Is Canales digging his own grave?

[Waldo]

He was out coached by a HC in his first HC game this year. That's how the season started. He brought back Andy. He never has the team ready at the begining of the year. Corbett at center over Mays. Moore and Scott are still on the team. Rico behind Hubbard. Not admiting the entire team relys on the run game to not only work but excel. 

He isn't very good. Him picking his own QB isn't enough of an excuses to gloss over the issues. 

[flagfootballcoach28]

Yes, he is. 100% 

[PNW_PantherMan]

1 minute ago, Waldo said:

He was out coached by a HC in his first HC game this year. That's how the season started. He brought back Andy. He never has the team ready at the begining of the year. Corbett at center over Mays. Moore and Scott are still on the team. Rico behind Hubbard. Not admiting the entire team relys on the run game to not only work but excel. 

He isn't very good. Him picking his own QB isn't enough of an excuses to gloss over the issues. 

The best part is Liam Coen is literally him.  Guy who did only 1 year in the exact same job and was hired way too fast by our fellow incompetent sister expansion franchise.  You can't line it up any better than that in the NFL.  Coen smoked Dave man.  That was the big blow for me.  Everything else is just confirming what that revealed for me.

[PanthersGTI]

I think realistically they will give him year 3. He has to make changes this off season on a few things because his long term future depends on it :
 

A - Needs an OC. Weather that is Idzik or someone else he has to give someone else a chance. Offensive play calling is too rollercoaster. Hopefully having someone focused on that solely will bring some rhythm and cohesiveness to the offense. 

 

B - Whatever the hell they are doing in preseason needs to stop. Too cute, just get your starters ready for the season. All this overthinking how to split reps and who calling plays is not it. Maybe in an established program you can have that. Right now everyone needs to get better at their 1 job. 

 

C -  DC needs to go. Too much inconsistency here but the end is that the defense is always exploitable. Got to make the right hire here. It looks like the talent is starting to grow on this side of the ball, don't waste it running back with Evero again.  

 

D - QB needs to be answered. Personally I am 50/50 on BY9. Can he come back and finish strong and help this team get some Ws against a tough schedule or will it be time to move on. If its time to move on they need a good plan in place, FA QBs this year look rough. My guess is we bring in Zach Wilson if BY9 is out. I doubt the Colts are letting Jones walk.  Drafting a guy but always a crap shoot, plus where they draft and who falls. we will see. 

 

[Khyber53]

Honestly, I don't think Canales is on the hot seat at all right now. He inherited a bad team with little depth and a QB who came at a high price and got no coaching in his first season (coupled with some physical limitations that require different game planning). 

I think he and the Teppers both knew this was going to be a situation where he had to show progress in more than just the QB position to keep his chances going. And, well, we might not like it but there's progress being shown.

The defense has shown some good games and some terrible games. That, especially over last year's effort, is a remarkable growth. As bad as we look at times this year on defense, we are nowhere near as bad as we were last season. Nowhere near. Brown came back and shored things up, and both free agent pickups and draft picks seem to be helping. It's not a finished product yet, but it isn't embarrassing (at least on a consistent basis as before).

On offense, well,  Bryce has done better. He's not putting up big numbers, but we're sitting at .500 at the mid-season point, which is a far shot better than we have been. Bryce probably isn't our answer at QB (unless he really turns it up when he comes back from injury), but our running game is stronger, our receiver corps is markedly better (to the eye if not on paper), we've got some decent tight ends for once and our O-line had been looking decent to good (at least until Buffalo opened up a machine gun on them... ouch). If Bryce just holds the line here as he's doing, we'll finish with an okay record for once. If he does poorly, it's just another rinse repeat season for us. Either way, I think we could either go QB in the draft or look for a solid free agent back there. 

All that being said, I think that Canales has made a stronger case for his future here than he is making for his present here. Play calling could be much stronger, more inventive and more able to exploit opportunities. He needs someone in the coaching booth who can see the whole field making those calls while he manages the team and the game. That's going to take a step of maturity on his part. And I think Ejero moves on after this season, here's hoping he gets a HC gig next season (good for him and even better for the compensation we'd get). 

All that said, if this team does completely collapse after all these injuries, all bets are off. If he can hold the team together with these injuries and make it to that late bye-week, then he's going to be here. If we can somehow snag a wild card spot (and we are honestly very much in the hunt) then the sky is the limit.

[WarPanthers89]

I get wanting to defend Canalas but at the end of the day, I see coaches every season take over a trash team and turn them into something (see Mike Vrabel this season, Quinn last year etc). I still don’t know what the hell our identity is, that at a minimum should not even be questioned, you should be able to see his footprint on some area of the team. 

