CHARLOTTE — Dave Canales had plenty to talk about on Wednesday afternoon. The fact his Carolina Panthers are favored for the first time in 33 games, or the string of five straight one-possession games that extended this past week with a drive in the final minute that was on the precipice of being legacy making, or the rainy day and how the Panthers pushed through for a high energy practice.

But he didn't start with any of that. He started with Jim Caldwell.

"Had a great presentation by coach Caldwell today talking about the details," Canales began, before going into a brief recap of the presentation. "It was an excellent presentation. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure Coach Caldwell got a little love there."

Caldwell, as well as Dom Capers, are both former head coaches on staff with the Panthers and serve as de facto mentors for the first time head coach Canales. Even still there are things Canales admitted have come with learning curves.

"(Tampa Bay head coach) Todd Bowles said, 'Hey, five things every day you're not going to be able to anticipate, just know that's normal,'" Canales shared Wednesday. "I think just the sheer amount of decisions to be made on a daily basis and a weekly basis, it's all the way through it and just kind of trying to find windows where I can, like, shut it down for a second, try to reconnect like, 'Ok, what's going on here, where are we at?' Before the next wave of decisions come up.

"So that was something that a lot of coaches told me would happen," Canales added, "and I've been blessed to have help, to have coach Capers and coach Caldwell right here."

Now 13 games into his first year as a head coach, the play caller has also settled into the duality of responsibility that comes with having the play sheet and the head coach headset.

"It's only my second year calling offensive football plays but now having to be more involved with the replay situations and flip over to the defense, I'm available for Ejiro (Evero) during the defensive series, talking to Tracy (Smith), all those things and I love it, but I kind of feel a little punchy after games," he admitted. "It's kind of like so many choices, so many decisions happen. But I look forward to the challenges of it. It stretches me beyond really what I'm capable of sometimes and then just have to learn, have grace, ask questions and grow weekly."

Being everything to everybody comes with sacrifice and a weight of responsibility. But it also comes with rewards that can't be found in the other positions. That's the pay-off.

"I would say probably one of the biggest things is feeling how relationally connected I am to a lot more people," the head coach continued. "When you're a position coach, you're really connected to your group and sometimes a guy here or there from another position as a coordinator, you're connected to a few more guys on the offense, and the coaches as well.

"Then as a head coach, what I found is, you know, Noa Scott was born, a couple of days ago, she's nine pounds, 15 ounces and, Nick Scott, congrats to them; but it's like the beautiful part of that. Then there's also lots of family members, there's tragedy that happens, there's personal struggles and all that and I didn't realize how much that was going to touch and affect me."

The Panthers still have our games left in this regular season, and a showdown with the Cowboys on Sunday. Each week, this team has been building, laying another brick to create who they want to be. The same goes for the head coach leading it all.

Watching the clock

One of the things Canales has done well as a first-time head coach is manage the clock. There hasn't been a series of blunders or clock decisions that cost a game. That hasn't been the case with other first and second year head coaches around the league this season, making the lack of mismanagement in Charlotte noticeable.

Canales credits that to former Seattle coach, and his former boss, Pete Carroll.

"I appreciate you saying that we work on it a lot," Canales laughed when the topic was brought up Wednesday. "And honestly, I got to give props to Coach Carroll. He challenged us to be involved in all these situations. It was every Wednesday and Thursday for 13 years in Seattle in a walk through, we would go through difficult, we go through end of half situations on Wednesday with the little mini situation, put ourselves in the most difficult possible spots."

It's a practice Canales has carried with him to the East Coast.

"We practiced another hard one today. Those things kind of get my heartbeat racing a little bit in these walkthroughs. And so it's like, if you can take yourself to that game type of mentality and your players as well, like we got to be ready. What's the call going to be, you know, when we get into this situation, how are we going to handle it?"

Fortune favors the bold

As mentioned, the Panthers are favored on Sunday against the Cowboys, the first time that has been the case in 33 games.

Dave Canales said he tried to avoid the narrative, but "Vegas is really good with the odds, you know," he laughed.
"I really don't like to see what the spread is and all that stuff," Canales continued. "And I just try to make the focus about us, about what is our next step, and those things don't help us. I try not to use external things to motivate our guys."

Canales constantly preaches to stay "focused on us" and "return to us." It's a message that has woven itself throughout the locker room.

"It doesn't mean anything for Sunday, doesn't really. The score starts 0 to 0," pointed out quarterback Bryce Young, who graduated from the Saban school of rat poison before joining the NFL. "We have to do everything we can throughout the week to put ourselves in the best situation to execute.

"We have a ton of respect for (Dallas), you know, really good team, really good players, play well. So, we have to be our best."

Added Canales, "The motivation for us in the story all along is, can we find our best individually as our groups, as the offense, defense, special teams and then collectively as a team, can we find our best? And our best looks like finishing, whatever it takes to win the games, and we haven't found that yet. And so, I know our best is still out there for us."

Injury Updates

Corner Jaycee Horn (groin) was able to practice on Wednesday as a limited participant. Canales said Horn will continue to be day-by-day this week.

"(Jaycee) did a little bit of moving around but not much today," Canales shared. "We're just trying to see if we can build him to get him out there on Sunday."

Rookie Jalen Coker (quadriceps) was a full participant on Wednesday, starting another week off on the right foot in his push to return. The receiver tried to come back last week, but, as Canales explained, "as the week went by, he just didn't look ready. Last week as we got down to it.

"He had a great day today, we had our individual period, and he was aggressive, he was attacking his routes and that's what I wanted to see last week where he still felt a little bit apprehensive with it. And he's got a different kind of focus and a readiness, physically and mentally this week and I'm excited and hopefully we can get him back out there on Sunday."

Running back Jonathon Brooks is not practicing, after tearing his ACL on Sunday. But the rookie back was still smiling at practice on Wednesday, making sure he was in the midst of the running back drills so he could stay involved.

"He's resilient. He's tough. He has a great work ethic and he'll be all right," fellow running back Chuba Hubbard said of Brooks on Wednesday. "He'll look back at this day one day and look at it and see certain things had to happen for him to get to where you want to get."