Chris, if you could pick one word right now, one word that would describe this Carolina Panthers organization, what would that one word be? Hm, one word, ascending. Oh, I like that ascending. That’s a good one. My one word Stability. I thought you were about to say stagnant. No, cause they’re ascending, Chris, can’t be stagnant if they’re ascending, but I know you, so, you know, what do you mean you know me? You’re kind of a heel. 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, and that’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cox here with you. Big shout out to Wake Orthopedics, the sponsor here at Panthers Playbook. Folks, while you like this video and while you obviously, if you haven’t hit the subscribe button, make sure you do so and hype this video. Let us know in the comments. Your one word thought. Like what one word comes to mind when you think of this Panthers organization the way it is right now. And I think, Chris, you hit one thing about this team from what we’ve seen in the last few years. It’s ascending. And I think actually your word and my word actually go together because stability in this organization, which we haven’t seen for a long time. This is gonna be the 3rd straight season where we’re gonna have the same head coach slash play caller, the same quarterback, same general manager, same defensive coordinator. Stability, I think, has led to what you said, Chris, which is the ascension of this team. Our words do go together, so I guess they’ll be together on balance. Valentine’s Day and exchange nice Valentine’s gifts. Um, I, yeah, I, I love the fact that you have that stability. We use the word continuity a lot last season, especially in the offseason. That was something that the Carolina Panthers didn’t have for a very long time. Last year was the first time basically since Matt Rhule that the Panthers had returned the same head coach, right? And so, like now we’re going into that again. And we had a really good draft class last year, hoping Dan Morgan can, you know, do that once again, and you have, you know, some pieces in place that are under contract for the next few years that you feel safe, that you could possibly build around, uh, but now you have to go out there and do just a little bit more. I’m just hoping that along with the ascension and with the returning, um, all the returning, uh, coaches and players. That things don’t get stagnant, you know, as we, as you, you know, I actually, I put that on you, you didn’t say that. I put that on you, sorry about that. I’m, I’m hoping things don’t get stagnant, right, because, you know, sometimes like When you’re, when you’re trying to, the definition of insanity is trying to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. There’s gonna be, there’s gonna have to be some things that change. There’s, of course, gonna be some new players, some new faces with that, but like, that’s why I wanted some fresh eyes, um, you know, in the coaching staff, just mainly because like, hey, maybe a new voice and some new ideas and new ways of game planning, new ways of breaking down tape, new ways of attacking a defense or attacking an offense. Um, you know, can be implemented and maybe help the Carolina Panthers continue to ascend and go up. We’ll have to see that, that we will. I remember last year during OTA, so during the 2025 offseason during OTAs, I remember asking both Chuba Hubbard and Dave Cannalysis during, uh, I think it was after mandatory ming camp back in June. Uh, but I remember asking Dave Canales about the continuity from one year to the next, because again, first time for him as a play caller having the same quarterback, pretty much all the same personnel coming back with the exception of, you know, the rookies from last season coming in. And he said his first year, it was all about teaching words. Everyone was learning words, but then going into year two, now they can speak in sentences. Well, you, Dan, well better be having full-long conversations right now. Going into year 3, paragraphs, like, I mean, come on, like for real, like you should be, I mean, heck, you should have been talking in paragraphs by the end of last season. I mean, and, and same thing defensively as well under Evro. OK, it’s your 3rd year they’ve been bringing in your guys. Guys that fit your scheme, supposedly, there’s, there’s no excuse now for it going forward. You should be able, everyone that’s coming back from last year’s team should automatically know when, know, know what’s going on. And then when you bring new guys in, it’s just, OK, I can catch up these 3 or 4 guys as opposed to building everything at one time. So, I agree with you in the sense of like the ascension has to continue. The stability is good, but I think adding another voice or set of eyes, not even just from a schematic standpoint, but How does Dave Canales change what he does this offseason with the preseason and how he handles training camp? Because we’ve seen under him the last, his first two years, some terribly slow starts for the offense. And guess what? Those games matter too. Same