[strato]

15 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Ron's two seasons he took to figure it out would be massive successes compared to the 2018-Present period. Those 6 and 7 win seasons look pretty great now. 

Do you honestly think he will jump up to a 10+ win year in 2026? That's what Ron did.

If Ron had been given Bryce as his QB what happens though? 
And Ron had an excellent track record as DC and had run the 34 and the 43 both successfully in the league. He had some really good defenses. 
Add in, how did he do under Tepper with a damaged Cam?

it isn’t really close to a fair comparison.  Ron wasn’t a great HC either he was a guy that knew defense and had a great QB dumped in his lap. 
 

As far as some of the other stuff in the thread I was hot about him not being suave with Rico but he has taken action, and people have pointed out decent reasons for being 2 games slow to make the change. And we won one of them. 
 

I don’t know I have cooled off since Sunday and I wasn’t moved straight to fire him level of dissatisfaction, just decidedly unhappy with him. 
 

I don’t really have a strong opinion either way but do think he was given a no win situation with Bryce. And he hasn’t done horribly with that aspect of it, given the unreasonable expectations of the assignment. It is the NFL version of a suicide mission. 

[Joe Bear]

20 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Do you honestly think he will jump up to a 10+ win year in 2026? That's what Ron did.

If he had Jayden Daniels, Rico Dowdle AND Fred Warner at his disposal, yeah, maybe. The talent disparity doesn't get enough attention when we discuss Canales and I say that as someone who has been critical of some of his in-game and pre-game coaching decisions.

[Daddy_Uncle]

Give him QBs to work with next season. Imagine Canales and this group of playmakers with a QB like Cam or any top tier QB. Our offense would be lights out. We arent being held back by Canales. We are being held back by not having a decent QB. Our QBs have limited abilities so Canales has to have a limited playbook to suit them. I want to see him get a chance with a good QB

[kungfoodude]

7 minutes ago, strato said:

If Ron had been given Bryce as his QB what happens though? 
And Ron had an excellent track record as DC and had run the 34 and the 43 both successfully in the league. He had some really good defenses. 
Add in, how did he do under Tepper with a damaged Cam?

it isn’t really close to a fair comparison.  Ron wasn’t a great HC either he was a guy that knew defense and had a great QB dumped in his lap. 
 

As far as some of the other stuff in the thread I was hot about him not being suave with Rico but he has taken action, and people have pointed out decent reasons for being 2 games slow to make the change. And we won one of them. 
 

I don’t know I have cooled off since Sunday and I wasn’t moved straight to fire him level of dissatisfaction, just decidedly unhappy with him. 
 

I don’t really have a strong opinion either way but do think he was given a no win situation with Bryce. And he hasn’t done horribly with that aspect of it, given the unreasonable expectations of the assignment. It is the NFL version of a suicide mission. 

I agree we are starting off from a lower point than Ron, by a wide margin. 

But all too often DC is one of the top few reasons we are losing these games. I am not seeing much in the way of adapting.

[kungfoodude]

5 minutes ago, Joe Bear said:

If he had Jayden Daniels, Rico Dowdle AND Fred Warner at his disposal, yeah, maybe. The talent disparity doesn't get enough attention when we discuss Canales and I say that as someone who has been critical of some of his in-game and pre-game coaching decisions.

I am not arguing the talent disparity. This is still the 2nd worst roster in franchise history, only behind the 2024 roster.

But DC is consistently a problem. 

[PNW_PantherMan]

11 minutes ago, WarPanthers89 said:

I get wanting to defend Canalas but at the end of the day, I see coaches every season take over a trash team and turn them into something (see Mike Vrabel this season, Quinn last year etc). I still don’t know what the hell our identity is, that at a minimum should not even be questioned, you should be able to see his footprint on some area of the team. 

Defensive head coaches seem to be better at establishing an immediate identity and culture.  Fox did the same thing here almost 25 years ago.

[Waldo]

DC had Rico and chose to run Hubbard. DC could have asked for anyone else but went with Dalton  Hooker and Plumber? as the QBs he wanted even if he inherited Bryce. Moore still has a spot on the roster. Corbett over Mays at center. These are things he chose and are on him. 

 

[strato]

7 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

I agree we are starting off from a lower point than Ron, by a wide margin. 

But all too often DC is one of the top few reasons we are losing these games. I am not seeing much in the way of adapting.

 

Do you think we lost Sunday because of Canales? I had issues with him in that game but don’t think we were going to win that one. 
Like I said I am kind of on the fence but it’s a suicide mission for anyone until we get the QB thing resolved. 

Edited 1 hour ago by strato