What Dave Canales' offense can teach us about the Carolina Panthers' future

He's been called a quarterback whisperer and his offense helped the Buccaneers win the division, but what will the Carolina Panthers look like under Dave Canales.

Posted 6:27 a.m. Feb 1 — Updated 7:20 p.m. Feb 1

Louis Fernandez

, WRAL Sports

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales is the head coach for the Carolina Panthers. Hard to imagine a year ago after the Panthers had just hired Frank Reich and Canales wasn’t even hired in Tampa Bay until mid-February of 2023. It’s a weird world we live in, but you can never fault the NFL with being boring.

At 42 years old, this past season was Canales’ first time as an offensive coordinator and a play-caller. That lack of experience is concerning for some. For the record, I’m not too worried about it, we’ve seen some of the best play-callers also be some of the youngest coaches in the league (think LA’s Sean McVay, Miami’s Mike McDaniel, San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan). For our purposes, it’s easy to look at his body of work and figure out what we might expect in Charlotte this season. So let’s review what we know about Canales, his influences, his history and how his offense helped Tampa Bay win the NFC South this season.

Two notes before we get started:

One year of play calling is a small sample size
The best coaches adjust their systems and schemes to take advantage of the talent on their roster

The History of Dave Canales

Born in Harbor City, California, Canales played football at Carson High School, wide receiver and defensive back specifically. He played college football at Azusa Pacific, about 40 miles inland from his high school in Los Angeles, if you take the 605 and there’s no traffic.

After school, he coached for a bit at Carson and El Camino College. It’s during that time where he met University of Southern California head coach Pete Carroll. In 2009, Canales began working as an assistant strength coach at USC, before following Carroll to the NFL and the Seattle Seahawks.

Canales worked as a wide receivers coach from 2010-2017, coaching players like Doug Baldwin, Sidney Rice, Golden Tate and Tyler Lockett. That run included a Super Bowl championship in 2014 against the Denver Broncos.

In 2018 Canales moved to quarterbacks coach, working with a guy folks in North Carolina are very familiar with - Russell Wilson. In 2020, Canales became the passing game coordinator for Seattle. In 2022, he moved back to quarterbacks coach and in 2023 took a job on the other side of the country as Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator. Now he's in charge of the Panthers.

Overlapping with General Manager Dan Morgan

New president of football operations/general manager Dan Morgan and Canales worked together in Seattle from 2010-2018, winning that aforementioned Super Bowl.

"I'm excited to work alongside Dave again," Morgan said in a statement when Canales was hired. "His background coaching multiple position groups has given him a great understanding of what it takes to build a successful team. His infectious personality resonates with players and everyone who comes in contact with him. I'm confident that will translate to the field.”

Panthers promote Dan Morgan to general manager

A Quarterback Whisperer

Since being named a quarterbacks coach in 2018, Canales has worked with three starting quarterbacks: Russell Wilson, Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield. In 2019, Wilson was named second team All-Pro. In 2020, he threw for a career-high 4,212 yards and 40 touchdowns.

In 2022, Smith became the stater in Seattle. Many labeled him a bust after struggling in his time with the New York Jets. He posted a career-best 4,282 passing yards, 30 passing touchdowns and a league-high 69.8 completion percentage en route to his first Pro Bowl.

In Tampa Bay, Canales helped to spark Mayfield’s career. After playing for two teams in 2022 (one of which was the Carolina Panthers), Mayfield set a career-high in passing yards (4,044) passing touchdowns (28) and completion percentage (64.4%). I think you get the drift - the guy can coach quarterbacks and might be able to work some magic on Panthers signal caller Bryce Young, bringing him back to that Heisman winner, No. 1 overall pick status.

Okay, but what about the offense?