thing, like defensively, remember the very first game of the year against Jacksonville, you still gave up 200 yards rushing. Like, let’s not forget that. Like the slow starts, that’s part of the coaching staff. Part of that from a fresh set of eyes is when you bring someone in, it’s like, Hey, at such and such place, this is how we did it, and we found out, you know, this didn’t work for us, but we did this and it turned out it did work well for us, whatever it might be, like, there’s so many different things that a fresh set of eyes can bring in, and I hope that Canales and Everau, even Dan Morgan himself, Really self-evaluate and are really open to new ideas even though you still have the same group coming back. I think a big part of those slow starts not playing in the preseason. So that’s gonna, that’s gonna have, you can learn, that’s gonna have to be something that changes, changes for the Carolina Panthers. Like, of course, don’t overdo it. Don’t go overboard, but like there needs to be more than. You know what Bryce had the, the first preseason game. They were out there for what, 9 or 10 snaps or something like that. It ended up being like maybe 17 total snaps or something like that for the preseason. Like that’s, and Canalis didn’t even call plays, you know, it’s just little things. Like that, but little things like that. But then to go into the, the other changes, one of the things I would hope that the coaching staff just does a little bit better. I don’t have a good football example of this, so I’m gonna use a basketball example, uh, right now, but One of the things I think they can do better is, even if you don’t have the perfect player to fit the way you want everything to look on your side of the ball, Ero and Canales, how do you use what the players are already good at and tailor what you do around them to accentuate what they do well? A great example of that right now in basketball, because it’s basketball season and my, my mind has shifted over to that. We’re in North Carolina, so it makes sense. Duke Blue Devils. You know, John Shire wanted this team to be more of a 3-point shooting team, switching on defense and, um, more probably use more of his rotation. Right now, he’s basically only playing 8 guys. They’re fighting through screens instead of, uh, trying to switch, uh, on, on defense because they feel this team feels like that works better for them. He said as much on that. And also they’ve kind of given up the 3. They brought in a guy, Evan Brad’s from the NBA. Who was an assistant coach with the Utah Jazz, and one of his thought processes is like, hey, even if we only shoot, uh, the 3-point ball at 33%, if we’re putting up more 3-point shots than the other team, mathematically speaking, we should have more 3-point shots. But Duke has pulled back on that. Like at the beginning of the season, like they wouldn’t even run offense a lot of times, they’d simply just go up and shoot some 3s, and it just wasn’t working for them. And now, all of their percentages have gone up just a little bit higher, especially ACC play. Now that they’ve tailored what they do around what this team is, and that’s what I wanna see from Dave Canales. If you talk about ascension, And getting to the next level, that’s where he can get to the next. There’s other places he can get to the next level, but as a coach, that’s, that’s the main part, I think that’s gonna show whether you have staying power or not. How can you help tailor what you do around what the players already do best, right? If you don’t happen to get that home run ahead. On offense, OK, how do we make sure, uh, we make things look as best as we can on offense to try to get more chunk yards and chunk plays? That also is gonna be how you call plays for Bryce Young and accentuating what he does the best as well, which me and you both agree, at times, Dave Canales didn’t do that the last two seasons. Yeah. Uh, from my time from coaching college lacrosse, I always had this philosophy, at least, you know, kind of along the same lines was, there was who I wanted to be, and there was who we were capable of, and how do I get those two to meet, or how do I find that middle ground. So I think that’s something that I know you and I have gotten frustrated with when, especially when it comes to Everett’s defense is that, Especially when you talk about like edge rusher, right? Out the outside linebackers, 34 schemes, a lot of people were bringing up like, oh, let’s go get Trey Hendrickson. Let’s go try and trade for Max Crosby, those kinds of things. I said, you know what the last thing I want to see is? You wanna see those guys dropping in coverage because that’s what you’re gonna see. Like you’ll see those guys dropping in pass coverage and you go like, well, wait a second. Like what? Why, why is he doing that? Like we saw Brian Burns dropping in pass coverage. I’m sorry. Brian Burns doesn’t cover. Like he’s not a coverage back outside linebacker. He’s not built for that. That’s not what he does. We saw Derrek Brown. We saw Derrek Brown. Like I understand like sometimes you want to run like