Dave Canales makes his head coaching debut on Sunday when his Carolina Panthers open the 2024 season in New Orleans against the Saints. While he has plenty of experience as a coordinator, this will be the first time Canales goes through the game week as the guy in charge.
“The beauty of it is we had those preseason games,” Canales said. “So, I can get a feel for gathering information from my staff, while also being available on the defensive side, in case there’s a time out or something I need to be involved with.”
Information gathering appears to be one of the top concerns for Canales as the Panthers hit the regular season. At each step of the head coaching process—from creating the game plan to gameday Xs and Os, he preached the importance of having the latest data to tell him how things are going.
Putting the plan together
Canales described a collaborative process with quarterback Bryce Young to come up with a game plan for the Saints, one that will take the entire week to perfect.
“What it comes down to is getting the flow of the exchange of information,” he said. “So, as we put together the first and second-down plan, regrouping and talking about making sure the run game is right, especially talking about the passes, the actions, the shock plays, the empties—whatever those things might be where Bryce feels comfortable, there’s an important dialogue that happens.”
That early-down plan is unveiled on the practice field on Wednesday. Then the coaches turn their attention to the later downs.
“Thursday is a big third-down day,” Canales said. “It’s a huge day as we start to collect information about Bryce and about our skill group. It all starts with a protection plan. But then we get to the concepts, it’s ‘Which ones does he feel confident about? Which ones does he just feel great about?’ That conversation happens on our recap on Thursday afternoon. Then Friday, we tie in the red zone.”
The starters, including Young, only played in one preseason game—the finale against Buffalo—and the preseason plan paled in comparison to the complexity of the regular season play calls the Panthers coaches will draw up for New Orleans.
“Buffalo was kind of a snapshot of a gameplan week. This week, we’ll have a full game plan,” he said. “As we organize our call sheet, it all reflects where we feel most confident. It certainly takes into account Bryce’s feedback, really the whole quarterback room’s feedback.”
“The workload looks the same, but the dialogue kicks into another gear,” he said.
Putting it into practice
Working with the quarterbacks will help come up with the gameplan, but then the coaches need to convey that to the rest of the team.
For that, Canales is leaning on some veteran help. Jim Caldwell and Dom Capers have a combined 98 years on the sideline and 240 games as NFL head coaches. Capers is a defensive mastermind, while Caldwell has an offensive background, making sure Canales has both sides of the ball covered by someone who has been around the block. One of Caldwell and Capers’ biggest tasks in the early going has been getting Canales to delegate.
“We have a lot of conversations: ‘Do we need more information in meetings, or do we need to get them to position coaches quicker?’” Canales said. “I’d love to spend more time talking through things in a team meeting session, because we’re still learning schemes. But Coach Capers encouraged me, ‘Get back to the football. Let the guys get to that so we can coach them up.’”
Gameday
He hasn’t gone through it live yet, but the last area for a new head coach to master is gameday on the sideline.
“The biggest part is communicating with officials,” he said. “Gathering information about penalties, reviews.”
There’s also the feedback Canales and the team will be getting on the field, as the gameplan either flies or comes crashing down. He’s making an adjustment to help process that information stream as well. While many teams put their offensive and defensive coordinators upstairs, in the box, to get a birds-eye view of the field, Canales will have them on the sideline with him.
“As we go through series—good and bad drives—they can collect information, troubleshoot things, and also, the players can feel the plan. They can feel the communication and the focus of their coach.”
“Deep into the game, the second and fourth quarter, guys start to feel each other out,” he said. “Those are the valuable lessons we’re going to learn about the group.”
The first day of school comes on Sunday.