Canales doesn’t fit into the offensive coaching tree motif, he's not a descendant of the Shanahan system, or a product of McVay or anything along those lines. In a recent profile, Sports Illustrated’s Connor Orr said of his offense, “in the scheme there seems to be flavors of Dallas and Brian Schottenheimer, Minnesota and Kevin O’Connell, Seattle and Shane Waldron, Green Bay and Matt LaFleur, and Cincinnati and Zac Taylor.“

Tampa Bay's offense was far from a juggernaut. The Buccaneers were in the middle of the pack by most metrics (total offense, passing offense, scoring offense, EPA).

What Canales did do was take advantage of what the Buccaneers had on the roster: talented, veteran receivers. Mike Evans and Chris Godwin had 130+ targets each, with Evans racking up 1,255 yards and 13 touchdowns. He's a hall of famer, but suddenly it's one of his best seasons. According to NFELO, a predictive model for NFL games, the Buccaneers ranked second in wide receiver targets in the whole NFL, throwing it to that position a whopping 68% of the time. That showed in the personnel grouping, with the Buccaneers lining up in 11 personnel (meaning there was one running back and one tight end on the field, leaving room for more receivers) 51% on first downs. Interestingly, even though Tampa Bay ranked 29th in tight end targets in the league, the Buccaneers lined up in 12 personnel (one running back and two tight ends) 27% of the time, good for 10th most in the NFL.

So what did this passing attack lead to? Explosive plays and a lot of them.

Mayfield was 6th in the NFL with 60 completions of 20 or more yards downfield and 2nd in the NFL with 12 completions of 40 or more yards downfield.

They needed it though, because the running game wasn’t doing much of anything all season. The Buccaneers ranked 23rd in rushing attempts, 439, but dead last in rushing yards and yards per carry. Tampa Bay averaged 2.0 yards before contact (a metric that helps to put into perspective offensive line play) which was the worst in the league. The team also tied for second worst yards after contact (more on the running back) and bottom 10 in broken tackles (definitely on the running back). Rachaad White paced this offense by a mile on the ground, starting all 17 games and leading the way with more than 200 carries than the next running back. Of note, while White struggled on the ground, he did finish the season with 64 catches for 549 yards, third highest in both categories on the team.

What does this all mean for the Carolina Panthers?

That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Well, the easy (and hopeful) answer is more than two wins! In the big picture, I think we can break it down like this:

Better quarterback play out of Bryce Young | To put all of the blame for a bad offense on him this season is intellectually dishonest. While his frame will always be a detriment, he was picked No. 1 overall for a reason - his accuracy, anticipation and playmaking ability. Canales has shown he can get the most out of his quarterbacks, whether they be future hall of famers or players looking for a second, third or fourth chance. Build up his confidence, craft your system and scheme around what Young does well. Also, remove any bad habits built in a bad season.
Explosive plays | The Panthers were last in explosive passing plays this season with 31 going more than 20+ yards. I’d expect more play action. Baker Mayfield ran play action 23.6% of the time according to Pro Football Focus, compared to 17.0% with Bryce Young. As for those deep completions, Mayfield threw 11 touchdowns that went 20 yards or more downfield. Young threw just one. But in order to do that, you need some more help from your…
Wide receivers | It’s clear that whatever the Panthers thought they were going to get from their wide receiver core was inaccurate. Adam Thielen played well and was a consistent safety valve, especially for a young QB, but there’s not much speed or explosion in the room. Canales has shown an ability to develop young talent (like we saw with his early days in Seattle) and get the best out of veterans (D.K. Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin). Sign some players, draft some players, help Jonathan Mingo take the next step, just do what you have to do.

Of course, there are concerns. The running game left a lot to be desired in Tampa Bay in 2023, but the roster was coming off of a time when Tom Brady was there throwing more passes than anyone else in the NFL. How much of this success do you contribute to Canales? The players? The coaches around him? While, as of this writing, Canales has yet to confirm if he’s calling plays or not, a report from ESPN’s David Newton would suggest that he will continue that duty. There is plenty of good when you look at Canales’ history in football, but now all that’s left to do is wait and see if he can work a little more magic with the quarterback, the offense and the franchise.

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