an exotic thing to try and throw a team off, but I’m like, no, I want my, I want Derrek Brown, my best interior guy, getting after it plain and simple like. You know, like if you wanted to drop, like, hey, like Bobby Brown, like as like a, hey, we’re actually only gonna rush 3, and Bobby Brown’s just kind of sitting there like for like an underneath round just to kind of throw things, whatever, that’s, that’s, you know, whatever it might be. I don’t even want him doing that. I don’t exactly. I don’t know either, but you know what, I neither do I want Derrek Brown doing it either. But we even saw at times like Princely Umami Ellen, who was drafted as a pro like a little bit of a project, but what is he known for? Speed edge rusher, right? So why on a passing down, do I have him dropping off? So again, it’s the, the Are you willing to adapt? That is the biggest question for not just coaches, but also players as well. Because sometimes players, I’ve, I found this even when I was playing lacrosse in college and in football as well, and even coaching was the fact that there were players who had an idea of who they wanted to be, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what they were capable of doing. And that’s something that players have to really take a look inside and go and then talk with coaches, but, hey, look, You want to try and do these certain things, but you are best suited to do this other stuff, and if you really truly buy into this, You can really take off as a player. Like you really can be. It’s like a wide receiver that’s like, I just wanna run goal routes and go, well, I’m sorry, you’re not fast enough, but if you can be really good at running these intermediate routes. Adam, you can have a hell of a career, you know. Here, here’s something I thought about too as we’re talking about Evro and tailoring things that, um, you know, to the players and what they do. I kind of wonder if at the end of the year where it felt like JC Horn was getting super handsy and was being called for a lot in those last few weeks of the season, right. I kind of wonder if he was had the ability to travel. And was used to that, maybe also like closer games, big downs towards the end of the, of the games and things like that, where he’s able to be on the other team’s best or one of their best wide receivers. Without being off, you know, 8 yards or, you know, being on a total opposite side or whatever, if he would have been more used to those moments and not get those, uh, penalties, because, you know, a lot of times because the Panthers were so, uh, you know, when they, when they were getting blown out at the beginning of the season. You know, there’s no reason for the other team to throw the ball in those late downs. He doesn’t, he’s not getting used to that. Or if you have one good wide receiver, Dallas Cowboys, right? Because CD Lamb was out that particular day, you put George Pickens on the other side, and let’s see what he does against Mike Jackson, then, you know, hey, JC Horn is on the other side trying to figure out what to do with himself. Then all of a sudden you go against the Rams and you have Devonte Adams and Puka Nakua, so you have two really good wide receivers. Oh, now you’re getting a little handsy and it’s a closer game down the stretch, and now you’re not quite used to what’s going on. I, I kind of wonder too if that approach needs to go with how you deal with the secondary because I’m very much so comfortable with JC Horn traveling. With the other team’s best wide receiver, and we need to be able to utilize that as, as much as possible, especially if the Carolina Panthers are going to be ascending and probably meaning they’re gonna play in more close games with better teams down the stretch, um, of, of games throughout, throughout the season in 2026. That could help them out a little bit. Could be, but again, that’s How much are you willing to adapt? How much are you willing to change, you know, and it’s, it’s, I mean, and honestly, that’s no different than any other industry, right? It’s no different than what you and I do in media. That’s no different than, you know, what a lot of pieces do in terms of restaurants, businesses. How do you adapt to what’s needed for you to have to adapt. And thank you for adapting. I’m, I’m, you know, that, that’s the thing, like life happens. It’s, it’s no different. Like for, for us, like we’ve, like for, for radio, we’ve switched to being heavy with video along with podcasts and live radio. Same thing with television. Like, how can we reach on a digital platform? Are you willing to adapt? That’s the big thing because if you don’t adapt, you get left behind. I mean this is kind of how it is. It’s basically my job at WRAL like, you know, coming in as your lead Monday through Friday sports anchor. You know, Like the guys before who have lead money through Friday sports anchors throughout the history of this place didn’t have to do the podcasting, didn’t have to do the radio shows like I’ve done with you, didn’t have to do, you know, all the other things, um, that, you know, we’re