A calm offseason in Charlotte for a change. Panthers’ players say stability will be good

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — While some NFL owners were firing head coaches or general managers in the past 24 hours, others were issuing statements declaring their faith in their head coaches and general managers despite losing seasons.

In Charlotte, Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper did neither. And the silence was welcoming to a franchise for which coaching changes had become something of a tradition in recent years.

“That’s just building a culture, right?” veteran linebacker Shaq Thompson said. “You can’t build if everything keeps leaving.”

Not everyone will be returning for the Panthers next season. That’s not how the NFL works.

But a day after wrapping up a 5-12 season with a 44-38 overtime win at Atlanta, the theme was stability Monday at Bank of America Stadium. For the first time since 2019, the Panthers will enter an offseason with the expectation that the head coach (Dave Canales), GM (Dan Morgan) and quarterback (Bryce Young) all will be back.

Several players — including the longest-tenured player in franchise history — said that continuity will be beneficial to an organization that hasn’t had a winning season since 2017. That was Tepper’s first season as owner, when Ron Rivera, Marty Hurney and Cam Newton were the team’s coach, GM and QB.

Rivera’s firing in December of 2019 began a tumultuous stretch for the Panthers, who kept trying different coach/GM/QB combinations with Tepper’s reputation as an impatient owner growing with each in-season firing.

* Coach, GM, QB at beginning of each season

“The last few years have been kind of a wild ride,” said long snapper J.J. Jansen, who played his 260th game with the Panthers on Sunday.

But the messaging from Mint Street has been one of alignment since last January, when Tepper for the first time hired a head coach and GM in the same cycle. And while it looked in October like the Panthers might be in the QB market again, Young’s play over the final two months prompted Canales to endorse the No. 1 pick from 2023 as next year’s starter.

“All the key pieces are in place,” Jansen said. “Quarterback’s playing really well. Head coach did a really, really good job. GM gets Year 2 with all of the resources that you get from a draft and salary caps and there’s a common vision. When any one of those three pieces isn’t necessarily in place or there’s uncertainty, how timelines are different or it’s a little bit trickier to figure out what’s the goal of this offseason? Because not everything is necessarily aligned.”

That alignment presumably extends to the coordinator roles. There have been questions in recent weeks about the status of Ejiro Evero, whose defense allowed the most points (534) in a single season in NFL history.

Canales said Evero, who is entering the final year of a three-year contract, will return next season. Canales left open the possibility that there could be other changes to the defensive staff, but said he’s competed against Evero’s defense and knows what it can look like when effective.

“And I’m committed to that. Ejiro’s committed to that,” he said. “So it’s about developing the players that we brought in. It’s about evaluating our schemes. So we have to be able to look at our schemes and be really critical of all of those things, as well. And it’s about seeing who’s out there to challenge our roster, who can help us get this defense to the point where we know we can.”

Dave Canales says he has coached vs Ejiro Evero’s defense, knows how effective the scheme can be. pic.twitter.com/9zTpqAFjfu

— Joe Person (@josephperson) January 6, 2025

The Panthers also were historically bad at stopping the run in 2024, becoming the fourth team in history to allow 3,000 rushing yards. Having Young established as the quarterback allows Morgan and VP of football operations Brandt Tilis to fill other holes on the roster, from adding another receiver to addressing the many needs on defense.

Extending Pro Bowl cornerback Jaycee Horn is viewed as the top priority. After enduring coaching changes and watching defensive mainstays like Brian Burns, Frankie Luvu and Donte Jackson leave last offseason, Horn is ready for an uneventful winter.

“It’s totally different from the last few offseasons when you didn’t know what’s about to happen,” said Horn, the first-round pick from 2021. “There’s still gonna be some change. Obviously, that’s the NFL every offseason. But I feel like we know which way we’re going, the direction we’re going. We’ve got a path. We’ve got the main pieces. Just add a couple more, tighten up on the details and the sky’s the limit, in my eyes.”

Where free agents and coaching candidates might have been leery of coming to a Panthers franchise notorious for its turnover, Morgan is confident that’s no longer the case.

“Players don’t want to come to a team where they first of all don’t feel like there’s stability, which I feel like there is now,” Morgan said. “We have a young head coach that brings a lot of energy. He’s fun to play for. And then Bryce, the way he’s developing and growing under coach Canales and his staff, definitely helps in the free-agent process.”

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Tepper drew scrutiny last winter for a drink-throwing incident in Jacksonville and stopping at a Charlotte sports bar on draft night to ask about its sign. But the hedge-fund billionaire has stayed in the background this season.

At the Panthers’ Joy to the Carolinas event last month, Tepper expressed support for Canales, Morgan and Tilis, calling them a good management team.

“I think we’re building something special. … And listen, we’re just getting started,” Tepper said. “We’re just building momentum for this year and just building and building and building. And I think we’ll build in the next few years. So I’m pretty excited to tell you the truth.”

Several of the team’s pending free agents said Monday they’d like to stay in Carolina because — like Tepper — they have good feelings about the future.

“I told them I’d love to be a part of when this thing turns. It’s trending the right way,” veteran quarterback Andy Dalton said. “I only got so many years left. We’ll see how it all plays out. But I love it here and I’d love to be back.”

Jansen, who turns 39 this month, also is seemingly running out of years. Jansen, who has seen a lot of coaches and players go over his 16 seasons, credited Canales for helping everyone stay steady during a season in which Young was benched in Week 3 and Dalton was injured in an October car wreck, clearing the way for Young to play again.

“I think the biggest element of stability was who coach Canales was every day of the week. He was the same positive, energetic, encouraging, demanding guy every day. Whether we won, whether we lost, whether we had a good or bad day, he was the same guy,” Jansen said.

“And guys pick up on, hey, even in a wild ride — the first month of the season was a really wild ride — and the head coach is the same guy every day. The front office are the same people every day. That without even having to say anything, it exudes calm throughout the building in the face of some chaos.”

(Photo of Dave Canales and Bryce Young: Brett Davis / Imagn Images)