better. He talked about prioritizing the development and recovery of current players to improve the team. Then comes looking for players that are culture fits that can be brought in to challenge the roster. When talking to players at the combine, he talked about looking for players with self awareness as those players tend to be the most likely to develop and reach their potential because they know how they got to how they are and know how to take the next step.<\/p>\n With Canales announcing that Idzik is going to be calling plays this upcoming season, the latter obviously became a focus of media attention at the combine. And he obviously got asked a ton about his new role calling plays. He says he\u2019s ready for the challenge, and he\u2019s called plays in the preseason, so it\u2019s not an entirely new thing for him. He was asked<\/a> if he\u2019s going to call plays from the sideline or the booth, and while he\u2019s open to both options, he thinks he\u2019s going to prefer calling plays from the sideline so he can have the pulse of the team.<\/p>\n Idzik also spoke with Drain Gantt<\/a>, who has more flow with the hair than I realized. He again said he\u2019s gotten reps in scrimmages during the spring and he\u2019s looking forward to doing that again knowing that he\u2019ll be preparing for that role in real games next season. He also talked about the influence his father, who spent nearly 30 years in various jobs around the NFL, has had on him. He found out that he was going to become the play caller by Dave Canales coming into his office and telling him while he was doing some self scouting. He wasn\u2019t surprised because Canales has put so much emphasis on developing his staff and preparing them for their next steps, so he knew this was coming at some point.<\/p>\n In his press conference<\/a>, Morgan talked about trying to attack the linebacker position in free agency and the draft. He was asked about NIL in college, and he says it\u2019s actually beneficial from an evaluation standpoint because it gives them a chance to see how a young player handles having a lot of money. It\u2019s hard to hear the questions, but I think he was asked about Bradley Chubb and said it was a situation they would evaluate. He was asked about some other positions but generally kept going back to the idea that he\u2019s trying to improve the entire roster. He did say he believes in Chuba Hubbard as a lead back and that the team is excited about both Jonathon Brooks and Trevor Etienne. He was asked about Rico Dowdle, and while he said that the door is open for him to return, the way he answered the questions seemed to suggest it\u2019s very unlikely that happens.<\/p>\n