doing, and you’re right, like we’re adapting to what the future looks like. And not even just uh adapting for the Carolina Panthers, but just showing something different, showing a different wrinkle, because at this, at this point we have 3 years of tape on Everre as the Carolina Panthers DC. We have 2 years of tape of Dave Canales as the head coach and play caller with Bryce Young. What can we do that’s a little bit different, not just players. You know, we, we wanna speak in, you know, paragraphs and full-on conversations, things like that, but we also need to add in some new language and, you know, constantly bringing something else in that’s new for, uh, for the team who’s already been there so that they are also continuing to grow and to be challenged. I wanna see commas in here. I wanna see that. I wanna see that. That’s what we gotta do. It’s gonna be an exciting offseason because I know, again, like you said, Chris, the word, it’s ascending team. It’s an ascending team, but you know what, you’re not gonna sneak up on anybody this upcoming season. You’re not. You’re not, cause everyone has seen you ascend over the last couple of years. So you’re not gonna sneak up on anybody. How do you continue to stay ahead? Because guess what, if you stay the same, if you are unfortunately are stagnant, And you just repeat what you did in 2025, guess what? That’s not good enough. It’s not good enough to win the whole thing. It’s just not. It’s not good enough to win the whole thing. It was good enough for you to backdoor your way into the playoffs. That’s what it was. It was good enough for you to backdoor your way into the playoffs. So in the long run, that’s not good enough. As exciting as it was, long run ain’t good enough, Chris. As we’re recording this. We’re coming off of a year where Carolina Panthers went to the playoffs, of course. Carolina Hurricanes right now looking really, really good. One of the top teams in the East as they’re right now on their Olympic Winter Olympics break. Charlotte FC went to the playoffs last year in MLS and the Charlotte Hornets. On a 7-game winning streak, their longest winning streak in 25 years, Charles Lee. Eastern Conference Coach of the Month for the month of January, and the starting five of Musa Diabate, Miles Bridges. Oh, I love that. Lamelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Con Knipple are something like 14 and 1, 15-1 or something like that together as a starting five, and they’re bringing Kobe White. Kobe White back to North Carolina, bringing him back home. I love that as an upgrade over Collin Sexton. Collin Sexton’s good, but I like Kobe White as an upgrade over Collin Sexton. What is happening in the state of North Carolina right now? It feels like everything. I ascending at the same time, you know what? And then we talk, talk about college basketball. Duke, Carolina are nationally ranked. NC State’s won 7 of the last 8 as well. Like, like, come on, let’s go sports in the state of North Carolina. Let’s go. Duke women’s basketball has won like 100 in a row right now after having a rough start to the year. Like, it’s, man, yeah, it’s looking good. It’s a good time, folks. Looking good time. It’s a good time. You know what? Let’s keep ascending, Chris. North Carolina. Again, leave your thoughts. Your one word, your one word that describes this Carolina Panthers organization right now. Big shout out to our sponsor, Wake Orthopedics, as always here for Panthers playbook. Make sure, if again, if you haven’t subscribed, make sure you do so. And that’s not just here on YouTube. You can, on your podcast platform, Apple, Spotify, you name it, we’re there as well. The 999 the fan app, download it. It is free. That way you never miss a show. We’re gonna stay locked in every single Thursday this offseason. And of course, if there’s big breaking news and all that. NFL draft free agency. We got you, Chris. We got them. I can’t wait for free agency, bro. You know what? I, OK, I, I want to say this real fast. I haven’t really thought about the draft yet, because the way this Panthers season went, it was so focused on like, can this team make the playoffs? Can this team make the playoffs that in the past, it was like week 10, and you’re like, all right, like, Who we lose these games, we could pick 6, maybe we’re gonna pick 7th. Who’s gonna be there? It’s like, yeah, we don’t pick till 19. Like, you know what, draft rolls around, like, let’s go to dinner, might catch a movie, then we’ll see, come back. It’s like, OK, we’re at pick 12. OK, this is who’s been taken so far. I haven’t really thought much about the draft in terms of like prospects and all that kind of. I haven’t. I just haven’t yet. I’m with you. And that’s a good feeling. That’s a good thing. It’s a good feeling. That’s such a good thing. I am thinking about free agency though, because I’m not gonna lie. There needs to be at least one splash. I mean, that, that’s probably all they could afford, but there needs to be at least one splash acquisition. Let’s talk about that next week. Let’s talk about that next week. One big splash.
