Dave Canales made some strong statements about the Panthers’ defensive performance from Week 1 that fans won’t want to hear
Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales evaluates his team’s defensive performance from Week 1 and it’s not the kind of evaluation that will inspire confidence from the fans.
The Carolina Panthers knew they were in for a big defensive test going into Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears and head coach Ben Johnson’s offense. However, one would have expected them to be more prepared than what they showed.
Entering the week, head coach Dave Canales spoke highly of Johnson’s run game and the physicality his offense plays with and how that was a major concern for the defense.
As expected, Johnson’s offense slaughtered the Panthers on Sunday, rushing for 291 yards and six touchdowns while scoring a total of 59 points. After the game, players in the locker room said it’s “embarrassing” and “it sucks” and how there wasn’t much else to take away from it. One day after, there’s still no answer for what happened.
Dave Canales evaluates defensive performance from Week 1 after watching the film
“There are some reasons, there are some things that we can certainly do better from an execution standpoint by the players,” Canales told reporters on Monday. “The biggest questions that (defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero) and I had to ask each other is ‘What was our plan? Was there too much? Too little? Let’s figure out that part of it.’ And without giving all the specifics of that conversation, we had to go down that path.”
From an execution standpoint, there were things that could be cleaned up. Penalties were an issue, something veteran defensive lineman Derrick Brown made a point to hold himself accountable for. Carolina also allowed 17 points off turnovers, which doesn’t help handing opportunities to an elite offense of that caliber that certainly didn’t need it.
But, that doesn’t equal 59. Allowing 59 points is not an execution issue and Canales calling the team’s plan into question is a great first step because Evero needs to be the primary person accountable for that kind of outing. Yet, Canales is still a firm believer in this scheme.
“I like our system. I like our scheme,” Canales explained. “I’ve seen this scheme work at a high level and I’ve seen us work in this scheme at a high level. We need to find that week in and week out. All of us are disappointed with how it played out.”
The Panthers are not going to make some rash decision with Evero after one game. Canales made this bed already when he made the decision to extend Evero’s contract and now he has to sleep in it. But for a team with all of the talent on this defense, saying the other team was just better isn’t a good enough excuse for a team with championship dreams.
“They took advantage of things and they executed better than we did,” Canales said. “… We have to give credit where credit is due. I respect this Bears’ offense and Ben Johnson, and Caleb (Williams), and the two backs, and the tight ends. The whole thing… That doesn’t mean it had to turn out the way it did. If we were able to play together and we were able to execute our parts of it, they’re still going to make some plays. But, there were way too many plays made. When you play a good offense, when you play a good defense, the things that you need to work on really get magnified.”
The good news is, the issue could not be any bigger or any more clear. Canales and Evero have a lot of work to do to fix this unit. Fortunately, the Panthers do have a better matchup coming up against the Atlanta Falcons to get things right.
